'Grey's Anatomy': Who cares if Meredith and Derek reunite?

Am I the only person on the planet who doesn't care if Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) and Derek (Patrick Dempsey) get back together? I mean, of the millions of "Grey's Anatomy" viewers, of course. Many, many denizens of Earth don't even know the show exists. (Yes, it's true, all those magazine covers to the contrary.)

I know showrunner Shonda Rhimes has been beating the "reunited" drum like it's the answer to all our prayers, but, frankly, I feel like it may be a case of too little too late. Poor old Derek has been pushed and pulled so many times, in so many different directions that it's hard to think of him as McDreamy anymore. He's more like McWishywashy. And Dempsey is back on the big screen in a fairly big way, so you have to wonder how long he's planning to stick around ye olde Seattle Grace.

Meanwhile, Meredith, though certainly becoming more believable and sympathetic this season, feels less and less like a main character, the show's title and voice-over notwithstanding. Which is just fine--part of last season's problem was its discovery (alas, too late!) that killing off Meredith's mom was not a good idea. Without the original spine of the mother/daughter conflict, not to mention the whole child-as-caretaker issue, the Meredith character could not carry the show.

This season, Meredith seems to be developing a spine of her own (yay!) while everyone around her is following suit, becoming deeper and richer people, which makes the the show a true ensemble of doctors who increasingly resemble adults. Double yay!

Well, now we know what the writers of "Grey's Anatomy" were doing during the strike, when they weren't walking the picket lines of course. They were watching "House."

Last night marked the first new episode of "Grey's" in many, many months. Not content with beating its fellow medical drama out of the post-strike box by five days -- the first new "House" airs on Monday -- show runner Shonda Rhimes and her crack team of writers seem to be poking gentle fun, and paying some homage to, the strange powers of their rivals at Fox. First there was the resident's contest in which Meredith (Ellen Pompeo), Cristina (Sandra Oh), Alex (Justin Chambers) and Izzie (Katherine Heigl) competed for points based on things like number of sutures stitched or surgeries scrubbed in on. It looked suspiciously like the competition Dr. House (Hugh Laurie) set up last season to choose a new diagnostics team, especially since "solving a medical mystery" was assigned the highest point value.

So Meredith diagnosed a brain tumor by considering a patient's hasty marriage on the rebound a symptom, while Izzie put a patient (Cheech Marin) with a sprained ankle through a battery of tests, including a spinal tap (she did stop short of the Housian favorite, the MRI).  Meanwhile, Derek (Patrick Dempsey) and Mark (Eric Dane) had mildly flirtatious conversations on elevators, a la House and Dr. Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard).

If someone was walking around with a cane, though, I missed it.

It was pretty funny for those of us who follow both shows. Rhimes has a knack for lassoing the zeitgeist, whether it be her cast of many colors or her enthusiastic use of the Internet to connect with her viewers, so it's not surprising that she would unabashedly grab the general trend toward media cross-pollination and inject it into her show. (At the end of the "Grey's" episode, the Chief (James Pickens Jr.) even totted up the cost of the tests Izzie had run just as Dr. Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein) does so often on "House.")

The recognition from the creators of one hit medical show that another exists, and has its own strange set of foibles, not only makes for interesting television, it creates another level of shared intimacy with the audience, an inside joke for us bazillion viewers. As the rest of the media world grapples with tone and transparency, the folks at "Grey's," who dominated the Web with their pro-strike shorts, have given us another point of connection: there are people at work behind these shows and apparently they watch TV too.

Of course, "Grey's" is not "House" and never pretended to be. The personal lives of the staff remain front and center, though everyone seems to be taking a bit of a breather from the pell-mell hook-up and breakup pattern that threatened the show last season. Derek is still pursuing Rose because he apparently has not read the countless magazine articles in which Rhimes has assured everyone he and Meredith will get back together for good. Callie (Sara Ramirez) is chumming it up with Erica (Brooke Adams) and they will win cutest couple if hints from "next on "Grey's" are anything more than a big tease. (How does Ramirez get her hair so shiny?) Although it was a relief to see Meredith retraining her focus on medicine -- and getting into therapy! It's never too late Meredith! -- Lexie (Chyler Leigh) seems to be picking up the neurotic/neediness slack, redecorating her ratty apartment with bedpans so George (T.R. Knight) will remain her roommate.

Oh, and there was a grizzly bear attack, which was pretty unnerving considering that a Hollywood trainer was recently killed by a grizzly. But I don't think even Rhimes could have seen that one coming.

-- Mary McNamara

(Photo Cheech Marin and Katherine Heigl, courtesy ABC)   

Isaiah Washington, who was let go last season from "Grey's Anatomy" following a furor that erupted when he used a homophobic slur in reference to costar T.R. Knight, was back in step with Knight and several other cast members of the show Wednesday during a Writers Guild of America, West, picket in front of Paramount Studios spotlighting diversity.

Washington, who mingled easily in the crowd of more than 500 marchers, stayed mostly on the line with other marchers while Knight, Katherine Heigl, Sara Ramirez and Shonda Rhimes, who created the series, conducted interviews in another part of the studio driveway and posed for photographers in between their stints on the picket line. At one point, Washington kissed Ramirez as they passed each other on the line.

Rhimes, who informed Washington last June that the show's studio was not picking up his contract option, said she and Washington greeted each other warmly when they spotted each other.

"We gave each other a big hug," Rhimes said. "I love him. Isaiah is an incredible talent, and I wish him all the best in the world. What happened with him has nothing to do with him as an individual. As they say, love the sinner, hate the sin."

Orlando Jones, Rex Lee of "Entourage," "Everybody Hates Chris" co-creator Ali LeRoi and members of the NAACP also joined in the march.

More news on the strike

-- Greg Braxton

The first bona fide tragedy of the writers strike is about to occur. After months of slipping and sliding in an attempt to regain its footing after a disastrous third season, "Grey's Anatomy" has definitely regained its grip, just in time to run out of new episodes. Frankly, I can't think of a better reason for the writers and the producers to come to terms as quickly as possible because who knows what will happen if the writer's room remains empty and fallow for much longer.

ABC did its best to prolong the joyous event by stringing out a two-part special episode over three weeks, which was pretty smart. Two weeks ago, a car wreck involving emergency vehicles made for what is a season stalwart for any medical show: the big disaster scenario. Last year, if you will remember, it was the ferry accident, in which the graphics far outshone the script, which focused more on Meredith's chronic ennui than on all the dead and dying. But the least said about that the better because this time around, the injuries and the medicine were at the forefront and Meredith was allowed to behave not only like a doctor, but a doctor with some chops, aiding a beloved ambulance driver who was trapped upside down in his vehicle.

Meanwhile, Lexie was bathed in the blood of an exploded carotid artery from a patient who had a tumor removed, Bailey gets caught in the unwinnable war between career and home life as she operates on a white supremacist, Izzie tries to please the unpleasable Dr. Hahn who, in turn, cuts Mark off at the knees all while trying to save two patients and proving that she is harder on herself than on anyone else. Alex has snuck Ava into the observation gallery to watch him operate, only things go horribly wrong, both medically and then personally. (Fortunately, they still manage to have sex.) Derek fixes a woman's brain while continuing his flirtation with Rose, and when Meredith finally tells him (for about the third time) that she really does want a relationship, Patrick Dempsey gets to make his eyes shine in that sad, patient way that has turned him into a heartthrob. Meredith, darling, we think it may finally be too late.

The result was tense and tender, intriguing and revealing, the fine balance between medicine and personality that made "Grey's" such a big hit in the first place. Most importantly, Meredith seems to have regained some of the power she had in the first two seasons when she may have been dithering over her love life but she was still caring for her ailing mother and attempting to forge a career outside her formidable shadow.

Bringing stepsister Lexie in was, it seems, an inspired idea. Not only does the show now have a backup Grey should Ellen Pompeo decide to cut and run for a film career, but Lexie gives Meredith a chance to show her strengths and weaknesses in a more sophisticated and believable way than in the endless, and increasingly irritating, dance with Derek. Likewise, allowing Derek to explore another relationship will, one hopes, give Dempsey a little more room as an actor. Watching his character get jerked around according to the needs of Meredith had to be hard on the man who can do much better work than patience and that startlingly sexy smile.

The emerging Bailey story line -- husband seems on the verge of leaving because she is too taken with work -- is a welcome replacement to all the various romances. These people are adults, after all, and issues of the heart continue long after the supply room sex stage wears off.

All of which makes the probability of many months without this new and improved "Grey's" a bleak and frustrating scenario. It isn't easy to get and keep a group of writers in sync, producing at such a high level, which is why the hit shows are the hit shows and the rest are not. We viewers can only hope that the damage of the strike will not permanently throw everyone off their stride, that these talented people will be able to pick up where they left off, right here, right now.

It is to be hoped that the writers and producers settle their differences quickly, if for no other reason than that "Grey's Anatomy" is getting good again. While it is far too easy for fans to read things into any sort of change on such a clacked-about show, there does seem to be a relationship between the complaints of last season and the developments of this. So maybe those interactive network websites aren't just for show after all.

First there was the introduction of Dr. Erica Hahn (Brooke Smith) to the permanent staff. Competitive and combative, Hahn cut through a lot of the treacle build-up from last season, making comments that could have come right from America's exasperated living rooms and giving us reason to hope that some of the women might just remember they are doctors, not high school drama queens.

Last night took the theme of self-examination one step further, with Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) informing us that a hospital can, at times, seem like nothing so much as high school. No kidding. A few minutes later, Bailey (Chandra Wilson), the new chief resident, read everyone the riot act, pointing out that the locker room was for changing, "not crying," and that the on-call room should not be used for anything requiring a locked door. "Grow up," she told Izzie (Katherine Heigl), busy whispering about her fizzling romance with George, and thousands cheered.

An accident involving high school students and their teacher made for some interesting medicine but, more important,  was a way to deconstruct some of the irritation aspects of the staff/show. Derek (Patrick Dempsey) gets busted for cliquishness by a nurse who has worked with him dozens of times without him so much as learning her name. Bailey, our tough-talking Bailey, is reduced to a flirting mewling mess by a former classmate who was the object of her unrequited love. For my money, any episode's success is directly proportionate to the amount of time Wilson is on-screen.

For another show, an episode seeing the cast through the lens of high school would be a nice break from the routine; for "Grey's," it is a smart, entertaining and almost heroic way of acknowledging complaints about the decreasing maturity levels of the characters and giving everyone a chance to step back, breathe and perhaps start again. Including Izzie and George (T.R. Knight), who have finally acknowledged that they are better friends than lovers. Though viewers may not quite be ready to forgive all the hours wasted on that silly and doomed relationship, it is a relief to know that finally we are all on, if not the same page, then at least the same planet.

(Photo courtesy ABC)

Just when you think you're out, they pull you back in. Brooke Smith! How I love Brooke Smith. And it's been a big season for her, with guest appearances on "Weeds" and too briefly, "Dirty Sexy Money." But now she has found a home and one in which she can do so much good. "Grey's Anatomy" remains a big hit, but fans are still waiting for the change they were promised after the dismal third season. And this, ladies and gentleman, might just be it.

Indeed, from the moment two seasons ago when her Erica Hahn faced off with Isaiah Washington's Preston Burke I have nursed a secret hope that Burke would be out and Hahn would be in, and look. All those years of saying the beads have paid off. She breezed in last week like a desperately needed bracing breath of fresh air, cutting through all the Seattle Grace baloney like a woman who actually knows how to wield a scalpel.

Last episode, she dressed down Cristina for her penchant for sleeping with her mentors. Last night, she had the guys in her headlights, pointing out to the chief that favoring the male surgeons over the female surgeons was sexist, and wondering why exactly the male surgeons were so "ridiculously attractive. But perhaps the best moment of the entire show was when she gave McSteamy and McDreamy a long cool stare and asked the first question that would come to any normal person's mind: "Are you a couple?"

There's life in the old "Grey's" yet, it would seem. One can only hope the writers will continue to use Hahn as a voice of the people, taking apart many of the sacred but irritating cows the show has somehow accumulated, rather than throwing her quickly into the arms of Derek or Mark or both. Okay, both would be interesting, but this isn't HBO. Just please not George. That story line mooches on, improving only in that Callie seems to have regained consciousness. Spurred by the sight of two women holding onto a bloody wedding dress for dear life in hopes they will win their dream wedding, Callie has decided to let go and return to her normal sassy, smart self. Izzie and George, however, continue to pursue the most unlikely relationship ever conceived, which is so boring that even Izzie fell asleep before they could consummate it.

And Meredith remains mired in her self-indulgent "issues," pushing Derek away as she turns to Cristina for comfort. Yawn. Maybe they should become a couple. That would explain a lot and offer a much more interesting plot line than the whole tired Derek thing. Because even if Mer/Der does come to be, how compelling will it be, really, after all this?

The good news is we care again. Because if anyone can shake Seattle Grace up, it's Brooke Smith. Or rather Erica Hahn. But you know what I mean.

(Photo courtesy ABC)

I don't know what condition of post-feminism we are currently living under (post-post-post perhaps), but after last night's "Grey's Anatomy," I think everyone should scramble through their boxed-up college paperbacks and find their copies of "The Golden Notebook" because we need to get back to basics, people.

The headliner of the episode was that, in time-honored fashion, Callie forgave the adulterous George and confronted Izzie, calling her a traitorous . . . rhymes with witch. "You did this to another woman," Callie said, blaming the woman who was not even her friend in the sentiments of 20,000 drink-and-dials. Indeed, it was George who had to explain to the suddenly, inexplicably spineless Callie that she didn't really forgive him because what he did was unforgivable. In the words of Tracy Lord: "Aren't men wonderful?"

Izzie, meanwhile, thought Callie's request to meet in the cafeteria was a girl fight throw-down, which is just insane (Is this a hospital? Are they doctors?), but then Izzie has been gone from the rational part of this planet for so long there really is no point in discussing it. Again, it was up to a man -- this time, Alex -- to put things in perspective. When he found out about the George thing, he was justifiably disgusted and hurt -- Izzie could have had Alex, but she settled for George? After Denny? Izzie makes Meredith look like the healthiest girl on the block.

And that's tough to do since Meredith was so busy twittering and twitching over the fact that Derek was "bonding" with her stepsister Lexie that she allows her bumbling intern to inform the wrong patient that she is dying from cancer. She got a wrist-slap from Dr. McSteamy and a lecture from Derek, who told her once again that she is a child and he loves her but he isn't quite sure he can wait for her to grow up.

If you think for a moment, this is exactly why many people argued against women becoming doctors or being in the workplace at all -- they are too emotional, they will only distract their male colleagues with damaging sexual affairs, and they can't be serious professionals. In early "Grey's," the women were a much more interesting mix of strength and weakness, with characters like Bailey, Cristina and Callie balancing the more broken personalities of Meredith and Izzie. Who, in the old days, were still actually interested in medicine and their careers as well as their love lives. But with Bailey inexplicably sidelined and Callie wandering around in a haze, there is not a single functioning female spine in view. Even Cristina is too busy abusing Lexie because of the Meredith connection to do her job -- teaching interns -- properly, as Derek (of course) reminded her in another male-on-female dress-down.

If only Callie could come out swinging, or Izzie get some therapy. Meredith and Lexie could duke it out and get their father into AA. Thankfully, Ava's coming back. She's one tough cookie, and we need some tough cookies. Because Lessing won the Nobel this year. And that has to mean something.

-- Mary McNamara

(Photo courtesy ABC)

Edward Herrmann has joined the cast of "Grey's Anatomy." I know, I know, I should have led with: George finally told Callie that he slept with Izzie! Oh my! But frankly, the appearance of Herrmann, that veteran actor last seen on "The Gilmore Girls," is a lot more interesting and uplifting, proving as it does two things: "Grey's" is definitely on an upswing and old-guy interns are the latest TV trend.

Over at Fox, an AARP member is trying to become part of "House's" team, despite the fact that he never graduated medical school, and now Herrmann gives us Norman, a pharmacist-turned-doc-wannabe. He didn't have much to do on last night's episode, except spout old-guy platitudes and generally test Dr. Karev's ability to control his own intern, but we've already gleaned that his wife is dead, his children are grown and now he wants to be a doctor. Given that it's Herrmann (I still cry when I think of his character's tragic demise in "The Great Waldo Pepper"), I think we can expect great things.

There was a definite geriatric theme at Seattle Grace last evening. Really Old Guy, the coma patient in whose room our intrepid team has gathered for lunch since Season 1, woke up. Woke up and started spouting all sorts of marriage-counselor wisdom, mainly that Izzie should not hold her breath for George because men almost never leave their wives. (Which, given the current divorce statistics, doesn't seem quite accurate, but then the man's been in a coma for years.)

It's still hard to see where we're going this season; there is a slowness and steadiness to the story lines, which, while less grim than last year, feel a little too careful and sometimes repetitive. Yes, George did finally tell Callie, and with any luck the fallout will be excruciating and terrific. The whole Izzie/George storyline cannot be resolved soon enough, although if it gives the writers an excuse to bring back the old weird and vibrant Callie (remember when she lived in the hospital and danced in her underwear?), I am all for it. This pale and wan Callie is a waste of Sarah Ramirez's considerable talents. She and Bailey have not had nearly enough to do in these opening episodes, though Bailey has at least been able to vent her "Nazi" character's common sense once or twice. Even Meredith seems subdued, her clandestine, closeted shagging of Derek notwithstanding.

It is, by necessity, a more diffuse "Grey's," and the writers seem to be proceeding with caution. The addition of the new interns destroys the show's original template -- focusing on a group of residents is a bit less tidy. But Herrmann can only improve things, and if rumor is to be believed, there are other new and returning characters waiting in the wings.  Me, I keep hoping Denny's ghost will materialize -- maybe he could do what Old Guy couldn't: knock a little sense into Izzie.

--Mary McNamara

(Photo courtesy ABC)

For too long, Justin Chambers has been the forgotten man of "Grey's Anatomy." He hasn't gotten the Emmy nods like pretty much the entire female cast and T.R. Knight, nor all those magazine covers, like Patrick Dempsey. But this may be a good thing. Because while every other character got sucked into last season's morass of despair and silliness, Chamber's Dr. Alex Karev actually had a pretty decent story line. While dallying with the dear departed Addison, he developed a soft spot for children, those small humans no one but Bailey seems to even register. And in the aftermath of the notorious ferry accident, Karev came to care for the horribly disfigured/beautifully reconstructed Ava/Rebecca, formerly a Jane Doe. Although, in the end, he could not manfully admit his feelings, Chambers did a lovely job revealing a previously prickly character's sweetness without falling into the general slosh of treacle that surrounded him.

This season it is clear that Rebecca is gone but not forgotten and will, if casting rumors are to be believed, be back soon. Meanwhile, Karev has become something of a moral center for the show, pretty interesting since he was originally introduced as pretty much a womanizing jerk. In last night's episode, the second of the season, Karev struggled to aid a baby harmed during an explosion in his apartment. When it turned out the apartment was really a meth lab and the picture-perfect family meth dealers, Karev's outrage bubbled to the surface -- he yelled at the father, who punched him out and stole the poor screaming meth-addicted baby.

Sometimes, as Meredith would say, you just need a break. Just take one look at the characters of "Grey’s Anatomy" assembled in the season premiere, all fresh and familiar in their lab coats with the irritated hopelessness of last season melted away. After months of fallout from Isaiah Washington’s dismissal and Kate Walsh’s spinoff, after Patrick Dempsey’s twins and Katherine Heigl's Emmy, it was nice to get back to business.

This year will be different, we tell ourselves with the hopeful conviction of fifth-graders. Even the voice-over didn’t seem so bothersome, maybe because it seemed to be speaking to us about the show as much as anything else. Change, we were told, is difficult but necessary, though sometimes the more things change, the more they stay the same. Perhaps not the most earthshaking news around, but for a season premiere with not one but three important characters MIA (Washington’s Dr. Burke, Walsh’s Dr. Addison and Kate Burton as Meredith’s mother), it was reassuring nonetheless.

Creator Shonda Rhimes wisely decided to give her characters a bit of a break too. So in Thursday’s episode, we met up with the gang 17 days after Burke left Cristina (Sandra Oh) at the altar, Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) and Derek (Dempsey) may or may not have broken up and George was going to dump Callie Sara Ramirez) for Izzie (Heigl) until he found out he was going to have to repeat his internship. Vacations have been taken — Meredith went with Cristina on her almost honeymoon, Alex drove up to find his former patient Ava (now Rebecca). But no one apparently has cellphones (have you noticed this about "Grey’s"? It’s quite endearing) because Cristina still hasn’t spoken to Burke, nor Meredith to Derek, nor George to Izzie. So there’s a lot of catching up needed to be done. In stairwells and operating theaters, medical supply closets and X-ray rooms.

After months of speculation about his fate, Isaiah Washington, the "Grey's Anatomy" co-star who publicly used a homophobic slur earlier this year after the show had won a Golden Globe for best drama, will not be returning to the popular ABC series.

ABC News, the corporate sibling of both ABC network and ABC Studios, the studio that produces "Grey's," announced the news in an exclusive on Friday morning. A spokeswoman from ABC Studios confirmed that the studio had not picked up his option.

In the ABC News story, Washington issued an unhappy statement through his publicist, Howard Bragman. "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore," it said.

Washington's future with "Grey's" was first called into question when reports leaked out in the fall of an on-set altercation with co-star Patrick Dempsey, during which he reportedly referred to fellow cast member T.R. Knight as a "faggot." A few months later, in front of reporters backstage at the Golden Globes, Washington denied the incident, but repeated the word in the process, causing another uproar.

-- Kate Aurthur

So are they firing Isaiah Washington or what? No doubt, the final scene of the season finale of “Grey’s Anatomy” left many viewers wondering if the tears Cristina was crying after being ditched at the altar were of heartbreak or relief, but some of us were more curious if her anguished “He’s gone” referred to Burke, her former fiance, or the man who plays him.
Washington, of course, was the center of a scandal earlier this year after he referred to cast member T.R. Knight, not once but twice, by a homophobic epithet. Since then, rumors have flown over whether he would be allowed to remain on a show that prides itself on love and tolerance and diversity.
Thursday night’s season finale certainly left that, and a few other things, pretty much hanging. Or not hanging, as the case may be.

If ever there were a motherless child, it is Meredith Grey. Earlier this season, her biological mother died, taking one of the show’s richest story lines—how you come to terms with brilliant but an emotionally abusive mother as she is eaten alive by Alzheimer’s—with her. Then last night, Meredith’s brief but promising relationship with her step-mother (the always welcome and wonderful Mare Winningham) was cut short by a strange infection complication that seemed lifted directly from “House.”

But never mind that. The important thing seems to be that the tentative, tenuous rapprochement Meredith had made with her dithering detached father was snapped, perhaps forever. When receiving the news of his wife’s unexpected death, he lashed out at his daughter, literally and figuratively, while Bailey, the Chief, McDreamy and the rest of us stood by in shock. Wasn’t this man once a doctor himself?

Kate Walsh, it would appear, is getting out in the nick of time. Next week, in a very special two-hour episode, her character, Dr. Addison Shepherd, will vamoose from Seattle for the sunny shores of L.A. May she never look back because “Grey’s Anatomy” is collapsing faster than a punctured lung.

Izzie and George. Izzie and her new hairstyle. Callie and George, Derek and Meredith, Derek and the chief’s job. Addison and Karev, Addison and McSteamy, Cristina and Burke and their wedding cake. Oh which will they pick? Oh what will happen then? Oh who really cares?

Last night’s episode presented the “Grey’s” team with their biggest challenge ever — acting in ways barely recognizable as human much less characteristic. All the interns were suddenly concerned, albeit it briefly and intermittently, with their wink-wink careers as they cutely “studied” for “the biggest test of their internship.” (Surely that has been staying friends with the drippy, relentlessly narcissistic Meredith, no?)

Does anyone but me remember how the series began, with a whole bunch of interns being told by Bailey to look around because more than half of them wouldn’t be there in a few months? Whatever happened to the idea of benching some of these beauties?

So, who'd have thought — George O'Malley, surgical tramp. The doe-eyed, baby-faced, stammering intern, "Grey's Anatomy's" answer to Radar O'Reilly, has now bedded not one, not two, but three of the female leads. Nice guys do get lucky. Or maybe not. By having a drunken liaison with Izzie mere weeks after marrying Callie, George has lost a lot of nice-guy cred. Which probably means he'll be making it with Cristina any minute now, since she seems to like mean guys.

See, this is why we love "Grey's." It allows us a guilt-free opportunity to advise, counsel and pass judgment on people who are having way more sex with way more people than the average American. No character on the show has children (except Bailey, and I'd like to see the man who could seduce her), so we don't have to fret about innocent bystander victims of random couplings and uncouplings. All the adult characters have the soap-opera requisite "Eternal Sunshine" mind wipes that allow them to maintain relationships with people who'd basely betrayed them just a few episodes ago.

Here's a shocker — Meredith Grey is not dead. And so ABC will not have to change the name of its hit show to "Yin and Yang" after Cristina or "Bailey's Irish Cream" after Miranda.

From the moment Meredith went into the water in the first part of a three-episode "Grey's Anatomy" special event, we all knew she wasn't going to die — why, many of us had just seen Ellen Pompeo at the Golden Globes, and she did not look even remotely like a woman who'd been canned. So as the Meredith-battles-for-life plot line engulfed the second and third portion of a narrative following what looked to be the worst ferry accident in American history, tension was noticeable only in its absence.

In its place were some of the worst script decisions since, yes, I'll say it, Fonzie jumped the shark.

There are several reasons "Grey's Anatomy" is an award-winning hit and if last week's episode did not include any of them, this week more than made up for it. The trademark combination of weird medicine — patient with toxic blood practically kills half the leads — and weird romance — George and Callie got married in Vegas! Addison and Karev make hungry-wolf eyes at each other! — kept the action moving in full scrubs-flapping, one-line snapping form.

But more important was the near surgical display of the show's beating heart — the non-romantic relationship.

The problem with having a real-life publicity problem plaguing your hit television show is that it tears down the fourth wall, allowing the viewer to engage in way too much actor-analysis and general sub-texting, which, no matter what Us Weekly may tell you, is never a good thing. Especially for a relationship-driven quasi-soap opera like “Grey’s Anatomy” where the lovability of the characters is key.

Unfortunately, last night’s episode was one of the weakest in a while: runaway Amish girls coped with cervical cancer (allowing Dr. Bailey to give one of her famous operating table lectures—ladies, get those pap smears). George attempted to find solace for his father’s death by having lots of sex (worth it just to hear partner Callie’s heaving I-can’t-take-it monologue—“I’m tired of having my legs bent in ways my legs don’t go”). The Chief of Surgery officially announced his retirement and all the leads at Seattle Grace suddenly began vying to fill his shoes.

'Grey's Anatomy': 'House' hunting

Well, now we know what the writers of "Grey's Anatomy" were doing during the strike, when they weren't walking the picket lines of course. They were watching "House."

Last night marked the first new episode of "Grey's" in many, many months. Not content with beating its fellow medical drama out of the post-strike box by five days -- the first new "House" airs on Monday -- show runner Shonda Rhimes and her crack team of writers seem to be poking gentle fun, and paying some homage to, the strange powers of their rivals at Fox. First there was the resident's contest in which Meredith (Ellen Pompeo), Cristina (Sandra Oh), Alex (Justin Chambers) and Izzie (Katherine Heigl) competed for points based on things like number of sutures stitched or surgeries scrubbed in on. It looked suspiciously like the competition Dr. House (Hugh Laurie) set up last season to choose a new diagnostics team, especially since "solving a medical mystery" was assigned the highest point value.

So Meredith diagnosed a brain tumor by considering a patient's hasty marriage on the rebound a symptom, while Izzie put a patient (Cheech Marin) with a sprained ankle through a battery of tests, including a spinal tap (she did stop short of the Housian favorite, the MRI).  Meanwhile, Derek (Patrick Dempsey) and Mark (Eric Dane) had mildly flirtatious conversations on elevators, a la House and Dr. Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard).

If someone was walking around with a cane, though, I missed it.

It was pretty funny for those of us who follow both shows. Rhimes has a knack for lassoing the zeitgeist, whether it be her cast of many colors or her enthusiastic use of the Internet to connect with her viewers, so it's not surprising that she would unabashedly grab the general trend toward media cross-pollination and inject it into her show. (At the end of the "Grey's" episode, the Chief (James Pickens Jr.) even totted up the cost of the tests Izzie had run just as Dr. Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein) does so often on "House.")

The recognition from the creators of one hit medical show that another exists, and has its own strange set of foibles, not only makes for interesting television, it creates another level of shared intimacy with the audience, an inside joke for us bazillion viewers. As the rest of the media world grapples with tone and transparency, the folks at "Grey's," who dominated the Web with their pro-strike shorts, have given us another point of connection: there are people at work behind these shows and apparently they watch TV too.

Of course, "Grey's" is not "House" and never pretended to be. The personal lives of the staff remain front and center, though everyone seems to be taking a bit of a breather from the pell-mell hook-up and breakup pattern that threatened the show last season. Derek is still pursuing Rose because he apparently has not read the countless magazine articles in which Rhimes has assured everyone he and Meredith will get back together for good. Callie (Sara Ramirez) is chumming it up with Erica (Brooke Adams) and they will win cutest couple if hints from "next on "Grey's" are anything more than a big tease. (How does Ramirez get her hair so shiny?) Although it was a relief to see Meredith retraining her focus on medicine -- and getting into therapy! It's never too late Meredith! -- Lexie (Chyler Leigh) seems to be picking up the neurotic/neediness slack, redecorating her ratty apartment with bedpans so George (T.R. Knight) will remain her roommate.

Oh, and there was a grizzly bear attack, which was pretty unnerving considering that a Hollywood trainer was recently killed by a grizzly. But I don't think even Rhimes could have seen that one coming.

-- Mary McNamara

(Photo Cheech Marin and Katherine Heigl, courtesy ABC)   

Isaiah Washington, who was let go last season from "Grey's Anatomy" following a furor that erupted when he used a homophobic slur in reference to costar T.R. Knight, was back in step with Knight and several other cast members of the show Wednesday during a Writers Guild of America, West, picket in front of Paramount Studios spotlighting diversity.

Washington, who mingled easily in the crowd of more than 500 marchers, stayed mostly on the line with other marchers while Knight, Katherine Heigl, Sara Ramirez and Shonda Rhimes, who created the series, conducted interviews in another part of the studio driveway and posed for photographers in between their stints on the picket line. At one point, Washington kissed Ramirez as they passed each other on the line.

Rhimes, who informed Washington last June that the show's studio was not picking up his contract option, said she and Washington greeted each other warmly when they spotted each other.

"We gave each other a big hug," Rhimes said. "I love him. Isaiah is an incredible talent, and I wish him all the best in the world. What happened with him has nothing to do with him as an individual. As they say, love the sinner, hate the sin."

Orlando Jones, Rex Lee of "Entourage," "Everybody Hates Chris" co-creator Ali LeRoi and members of the NAACP also joined in the march.

More news on the strike

-- Greg Braxton

The first bona fide tragedy of the writers strike is about to occur. After months of slipping and sliding in an attempt to regain its footing after a disastrous third season, "Grey's Anatomy" has definitely regained its grip, just in time to run out of new episodes. Frankly, I can't think of a better reason for the writers and the producers to come to terms as quickly as possible because who knows what will happen if the writer's room remains empty and fallow for much longer.

ABC did its best to prolong the joyous event by stringing out a two-part special episode over three weeks, which was pretty smart. Two weeks ago, a car wreck involving emergency vehicles made for what is a season stalwart for any medical show: the big disaster scenario. Last year, if you will remember, it was the ferry accident, in which the graphics far outshone the script, which focused more on Meredith's chronic ennui than on all the dead and dying. But the least said about that the better because this time around, the injuries and the medicine were at the forefront and Meredith was allowed to behave not only like a doctor, but a doctor with some chops, aiding a beloved ambulance driver who was trapped upside down in his vehicle.

Meanwhile, Lexie was bathed in the blood of an exploded carotid artery from a patient who had a tumor removed, Bailey gets caught in the unwinnable war between career and home life as she operates on a white supremacist, Izzie tries to please the unpleasable Dr. Hahn who, in turn, cuts Mark off at the knees all while trying to save two patients and proving that she is harder on herself than on anyone else. Alex has snuck Ava into the observation gallery to watch him operate, only things go horribly wrong, both medically and then personally. (Fortunately, they still manage to have sex.) Derek fixes a woman's brain while continuing his flirtation with Rose, and when Meredith finally tells him (for about the third time) that she really does want a relationship, Patrick Dempsey gets to make his eyes shine in that sad, patient way that has turned him into a heartthrob. Meredith, darling, we think it may finally be too late.

The result was tense and tender, intriguing and revealing, the fine balance between medicine and personality that made "Grey's" such a big hit in the first place. Most importantly, Meredith seems to have regained some of the power she had in the first two seasons when she may have been dithering over her love life but she was still caring for her ailing mother and attempting to forge a career outside her formidable shadow.

Bringing stepsister Lexie in was, it seems, an inspired idea. Not only does the show now have a backup Grey should Ellen Pompeo decide to cut and run for a film career, but Lexie gives Meredith a chance to show her strengths and weaknesses in a more sophisticated and believable way than in the endless, and increasingly irritating, dance with Derek. Likewise, allowing Derek to explore another relationship will, one hopes, give Dempsey a little more room as an actor. Watching his character get jerked around according to the needs of Meredith had to be hard on the man who can do much better work than patience and that startlingly sexy smile.

The emerging Bailey story line -- husband seems on the verge of leaving because she is too taken with work -- is a welcome replacement to all the various romances. These people are adults, after all, and issues of the heart continue long after the supply room sex stage wears off.

All of which makes the probability of many months without this new and improved "Grey's" a bleak and frustrating scenario. It isn't easy to get and keep a group of writers in sync, producing at such a high level, which is why the hit shows are the hit shows and the rest are not. We viewers can only hope that the damage of the strike will not permanently throw everyone off their stride, that these talented people will be able to pick up where they left off, right here, right now.

It is to be hoped that the writers and producers settle their differences quickly, if for no other reason than that "Grey's Anatomy" is getting good again. While it is far too easy for fans to read things into any sort of change on such a clacked-about show, there does seem to be a relationship between the complaints of last season and the developments of this. So maybe those interactive network websites aren't just for show after all.

First there was the introduction of Dr. Erica Hahn (Brooke Smith) to the permanent staff. Competitive and combative, Hahn cut through a lot of the treacle build-up from last season, making comments that could have come right from America's exasperated living rooms and giving us reason to hope that some of the women might just remember they are doctors, not high school drama queens.

Last night took the theme of self-examination one step further, with Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) informing us that a hospital can, at times, seem like nothing so much as high school. No kidding. A few minutes later, Bailey (Chandra Wilson), the new chief resident, read everyone the riot act, pointing out that the locker room was for changing, "not crying," and that the on-call room should not be used for anything requiring a locked door. "Grow up," she told Izzie (Katherine Heigl), busy whispering about her fizzling romance with George, and thousands cheered.

An accident involving high school students and their teacher made for some interesting medicine but, more important,  was a way to deconstruct some of the irritation aspects of the staff/show. Derek (Patrick Dempsey) gets busted for cliquishness by a nurse who has worked with him dozens of times without him so much as learning her name. Bailey, our tough-talking Bailey, is reduced to a flirting mewling mess by a former classmate who was the object of her unrequited love. For my money, any episode's success is directly proportionate to the amount of time Wilson is on-screen.

For another show, an episode seeing the cast through the lens of high school would be a nice break from the routine; for "Grey's," it is a smart, entertaining and almost heroic way of acknowledging complaints about the decreasing maturity levels of the characters and giving everyone a chance to step back, breathe and perhaps start again. Including Izzie and George (T.R. Knight), who have finally acknowledged that they are better friends than lovers. Though viewers may not quite be ready to forgive all the hours wasted on that silly and doomed relationship, it is a relief to know that finally we are all on, if not the same page, then at least the same planet.

(Photo courtesy ABC)

Just when you think you're out, they pull you back in. Brooke Smith! How I love Brooke Smith. And it's been a big season for her, with guest appearances on "Weeds" and too briefly, "Dirty Sexy Money." But now she has found a home and one in which she can do so much good. "Grey's Anatomy" remains a big hit, but fans are still waiting for the change they were promised after the dismal third season. And this, ladies and gentleman, might just be it.

Indeed, from the moment two seasons ago when her Erica Hahn faced off with Isaiah Washington's Preston Burke I have nursed a secret hope that Burke would be out and Hahn would be in, and look. All those years of saying the beads have paid off. She breezed in last week like a desperately needed bracing breath of fresh air, cutting through all the Seattle Grace baloney like a woman who actually knows how to wield a scalpel.

Last episode, she dressed down Cristina for her penchant for sleeping with her mentors. Last night, she had the guys in her headlights, pointing out to the chief that favoring the male surgeons over the female surgeons was sexist, and wondering why exactly the male surgeons were so "ridiculously attractive. But perhaps the best moment of the entire show was when she gave McSteamy and McDreamy a long cool stare and asked the first question that would come to any normal person's mind: "Are you a couple?"

There's life in the old "Grey's" yet, it would seem. One can only hope the writers will continue to use Hahn as a voice of the people, taking apart many of the sacred but irritating cows the show has somehow accumulated, rather than throwing her quickly into the arms of Derek or Mark or both. Okay, both would be interesting, but this isn't HBO. Just please not George. That story line mooches on, improving only in that Callie seems to have regained consciousness. Spurred by the sight of two women holding onto a bloody wedding dress for dear life in hopes they will win their dream wedding, Callie has decided to let go and return to her normal sassy, smart self. Izzie and George, however, continue to pursue the most unlikely relationship ever conceived, which is so boring that even Izzie fell asleep before they could consummate it.

And Meredith remains mired in her self-indulgent "issues," pushing Derek away as she turns to Cristina for comfort. Yawn. Maybe they should become a couple. That would explain a lot and offer a much more interesting plot line than the whole tired Derek thing. Because even if Mer/Der does come to be, how compelling will it be, really, after all this?

The good news is we care again. Because if anyone can shake Seattle Grace up, it's Brooke Smith. Or rather Erica Hahn. But you know what I mean.

(Photo courtesy ABC)

I don't know what condition of post-feminism we are currently living under (post-post-post perhaps), but after last night's "Grey's Anatomy," I think everyone should scramble through their boxed-up college paperbacks and find their copies of "The Golden Notebook" because we need to get back to basics, people.

The headliner of the episode was that, in time-honored fashion, Callie forgave the adulterous George and confronted Izzie, calling her a traitorous . . . rhymes with witch. "You did this to another woman," Callie said, blaming the woman who was not even her friend in the sentiments of 20,000 drink-and-dials. Indeed, it was George who had to explain to the suddenly, inexplicably spineless Callie that she didn't really forgive him because what he did was unforgivable. In the words of Tracy Lord: "Aren't men wonderful?"

Izzie, meanwhile, thought Callie's request to meet in the cafeteria was a girl fight throw-down, which is just insane (Is this a hospital? Are they doctors?), but then Izzie has been gone from the rational part of this planet for so long there really is no point in discussing it. Again, it was up to a man -- this time, Alex -- to put things in perspective. When he found out about the George thing, he was justifiably disgusted and hurt -- Izzie could have had Alex, but she settled for George? After Denny? Izzie makes Meredith look like the healthiest girl on the block.

And that's tough to do since Meredith was so busy twittering and twitching over the fact that Derek was "bonding" with her stepsister Lexie that she allows her bumbling intern to inform the wrong patient that she is dying from cancer. She got a wrist-slap from Dr. McSteamy and a lecture from Derek, who told her once again that she is a child and he loves her but he isn't quite sure he can wait for her to grow up.

If you think for a moment, this is exactly why many people argued against women becoming doctors or being in the workplace at all -- they are too emotional, they will only distract their male colleagues with damaging sexual affairs, and they can't be serious professionals. In early "Grey's," the women were a much more interesting mix of strength and weakness, with characters like Bailey, Cristina and Callie balancing the more broken personalities of Meredith and Izzie. Who, in the old days, were still actually interested in medicine and their careers as well as their love lives. But with Bailey inexplicably sidelined and Callie wandering around in a haze, there is not a single functioning female spine in view. Even Cristina is too busy abusing Lexie because of the Meredith connection to do her job -- teaching interns -- properly, as Derek (of course) reminded her in another male-on-female dress-down.

If only Callie could come out swinging, or Izzie get some therapy. Meredith and Lexie could duke it out and get their father into AA. Thankfully, Ava's coming back. She's one tough cookie, and we need some tough cookies. Because Lessing won the Nobel this year. And that has to mean something.

-- Mary McNamara

(Photo courtesy ABC)

Edward Herrmann has joined the cast of "Grey's Anatomy." I know, I know, I should have led with: George finally told Callie that he slept with Izzie! Oh my! But frankly, the appearance of Herrmann, that veteran actor last seen on "The Gilmore Girls," is a lot more interesting and uplifting, proving as it does two things: "Grey's" is definitely on an upswing and old-guy interns are the latest TV trend.

Over at Fox, an AARP member is trying to become part of "House's" team, despite the fact that he never graduated medical school, and now Herrmann gives us Norman, a pharmacist-turned-doc-wannabe. He didn't have much to do on last night's episode, except spout old-guy platitudes and generally test Dr. Karev's ability to control his own intern, but we've already gleaned that his wife is dead, his children are grown and now he wants to be a doctor. Given that it's Herrmann (I still cry when I think of his character's tragic demise in "The Great Waldo Pepper"), I think we can expect great things.

There was a definite geriatric theme at Seattle Grace last evening. Really Old Guy, the coma patient in whose room our intrepid team has gathered for lunch since Season 1, woke up. Woke up and started spouting all sorts of marriage-counselor wisdom, mainly that Izzie should not hold her breath for George because men almost never leave their wives. (Which, given the current divorce statistics, doesn't seem quite accurate, but then the man's been in a coma for years.)

It's still hard to see where we're going this season; there is a slowness and steadiness to the story lines, which, while less grim than last year, feel a little too careful and sometimes repetitive. Yes, George did finally tell Callie, and with any luck the fallout will be excruciating and terrific. The whole Izzie/George storyline cannot be resolved soon enough, although if it gives the writers an excuse to bring back the old weird and vibrant Callie (remember when she lived in the hospital and danced in her underwear?), I am all for it. This pale and wan Callie is a waste of Sarah Ramirez's considerable talents. She and Bailey have not had nearly enough to do in these opening episodes, though Bailey has at least been able to vent her "Nazi" character's common sense once or twice. Even Meredith seems subdued, her clandestine, closeted shagging of Derek notwithstanding.

It is, by necessity, a more diffuse "Grey's," and the writers seem to be proceeding with caution. The addition of the new interns destroys the show's original template -- focusing on a group of residents is a bit less tidy. But Herrmann can only improve things, and if rumor is to be believed, there are other new and returning characters waiting in the wings.  Me, I keep hoping Denny's ghost will materialize -- maybe he could do what Old Guy couldn't: knock a little sense into Izzie.

--Mary McNamara

(Photo courtesy ABC)

For too long, Justin Chambers has been the forgotten man of "Grey's Anatomy." He hasn't gotten the Emmy nods like pretty much the entire female cast and T.R. Knight, nor all those magazine covers, like Patrick Dempsey. But this may be a good thing. Because while every other character got sucked into last season's morass of despair and silliness, Chamber's Dr. Alex Karev actually had a pretty decent story line. While dallying with the dear departed Addison, he developed a soft spot for children, those small humans no one but Bailey seems to even register. And in the aftermath of the notorious ferry accident, Karev came to care for the horribly disfigured/beautifully reconstructed Ava/Rebecca, formerly a Jane Doe. Although, in the end, he could not manfully admit his feelings, Chambers did a lovely job revealing a previously prickly character's sweetness without falling into the general slosh of treacle that surrounded him.

This season it is clear that Rebecca is gone but not forgotten and will, if casting rumors are to be believed, be back soon. Meanwhile, Karev has become something of a moral center for the show, pretty interesting since he was originally introduced as pretty much a womanizing jerk. In last night's episode, the second of the season, Karev struggled to aid a baby harmed during an explosion in his apartment. When it turned out the apartment was really a meth lab and the picture-perfect family meth dealers, Karev's outrage bubbled to the surface -- he yelled at the father, who punched him out and stole the poor screaming meth-addicted baby.

Sometimes, as Meredith would say, you just need a break. Just take one look at the characters of "Grey’s Anatomy" assembled in the season premiere, all fresh and familiar in their lab coats with the irritated hopelessness of last season melted away. After months of fallout from Isaiah Washington’s dismissal and Kate Walsh’s spinoff, after Patrick Dempsey’s twins and Katherine Heigl's Emmy, it was nice to get back to business.

This year will be different, we tell ourselves with the hopeful conviction of fifth-graders. Even the voice-over didn’t seem so bothersome, maybe because it seemed to be speaking to us about the show as much as anything else. Change, we were told, is difficult but necessary, though sometimes the more things change, the more they stay the same. Perhaps not the most earthshaking news around, but for a season premiere with not one but three important characters MIA (Washington’s Dr. Burke, Walsh’s Dr. Addison and Kate Burton as Meredith’s mother), it was reassuring nonetheless.

Creator Shonda Rhimes wisely decided to give her characters a bit of a break too. So in Thursday’s episode, we met up with the gang 17 days after Burke left Cristina (Sandra Oh) at the altar, Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) and Derek (Dempsey) may or may not have broken up and George was going to dump Callie Sara Ramirez) for Izzie (Heigl) until he found out he was going to have to repeat his internship. Vacations have been taken — Meredith went with Cristina on her almost honeymoon, Alex drove up to find his former patient Ava (now Rebecca). But no one apparently has cellphones (have you noticed this about "Grey’s"? It’s quite endearing) because Cristina still hasn’t spoken to Burke, nor Meredith to Derek, nor George to Izzie. So there’s a lot of catching up needed to be done. In stairwells and operating theaters, medical supply closets and X-ray rooms.

After months of speculation about his fate, Isaiah Washington, the "Grey's Anatomy" co-star who publicly used a homophobic slur earlier this year after the show had won a Golden Globe for best drama, will not be returning to the popular ABC series.

ABC News, the corporate sibling of both ABC network and ABC Studios, the studio that produces "Grey's," announced the news in an exclusive on Friday morning. A spokeswoman from ABC Studios confirmed that the studio had not picked up his option.

In the ABC News story, Washington issued an unhappy statement through his publicist, Howard Bragman. "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore," it said.

Washington's future with "Grey's" was first called into question when reports leaked out in the fall of an on-set altercation with co-star Patrick Dempsey, during which he reportedly referred to fellow cast member T.R. Knight as a "faggot." A few months later, in front of reporters backstage at the Golden Globes, Washington denied the incident, but repeated the word in the process, causing another uproar.

-- Kate Aurthur

So are they firing Isaiah Washington or what? No doubt, the final scene of the season finale of “Grey’s Anatomy” left many viewers wondering if the tears Cristina was crying after being ditched at the altar were of heartbreak or relief, but some of us were more curious if her anguished “He’s gone” referred to Burke, her former fiance, or the man who plays him.
Washington, of course, was the center of a scandal earlier this year after he referred to cast member T.R. Knight, not once but twice, by a homophobic epithet. Since then, rumors have flown over whether he would be allowed to remain on a show that prides itself on love and tolerance and diversity.
Thursday night’s season finale certainly left that, and a few other things, pretty much hanging. Or not hanging, as the case may be.

If ever there were a motherless child, it is Meredith Grey. Earlier this season, her biological mother died, taking one of the show’s richest story lines—how you come to terms with brilliant but an emotionally abusive mother as she is eaten alive by Alzheimer’s—with her. Then last night, Meredith’s brief but promising relationship with her step-mother (the always welcome and wonderful Mare Winningham) was cut short by a strange infection complication that seemed lifted directly from “House.”

But never mind that. The important thing seems to be that the tentative, tenuous rapprochement Meredith had made with her dithering detached father was snapped, perhaps forever. When receiving the news of his wife’s unexpected death, he lashed out at his daughter, literally and figuratively, while Bailey, the Chief, McDreamy and the rest of us stood by in shock. Wasn’t this man once a doctor himself?

Kate Walsh, it would appear, is getting out in the nick of time. Next week, in a very special two-hour episode, her character, Dr. Addison Shepherd, will vamoose from Seattle for the sunny shores of L.A. May she never look back because “Grey’s Anatomy” is collapsing faster than a punctured lung.

Izzie and George. Izzie and her new hairstyle. Callie and George, Derek and Meredith, Derek and the chief’s job. Addison and Karev, Addison and McSteamy, Cristina and Burke and their wedding cake. Oh which will they pick? Oh what will happen then? Oh who really cares?

Last night’s episode presented the “Grey’s” team with their biggest challenge ever — acting in ways barely recognizable as human much less characteristic. All the interns were suddenly concerned, albeit it briefly and intermittently, with their wink-wink careers as they cutely “studied” for “the biggest test of their internship.” (Surely that has been staying friends with the drippy, relentlessly narcissistic Meredith, no?)

Does anyone but me remember how the series began, with a whole bunch of interns being told by Bailey to look around because more than half of them wouldn’t be there in a few months? Whatever happened to the idea of benching some of these beauties?

So, who'd have thought — George O'Malley, surgical tramp. The doe-eyed, baby-faced, stammering intern, "Grey's Anatomy's" answer to Radar O'Reilly, has now bedded not one, not two, but three of the female leads. Nice guys do get lucky. Or maybe not. By having a drunken liaison with Izzie mere weeks after marrying Callie, George has lost a lot of nice-guy cred. Which probably means he'll be making it with Cristina any minute now, since she seems to like mean guys.

See, this is why we love "Grey's." It allows us a guilt-free opportunity to advise, counsel and pass judgment on people who are having way more sex with way more people than the average American. No character on the show has children (except Bailey, and I'd like to see the man who could seduce her), so we don't have to fret about innocent bystander victims of random couplings and uncouplings. All the adult characters have the soap-opera requisite "Eternal Sunshine" mind wipes that allow them to maintain relationships with people who'd basely betrayed them just a few episodes ago.

Here's a shocker — Meredith Grey is not dead. And so ABC will not have to change the name of its hit show to "Yin and Yang" after Cristina or "Bailey's Irish Cream" after Miranda.

From the moment Meredith went into the water in the first part of a three-episode "Grey's Anatomy" special event, we all knew she wasn't going to die — why, many of us had just seen Ellen Pompeo at the Golden Globes, and she did not look even remotely like a woman who'd been canned. So as the Meredith-battles-for-life plot line engulfed the second and third portion of a narrative following what looked to be the worst ferry accident in American history, tension was noticeable only in its absence.

In its place were some of the worst script decisions since, yes, I'll say it, Fonzie jumped the shark.

There are several reasons "Grey's Anatomy" is an award-winning hit and if last week's episode did not include any of them, this week more than made up for it. The trademark combination of weird medicine — patient with toxic blood practically kills half the leads — and weird romance — George and Callie got married in Vegas! Addison and Karev make hungry-wolf eyes at each other! — kept the action moving in full scrubs-flapping, one-line snapping form.

But more important was the near surgical display of the show's beating heart — the non-romantic relationship.

The problem with having a real-life publicity problem plaguing your hit television show is that it tears down the fourth wall, allowing the viewer to engage in way too much actor-analysis and general sub-texting, which, no matter what Us Weekly may tell you, is never a good thing. Especially for a relationship-driven quasi-soap opera like “Grey’s Anatomy” where the lovability of the characters is key.

Unfortunately, last night’s episode was one of the weakest in a while: runaway Amish girls coped with cervical cancer (allowing Dr. Bailey to give one of her famous operating table lectures—ladies, get those pap smears). George attempted to find solace for his father’s death by having lots of sex (worth it just to hear partner Callie’s heaving I-can’t-take-it monologue—“I’m tired of having my legs bent in ways my legs don’t go”). The Chief of Surgery officially announced his retirement and all the leads at Seattle Grace suddenly began vying to fill his shoes.

Strike reunion: Isaiah Washington and Shonda Rhimes picket together

Isaiah Washington, who was let go last season from "Grey's Anatomy" following a furor that erupted when he used a homophobic slur in reference to costar T.R. Knight, was back in step with Knight and several other cast members of the show Wednesday during a Writers Guild of America, West, picket in front of Paramount Studios spotlighting diversity.

Washington, who mingled easily in the crowd of more than 500 marchers, stayed mostly on the line with other marchers while Knight, Katherine Heigl, Sara Ramirez and Shonda Rhimes, who created the series, conducted interviews in another part of the studio driveway and posed for photographers in between their stints on the picket line. At one point, Washington kissed Ramirez as they passed each other on the line.

Rhimes, who informed Washington last June that the show's studio was not picking up his contract option, said she and Washington greeted each other warmly when they spotted each other.

"We gave each other a big hug," Rhimes said. "I love him. Isaiah is an incredible talent, and I wish him all the best in the world. What happened with him has nothing to do with him as an individual. As they say, love the sinner, hate the sin."

Orlando Jones, Rex Lee of "Entourage," "Everybody Hates Chris" co-creator Ali LeRoi and members of the NAACP also joined in the march.

More news on the strike

-- Greg Braxton

The first bona fide tragedy of the writers strike is about to occur. After months of slipping and sliding in an attempt to regain its footing after a disastrous third season, "Grey's Anatomy" has definitely regained its grip, just in time to run out of new episodes. Frankly, I can't think of a better reason for the writers and the producers to come to terms as quickly as possible because who knows what will happen if the writer's room remains empty and fallow for much longer.

ABC did its best to prolong the joyous event by stringing out a two-part special episode over three weeks, which was pretty smart. Two weeks ago, a car wreck involving emergency vehicles made for what is a season stalwart for any medical show: the big disaster scenario. Last year, if you will remember, it was the ferry accident, in which the graphics far outshone the script, which focused more on Meredith's chronic ennui than on all the dead and dying. But the least said about that the better because this time around, the injuries and the medicine were at the forefront and Meredith was allowed to behave not only like a doctor, but a doctor with some chops, aiding a beloved ambulance driver who was trapped upside down in his vehicle.

Meanwhile, Lexie was bathed in the blood of an exploded carotid artery from a patient who had a tumor removed, Bailey gets caught in the unwinnable war between career and home life as she operates on a white supremacist, Izzie tries to please the unpleasable Dr. Hahn who, in turn, cuts Mark off at the knees all while trying to save two patients and proving that she is harder on herself than on anyone else. Alex has snuck Ava into the observation gallery to watch him operate, only things go horribly wrong, both medically and then personally. (Fortunately, they still manage to have sex.) Derek fixes a woman's brain while continuing his flirtation with Rose, and when Meredith finally tells him (for about the third time) that she really does want a relationship, Patrick Dempsey gets to make his eyes shine in that sad, patient way that has turned him into a heartthrob. Meredith, darling, we think it may finally be too late.

The result was tense and tender, intriguing and revealing, the fine balance between medicine and personality that made "Grey's" such a big hit in the first place. Most importantly, Meredith seems to have regained some of the power she had in the first two seasons when she may have been dithering over her love life but she was still caring for her ailing mother and attempting to forge a career outside her formidable shadow.

Bringing stepsister Lexie in was, it seems, an inspired idea. Not only does the show now have a backup Grey should Ellen Pompeo decide to cut and run for a film career, but Lexie gives Meredith a chance to show her strengths and weaknesses in a more sophisticated and believable way than in the endless, and increasingly irritating, dance with Derek. Likewise, allowing Derek to explore another relationship will, one hopes, give Dempsey a little more room as an actor. Watching his character get jerked around according to the needs of Meredith had to be hard on the man who can do much better work than patience and that startlingly sexy smile.

The emerging Bailey story line -- husband seems on the verge of leaving because she is too taken with work -- is a welcome replacement to all the various romances. These people are adults, after all, and issues of the heart continue long after the supply room sex stage wears off.

All of which makes the probability of many months without this new and improved "Grey's" a bleak and frustrating scenario. It isn't easy to get and keep a group of writers in sync, producing at such a high level, which is why the hit shows are the hit shows and the rest are not. We viewers can only hope that the damage of the strike will not permanently throw everyone off their stride, that these talented people will be able to pick up where they left off, right here, right now.

It is to be hoped that the writers and producers settle their differences quickly, if for no other reason than that "Grey's Anatomy" is getting good again. While it is far too easy for fans to read things into any sort of change on such a clacked-about show, there does seem to be a relationship between the complaints of last season and the developments of this. So maybe those interactive network websites aren't just for show after all.

First there was the introduction of Dr. Erica Hahn (Brooke Smith) to the permanent staff. Competitive and combative, Hahn cut through a lot of the treacle build-up from last season, making comments that could have come right from America's exasperated living rooms and giving us reason to hope that some of the women might just remember they are doctors, not high school drama queens.

Last night took the theme of self-examination one step further, with Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) informing us that a hospital can, at times, seem like nothing so much as high school. No kidding. A few minutes later, Bailey (Chandra Wilson), the new chief resident, read everyone the riot act, pointing out that the locker room was for changing, "not crying," and that the on-call room should not be used for anything requiring a locked door. "Grow up," she told Izzie (Katherine Heigl), busy whispering about her fizzling romance with George, and thousands cheered.

An accident involving high school students and their teacher made for some interesting medicine but, more important,  was a way to deconstruct some of the irritation aspects of the staff/show. Derek (Patrick Dempsey) gets busted for cliquishness by a nurse who has worked with him dozens of times without him so much as learning her name. Bailey, our tough-talking Bailey, is reduced to a flirting mewling mess by a former classmate who was the object of her unrequited love. For my money, any episode's success is directly proportionate to the amount of time Wilson is on-screen.

For another show, an episode seeing the cast through the lens of high school would be a nice break from the routine; for "Grey's," it is a smart, entertaining and almost heroic way of acknowledging complaints about the decreasing maturity levels of the characters and giving everyone a chance to step back, breathe and perhaps start again. Including Izzie and George (T.R. Knight), who have finally acknowledged that they are better friends than lovers. Though viewers may not quite be ready to forgive all the hours wasted on that silly and doomed relationship, it is a relief to know that finally we are all on, if not the same page, then at least the same planet.

(Photo courtesy ABC)

Just when you think you're out, they pull you back in. Brooke Smith! How I love Brooke Smith. And it's been a big season for her, with guest appearances on "Weeds" and too briefly, "Dirty Sexy Money." But now she has found a home and one in which she can do so much good. "Grey's Anatomy" remains a big hit, but fans are still waiting for the change they were promised after the dismal third season. And this, ladies and gentleman, might just be it.

Indeed, from the moment two seasons ago when her Erica Hahn faced off with Isaiah Washington's Preston Burke I have nursed a secret hope that Burke would be out and Hahn would be in, and look. All those years of saying the beads have paid off. She breezed in last week like a desperately needed bracing breath of fresh air, cutting through all the Seattle Grace baloney like a woman who actually knows how to wield a scalpel.

Last episode, she dressed down Cristina for her penchant for sleeping with her mentors. Last night, she had the guys in her headlights, pointing out to the chief that favoring the male surgeons over the female surgeons was sexist, and wondering why exactly the male surgeons were so "ridiculously attractive. But perhaps the best moment of the entire show was when she gave McSteamy and McDreamy a long cool stare and asked the first question that would come to any normal person's mind: "Are you a couple?"

There's life in the old "Grey's" yet, it would seem. One can only hope the writers will continue to use Hahn as a voice of the people, taking apart many of the sacred but irritating cows the show has somehow accumulated, rather than throwing her quickly into the arms of Derek or Mark or both. Okay, both would be interesting, but this isn't HBO. Just please not George. That story line mooches on, improving only in that Callie seems to have regained consciousness. Spurred by the sight of two women holding onto a bloody wedding dress for dear life in hopes they will win their dream wedding, Callie has decided to let go and return to her normal sassy, smart self. Izzie and George, however, continue to pursue the most unlikely relationship ever conceived, which is so boring that even Izzie fell asleep before they could consummate it.

And Meredith remains mired in her self-indulgent "issues," pushing Derek away as she turns to Cristina for comfort. Yawn. Maybe they should become a couple. That would explain a lot and offer a much more interesting plot line than the whole tired Derek thing. Because even if Mer/Der does come to be, how compelling will it be, really, after all this?

The good news is we care again. Because if anyone can shake Seattle Grace up, it's Brooke Smith. Or rather Erica Hahn. But you know what I mean.

(Photo courtesy ABC)

I don't know what condition of post-feminism we are currently living under (post-post-post perhaps), but after last night's "Grey's Anatomy," I think everyone should scramble through their boxed-up college paperbacks and find their copies of "The Golden Notebook" because we need to get back to basics, people.

The headliner of the episode was that, in time-honored fashion, Callie forgave the adulterous George and confronted Izzie, calling her a traitorous . . . rhymes with witch. "You did this to another woman," Callie said, blaming the woman who was not even her friend in the sentiments of 20,000 drink-and-dials. Indeed, it was George who had to explain to the suddenly, inexplicably spineless Callie that she didn't really forgive him because what he did was unforgivable. In the words of Tracy Lord: "Aren't men wonderful?"

Izzie, meanwhile, thought Callie's request to meet in the cafeteria was a girl fight throw-down, which is just insane (Is this a hospital? Are they doctors?), but then Izzie has been gone from the rational part of this planet for so long there really is no point in discussing it. Again, it was up to a man -- this time, Alex -- to put things in perspective. When he found out about the George thing, he was justifiably disgusted and hurt -- Izzie could have had Alex, but she settled for George? After Denny? Izzie makes Meredith look like the healthiest girl on the block.

And that's tough to do since Meredith was so busy twittering and twitching over the fact that Derek was "bonding" with her stepsister Lexie that she allows her bumbling intern to inform the wrong patient that she is dying from cancer. She got a wrist-slap from Dr. McSteamy and a lecture from Derek, who told her once again that she is a child and he loves her but he isn't quite sure he can wait for her to grow up.

If you think for a moment, this is exactly why many people argued against women becoming doctors or being in the workplace at all -- they are too emotional, they will only distract their male colleagues with damaging sexual affairs, and they can't be serious professionals. In early "Grey's," the women were a much more interesting mix of strength and weakness, with characters like Bailey, Cristina and Callie balancing the more broken personalities of Meredith and Izzie. Who, in the old days, were still actually interested in medicine and their careers as well as their love lives. But with Bailey inexplicably sidelined and Callie wandering around in a haze, there is not a single functioning female spine in view. Even Cristina is too busy abusing Lexie because of the Meredith connection to do her job -- teaching interns -- properly, as Derek (of course) reminded her in another male-on-female dress-down.

If only Callie could come out swinging, or Izzie get some therapy. Meredith and Lexie could duke it out and get their father into AA. Thankfully, Ava's coming back. She's one tough cookie, and we need some tough cookies. Because Lessing won the Nobel this year. And that has to mean something.

-- Mary McNamara

(Photo courtesy ABC)

Edward Herrmann has joined the cast of "Grey's Anatomy." I know, I know, I should have led with: George finally told Callie that he slept with Izzie! Oh my! But frankly, the appearance of Herrmann, that veteran actor last seen on "The Gilmore Girls," is a lot more interesting and uplifting, proving as it does two things: "Grey's" is definitely on an upswing and old-guy interns are the latest TV trend.

Over at Fox, an AARP member is trying to become part of "House's" team, despite the fact that he never graduated medical school, and now Herrmann gives us Norman, a pharmacist-turned-doc-wannabe. He didn't have much to do on last night's episode, except spout old-guy platitudes and generally test Dr. Karev's ability to control his own intern, but we've already gleaned that his wife is dead, his children are grown and now he wants to be a doctor. Given that it's Herrmann (I still cry when I think of his character's tragic demise in "The Great Waldo Pepper"), I think we can expect great things.

There was a definite geriatric theme at Seattle Grace last evening. Really Old Guy, the coma patient in whose room our intrepid team has gathered for lunch since Season 1, woke up. Woke up and started spouting all sorts of marriage-counselor wisdom, mainly that Izzie should not hold her breath for George because men almost never leave their wives. (Which, given the current divorce statistics, doesn't seem quite accurate, but then the man's been in a coma for years.)

It's still hard to see where we're going this season; there is a slowness and steadiness to the story lines, which, while less grim than last year, feel a little too careful and sometimes repetitive. Yes, George did finally tell Callie, and with any luck the fallout will be excruciating and terrific. The whole Izzie/George storyline cannot be resolved soon enough, although if it gives the writers an excuse to bring back the old weird and vibrant Callie (remember when she lived in the hospital and danced in her underwear?), I am all for it. This pale and wan Callie is a waste of Sarah Ramirez's considerable talents. She and Bailey have not had nearly enough to do in these opening episodes, though Bailey has at least been able to vent her "Nazi" character's common sense once or twice. Even Meredith seems subdued, her clandestine, closeted shagging of Derek notwithstanding.

It is, by necessity, a more diffuse "Grey's," and the writers seem to be proceeding with caution. The addition of the new interns destroys the show's original template -- focusing on a group of residents is a bit less tidy. But Herrmann can only improve things, and if rumor is to be believed, there are other new and returning characters waiting in the wings.  Me, I keep hoping Denny's ghost will materialize -- maybe he could do what Old Guy couldn't: knock a little sense into Izzie.

--Mary McNamara

(Photo courtesy ABC)

For too long, Justin Chambers has been the forgotten man of "Grey's Anatomy." He hasn't gotten the Emmy nods like pretty much the entire female cast and T.R. Knight, nor all those magazine covers, like Patrick Dempsey. But this may be a good thing. Because while every other character got sucked into last season's morass of despair and silliness, Chamber's Dr. Alex Karev actually had a pretty decent story line. While dallying with the dear departed Addison, he developed a soft spot for children, those small humans no one but Bailey seems to even register. And in the aftermath of the notorious ferry accident, Karev came to care for the horribly disfigured/beautifully reconstructed Ava/Rebecca, formerly a Jane Doe. Although, in the end, he could not manfully admit his feelings, Chambers did a lovely job revealing a previously prickly character's sweetness without falling into the general slosh of treacle that surrounded him.

This season it is clear that Rebecca is gone but not forgotten and will, if casting rumors are to be believed, be back soon. Meanwhile, Karev has become something of a moral center for the show, pretty interesting since he was originally introduced as pretty much a womanizing jerk. In last night's episode, the second of the season, Karev struggled to aid a baby harmed during an explosion in his apartment. When it turned out the apartment was really a meth lab and the picture-perfect family meth dealers, Karev's outrage bubbled to the surface -- he yelled at the father, who punched him out and stole the poor screaming meth-addicted baby.

Sometimes, as Meredith would say, you just need a break. Just take one look at the characters of "Grey’s Anatomy" assembled in the season premiere, all fresh and familiar in their lab coats with the irritated hopelessness of last season melted away. After months of fallout from Isaiah Washington’s dismissal and Kate Walsh’s spinoff, after Patrick Dempsey’s twins and Katherine Heigl's Emmy, it was nice to get back to business.

This year will be different, we tell ourselves with the hopeful conviction of fifth-graders. Even the voice-over didn’t seem so bothersome, maybe because it seemed to be speaking to us about the show as much as anything else. Change, we were told, is difficult but necessary, though sometimes the more things change, the more they stay the same. Perhaps not the most earthshaking news around, but for a season premiere with not one but three important characters MIA (Washington’s Dr. Burke, Walsh’s Dr. Addison and Kate Burton as Meredith’s mother), it was reassuring nonetheless.

Creator Shonda Rhimes wisely decided to give her characters a bit of a break too. So in Thursday’s episode, we met up with the gang 17 days after Burke left Cristina (Sandra Oh) at the altar, Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) and Derek (Dempsey) may or may not have broken up and George was going to dump Callie Sara Ramirez) for Izzie (Heigl) until he found out he was going to have to repeat his internship. Vacations have been taken — Meredith went with Cristina on her almost honeymoon, Alex drove up to find his former patient Ava (now Rebecca). But no one apparently has cellphones (have you noticed this about "Grey’s"? It’s quite endearing) because Cristina still hasn’t spoken to Burke, nor Meredith to Derek, nor George to Izzie. So there’s a lot of catching up needed to be done. In stairwells and operating theaters, medical supply closets and X-ray rooms.

After months of speculation about his fate, Isaiah Washington, the "Grey's Anatomy" co-star who publicly used a homophobic slur earlier this year after the show had won a Golden Globe for best drama, will not be returning to the popular ABC series.

ABC News, the corporate sibling of both ABC network and ABC Studios, the studio that produces "Grey's," announced the news in an exclusive on Friday morning. A spokeswoman from ABC Studios confirmed that the studio had not picked up his option.

In the ABC News story, Washington issued an unhappy statement through his publicist, Howard Bragman. "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore," it said.

Washington's future with "Grey's" was first called into question when reports leaked out in the fall of an on-set altercation with co-star Patrick Dempsey, during which he reportedly referred to fellow cast member T.R. Knight as a "faggot." A few months later, in front of reporters backstage at the Golden Globes, Washington denied the incident, but repeated the word in the process, causing another uproar.

-- Kate Aurthur

So are they firing Isaiah Washington or what? No doubt, the final scene of the season finale of “Grey’s Anatomy” left many viewers wondering if the tears Cristina was crying after being ditched at the altar were of heartbreak or relief, but some of us were more curious if her anguished “He’s gone” referred to Burke, her former fiance, or the man who plays him.
Washington, of course, was the center of a scandal earlier this year after he referred to cast member T.R. Knight, not once but twice, by a homophobic epithet. Since then, rumors have flown over whether he would be allowed to remain on a show that prides itself on love and tolerance and diversity.
Thursday night’s season finale certainly left that, and a few other things, pretty much hanging. Or not hanging, as the case may be.

If ever there were a motherless child, it is Meredith Grey. Earlier this season, her biological mother died, taking one of the show’s richest story lines—how you come to terms with brilliant but an emotionally abusive mother as she is eaten alive by Alzheimer’s—with her. Then last night, Meredith’s brief but promising relationship with her step-mother (the always welcome and wonderful Mare Winningham) was cut short by a strange infection complication that seemed lifted directly from “House.”

But never mind that. The important thing seems to be that the tentative, tenuous rapprochement Meredith had made with her dithering detached father was snapped, perhaps forever. When receiving the news of his wife’s unexpected death, he lashed out at his daughter, literally and figuratively, while Bailey, the Chief, McDreamy and the rest of us stood by in shock. Wasn’t this man once a doctor himself?

Kate Walsh, it would appear, is getting out in the nick of time. Next week, in a very special two-hour episode, her character, Dr. Addison Shepherd, will vamoose from Seattle for the sunny shores of L.A. May she never look back because “Grey’s Anatomy” is collapsing faster than a punctured lung.

Izzie and George. Izzie and her new hairstyle. Callie and George, Derek and Meredith, Derek and the chief’s job. Addison and Karev, Addison and McSteamy, Cristina and Burke and their wedding cake. Oh which will they pick? Oh what will happen then? Oh who really cares?

Last night’s episode presented the “Grey’s” team with their biggest challenge ever — acting in ways barely recognizable as human much less characteristic. All the interns were suddenly concerned, albeit it briefly and intermittently, with their wink-wink careers as they cutely “studied” for “the biggest test of their internship.” (Surely that has been staying friends with the drippy, relentlessly narcissistic Meredith, no?)

Does anyone but me remember how the series began, with a whole bunch of interns being told by Bailey to look around because more than half of them wouldn’t be there in a few months? Whatever happened to the idea of benching some of these beauties?

So, who'd have thought — George O'Malley, surgical tramp. The doe-eyed, baby-faced, stammering intern, "Grey's Anatomy's" answer to Radar O'Reilly, has now bedded not one, not two, but three of the female leads. Nice guys do get lucky. Or maybe not. By having a drunken liaison with Izzie mere weeks after marrying Callie, George has lost a lot of nice-guy cred. Which probably means he'll be making it with Cristina any minute now, since she seems to like mean guys.

See, this is why we love "Grey's." It allows us a guilt-free opportunity to advise, counsel and pass judgment on people who are having way more sex with way more people than the average American. No character on the show has children (except Bailey, and I'd like to see the man who could seduce her), so we don't have to fret about innocent bystander victims of random couplings and uncouplings. All the adult characters have the soap-opera requisite "Eternal Sunshine" mind wipes that allow them to maintain relationships with people who'd basely betrayed them just a few episodes ago.

Here's a shocker — Meredith Grey is not dead. And so ABC will not have to change the name of its hit show to "Yin and Yang" after Cristina or "Bailey's Irish Cream" after Miranda.

From the moment Meredith went into the water in the first part of a three-episode "Grey's Anatomy" special event, we all knew she wasn't going to die — why, many of us had just seen Ellen Pompeo at the Golden Globes, and she did not look even remotely like a woman who'd been canned. So as the Meredith-battles-for-life plot line engulfed the second and third portion of a narrative following what looked to be the worst ferry accident in American history, tension was noticeable only in its absence.

In its place were some of the worst script decisions since, yes, I'll say it, Fonzie jumped the shark.

There are several reasons "Grey's Anatomy" is an award-winning hit and if last week's episode did not include any of them, this week more than made up for it. The trademark combination of weird medicine — patient with toxic blood practically kills half the leads — and weird romance — George and Callie got married in Vegas! Addison and Karev make hungry-wolf eyes at each other! — kept the action moving in full scrubs-flapping, one-line snapping form.

But more important was the near surgical display of the show's beating heart — the non-romantic relationship.

The problem with having a real-life publicity problem plaguing your hit television show is that it tears down the fourth wall, allowing the viewer to engage in way too much actor-analysis and general sub-texting, which, no matter what Us Weekly may tell you, is never a good thing. Especially for a relationship-driven quasi-soap opera like “Grey’s Anatomy” where the lovability of the characters is key.

Unfortunately, last night’s episode was one of the weakest in a while: runaway Amish girls coped with cervical cancer (allowing Dr. Bailey to give one of her famous operating table lectures—ladies, get those pap smears). George attempted to find solace for his father’s death by having lots of sex (worth it just to hear partner Callie’s heaving I-can’t-take-it monologue—“I’m tired of having my legs bent in ways my legs don’t go”). The Chief of Surgery officially announced his retirement and all the leads at Seattle Grace suddenly began vying to fill his shoes.

'Grey's' recovers and bids adieu for now

The first bona fide tragedy of the writers strike is about to occur. After months of slipping and sliding in an attempt to regain its footing after a disastrous third season, "Grey's Anatomy" has definitely regained its grip, just in time to run out of new episodes. Frankly, I can't think of a better reason for the writers and the producers to come to terms as quickly as possible because who knows what will happen if the writer's room remains empty and fallow for much longer.

ABC did its best to prolong the joyous event by stringing out a two-part special episode over three weeks, which was pretty smart. Two weeks ago, a car wreck involving emergency vehicles made for what is a season stalwart for any medical show: the big disaster scenario. Last year, if you will remember, it was the ferry accident, in which the graphics far outshone the script, which focused more on Meredith's chronic ennui than on all the dead and dying. But the least said about that the better because this time around, the injuries and the medicine were at the forefront and Meredith was allowed to behave not only like a doctor, but a doctor with some chops, aiding a beloved ambulance driver who was trapped upside down in his vehicle.

Meanwhile, Lexie was bathed in the blood of an exploded carotid artery from a patient who had a tumor removed, Bailey gets caught in the unwinnable war between career and home life as she operates on a white supremacist, Izzie tries to please the unpleasable Dr. Hahn who, in turn, cuts Mark off at the knees all while trying to save two patients and proving that she is harder on herself than on anyone else. Alex has snuck Ava into the observation gallery to watch him operate, only things go horribly wrong, both medically and then personally. (Fortunately, they still manage to have sex.) Derek fixes a woman's brain while continuing his flirtation with Rose, and when Meredith finally tells him (for about the third time) that she really does want a relationship, Patrick Dempsey gets to make his eyes shine in that sad, patient way that has turned him into a heartthrob. Meredith, darling, we think it may finally be too late.

The result was tense and tender, intriguing and revealing, the fine balance between medicine and personality that made "Grey's" such a big hit in the first place. Most importantly, Meredith seems to have regained some of the power she had in the first two seasons when she may have been dithering over her love life but she was still caring for her ailing mother and attempting to forge a career outside her formidable shadow.

Bringing stepsister Lexie in was, it seems, an inspired idea. Not only does the show now have a backup Grey should Ellen Pompeo decide to cut and run for a film career, but Lexie gives Meredith a chance to show her strengths and weaknesses in a more sophisticated and believable way than in the endless, and increasingly irritating, dance with Derek. Likewise, allowing Derek to explore another relationship will, one hopes, give Dempsey a little more room as an actor. Watching his character get jerked around according to the needs of Meredith had to be hard on the man who can do much better work than patience and that startlingly sexy smile.

The emerging Bailey story line -- husband seems on the verge of leaving because she is too taken with work -- is a welcome replacement to all the various romances. These people are adults, after all, and issues of the heart continue long after the supply room sex stage wears off.

All of which makes the probability of many months without this new and improved "Grey's" a bleak and frustrating scenario. It isn't easy to get and keep a group of writers in sync, producing at such a high level, which is why the hit shows are the hit shows and the rest are not. We viewers can only hope that the damage of the strike will not permanently throw everyone off their stride, that these talented people will be able to pick up where they left off, right here, right now.

It is to be hoped that the writers and producers settle their differences quickly, if for no other reason than that "Grey's Anatomy" is getting good again. While it is far too easy for fans to read things into any sort of change on such a clacked-about show, there does seem to be a relationship between the complaints of last season and the developments of this. So maybe those interactive network websites aren't just for show after all.

First there was the introduction of Dr. Erica Hahn (Brooke Smith) to the permanent staff. Competitive and combative, Hahn cut through a lot of the treacle build-up from last season, making comments that could have come right from America's exasperated living rooms and giving us reason to hope that some of the women might just remember they are doctors, not high school drama queens.

Last night took the theme of self-examination one step further, with Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) informing us that a hospital can, at times, seem like nothing so much as high school. No kidding. A few minutes later, Bailey (Chandra Wilson), the new chief resident, read everyone the riot act, pointing out that the locker room was for changing, "not crying," and that the on-call room should not be used for anything requiring a locked door. "Grow up," she told Izzie (Katherine Heigl), busy whispering about her fizzling romance with George, and thousands cheered.

An accident involving high school students and their teacher made for some interesting medicine but, more important,  was a way to deconstruct some of the irritation aspects of the staff/show. Derek (Patrick Dempsey) gets busted for cliquishness by a nurse who has worked with him dozens of times without him so much as learning her name. Bailey, our tough-talking Bailey, is reduced to a flirting mewling mess by a former classmate who was the object of her unrequited love. For my money, any episode's success is directly proportionate to the amount of time Wilson is on-screen.

For another show, an episode seeing the cast through the lens of high school would be a nice break from the routine; for "Grey's," it is a smart, entertaining and almost heroic way of acknowledging complaints about the decreasing maturity levels of the characters and giving everyone a chance to step back, breathe and perhaps start again. Including Izzie and George (T.R. Knight), who have finally acknowledged that they are better friends than lovers. Though viewers may not quite be ready to forgive all the hours wasted on that silly and doomed relationship, it is a relief to know that finally we are all on, if not the same page, then at least the same planet.

(Photo courtesy ABC)

Just when you think you're out, they pull you back in. Brooke Smith! How I love Brooke Smith. And it's been a big season for her, with guest appearances on "Weeds" and too briefly, "Dirty Sexy Money." But now she has found a home and one in which she can do so much good. "Grey's Anatomy" remains a big hit, but fans are still waiting for the change they were promised after the dismal third season. And this, ladies and gentleman, might just be it.

Indeed, from the moment two seasons ago when her Erica Hahn faced off with Isaiah Washington's Preston Burke I have nursed a secret hope that Burke would be out and Hahn would be in, and look. All those years of saying the beads have paid off. She breezed in last week like a desperately needed bracing breath of fresh air, cutting through all the Seattle Grace baloney like a woman who actually knows how to wield a scalpel.

Last episode, she dressed down Cristina for her penchant for sleeping with her mentors. Last night, she had the guys in her headlights, pointing out to the chief that favoring the male surgeons over the female surgeons was sexist, and wondering why exactly the male surgeons were so "ridiculously attractive. But perhaps the best moment of the entire show was when she gave McSteamy and McDreamy a long cool stare and asked the first question that would come to any normal person's mind: "Are you a couple?"

There's life in the old "Grey's" yet, it would seem. One can only hope the writers will continue to use Hahn as a voice of the people, taking apart many of the sacred but irritating cows the show has somehow accumulated, rather than throwing her quickly into the arms of Derek or Mark or both. Okay, both would be interesting, but this isn't HBO. Just please not George. That story line mooches on, improving only in that Callie seems to have regained consciousness. Spurred by the sight of two women holding onto a bloody wedding dress for dear life in hopes they will win their dream wedding, Callie has decided to let go and return to her normal sassy, smart self. Izzie and George, however, continue to pursue the most unlikely relationship ever conceived, which is so boring that even Izzie fell asleep before they could consummate it.

And Meredith remains mired in her self-indulgent "issues," pushing Derek away as she turns to Cristina for comfort. Yawn. Maybe they should become a couple. That would explain a lot and offer a much more interesting plot line than the whole tired Derek thing. Because even if Mer/Der does come to be, how compelling will it be, really, after all this?

The good news is we care again. Because if anyone can shake Seattle Grace up, it's Brooke Smith. Or rather Erica Hahn. But you know what I mean.

(Photo courtesy ABC)

I don't know what condition of post-feminism we are currently living under (post-post-post perhaps), but after last night's "Grey's Anatomy," I think everyone should scramble through their boxed-up college paperbacks and find their copies of "The Golden Notebook" because we need to get back to basics, people.

The headliner of the episode was that, in time-honored fashion, Callie forgave the adulterous George and confronted Izzie, calling her a traitorous . . . rhymes with witch. "You did this to another woman," Callie said, blaming the woman who was not even her friend in the sentiments of 20,000 drink-and-dials. Indeed, it was George who had to explain to the suddenly, inexplicably spineless Callie that she didn't really forgive him because what he did was unforgivable. In the words of Tracy Lord: "Aren't men wonderful?"

Izzie, meanwhile, thought Callie's request to meet in the cafeteria was a girl fight throw-down, which is just insane (Is this a hospital? Are they doctors?), but then Izzie has been gone from the rational part of this planet for so long there really is no point in discussing it. Again, it was up to a man -- this time, Alex -- to put things in perspective. When he found out about the George thing, he was justifiably disgusted and hurt -- Izzie could have had Alex, but she settled for George? After Denny? Izzie makes Meredith look like the healthiest girl on the block.

And that's tough to do since Meredith was so busy twittering and twitching over the fact that Derek was "bonding" with her stepsister Lexie that she allows her bumbling intern to inform the wrong patient that she is dying from cancer. She got a wrist-slap from Dr. McSteamy and a lecture from Derek, who told her once again that she is a child and he loves her but he isn't quite sure he can wait for her to grow up.

If you think for a moment, this is exactly why many people argued against women becoming doctors or being in the workplace at all -- they are too emotional, they will only distract their male colleagues with damaging sexual affairs, and they can't be serious professionals. In early "Grey's," the women were a much more interesting mix of strength and weakness, with characters like Bailey, Cristina and Callie balancing the more broken personalities of Meredith and Izzie. Who, in the old days, were still actually interested in medicine and their careers as well as their love lives. But with Bailey inexplicably sidelined and Callie wandering around in a haze, there is not a single functioning female spine in view. Even Cristina is too busy abusing Lexie because of the Meredith connection to do her job -- teaching interns -- properly, as Derek (of course) reminded her in another male-on-female dress-down.

If only Callie could come out swinging, or Izzie get some therapy. Meredith and Lexie could duke it out and get their father into AA. Thankfully, Ava's coming back. She's one tough cookie, and we need some tough cookies. Because Lessing won the Nobel this year. And that has to mean something.

-- Mary McNamara

(Photo courtesy ABC)

Edward Herrmann has joined the cast of "Grey's Anatomy." I know, I know, I should have led with: George finally told Callie that he slept with Izzie! Oh my! But frankly, the appearance of Herrmann, that veteran actor last seen on "The Gilmore Girls," is a lot more interesting and uplifting, proving as it does two things: "Grey's" is definitely on an upswing and old-guy interns are the latest TV trend.

Over at Fox, an AARP member is trying to become part of "House's" team, despite the fact that he never graduated medical school, and now Herrmann gives us Norman, a pharmacist-turned-doc-wannabe. He didn't have much to do on last night's episode, except spout old-guy platitudes and generally test Dr. Karev's ability to control his own intern, but we've already gleaned that his wife is dead, his children are grown and now he wants to be a doctor. Given that it's Herrmann (I still cry when I think of his character's tragic demise in "The Great Waldo Pepper"), I think we can expect great things.

There was a definite geriatric theme at Seattle Grace last evening. Really Old Guy, the coma patient in whose room our intrepid team has gathered for lunch since Season 1, woke up. Woke up and started spouting all sorts of marriage-counselor wisdom, mainly that Izzie should not hold her breath for George because men almost never leave their wives. (Which, given the current divorce statistics, doesn't seem quite accurate, but then the man's been in a coma for years.)

It's still hard to see where we're going this season; there is a slowness and steadiness to the story lines, which, while less grim than last year, feel a little too careful and sometimes repetitive. Yes, George did finally tell Callie, and with any luck the fallout will be excruciating and terrific. The whole Izzie/George storyline cannot be resolved soon enough, although if it gives the writers an excuse to bring back the old weird and vibrant Callie (remember when she lived in the hospital and danced in her underwear?), I am all for it. This pale and wan Callie is a waste of Sarah Ramirez's considerable talents. She and Bailey have not had nearly enough to do in these opening episodes, though Bailey has at least been able to vent her "Nazi" character's common sense once or twice. Even Meredith seems subdued, her clandestine, closeted shagging of Derek notwithstanding.

It is, by necessity, a more diffuse "Grey's," and the writers seem to be proceeding with caution. The addition of the new interns destroys the show's original template -- focusing on a group of residents is a bit less tidy. But Herrmann can only improve things, and if rumor is to be believed, there are other new and returning characters waiting in the wings.  Me, I keep hoping Denny's ghost will materialize -- maybe he could do what Old Guy couldn't: knock a little sense into Izzie.

--Mary McNamara

(Photo courtesy ABC)

For too long, Justin Chambers has been the forgotten man of "Grey's Anatomy." He hasn't gotten the Emmy nods like pretty much the entire female cast and T.R. Knight, nor all those magazine covers, like Patrick Dempsey. But this may be a good thing. Because while every other character got sucked into last season's morass of despair and silliness, Chamber's Dr. Alex Karev actually had a pretty decent story line. While dallying with the dear departed Addison, he developed a soft spot for children, those small humans no one but Bailey seems to even register. And in the aftermath of the notorious ferry accident, Karev came to care for the horribly disfigured/beautifully reconstructed Ava/Rebecca, formerly a Jane Doe. Although, in the end, he could not manfully admit his feelings, Chambers did a lovely job revealing a previously prickly character's sweetness without falling into the general slosh of treacle that surrounded him.

This season it is clear that Rebecca is gone but not forgotten and will, if casting rumors are to be believed, be back soon. Meanwhile, Karev has become something of a moral center for the show, pretty interesting since he was originally introduced as pretty much a womanizing jerk. In last night's episode, the second of the season, Karev struggled to aid a baby harmed during an explosion in his apartment. When it turned out the apartment was really a meth lab and the picture-perfect family meth dealers, Karev's outrage bubbled to the surface -- he yelled at the father, who punched him out and stole the poor screaming meth-addicted baby.

Sometimes, as Meredith would say, you just need a break. Just take one look at the characters of "Grey’s Anatomy" assembled in the season premiere, all fresh and familiar in their lab coats with the irritated hopelessness of last season melted away. After months of fallout from Isaiah Washington’s dismissal and Kate Walsh’s spinoff, after Patrick Dempsey’s twins and Katherine Heigl's Emmy, it was nice to get back to business.

This year will be different, we tell ourselves with the hopeful conviction of fifth-graders. Even the voice-over didn’t seem so bothersome, maybe because it seemed to be speaking to us about the show as much as anything else. Change, we were told, is difficult but necessary, though sometimes the more things change, the more they stay the same. Perhaps not the most earthshaking news around, but for a season premiere with not one but three important characters MIA (Washington’s Dr. Burke, Walsh’s Dr. Addison and Kate Burton as Meredith’s mother), it was reassuring nonetheless.

Creator Shonda Rhimes wisely decided to give her characters a bit of a break too. So in Thursday’s episode, we met up with the gang 17 days after Burke left Cristina (Sandra Oh) at the altar, Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) and Derek (Dempsey) may or may not have broken up and George was going to dump Callie Sara Ramirez) for Izzie (Heigl) until he found out he was going to have to repeat his internship. Vacations have been taken — Meredith went with Cristina on her almost honeymoon, Alex drove up to find his former patient Ava (now Rebecca). But no one apparently has cellphones (have you noticed this about "Grey’s"? It’s quite endearing) because Cristina still hasn’t spoken to Burke, nor Meredith to Derek, nor George to Izzie. So there’s a lot of catching up needed to be done. In stairwells and operating theaters, medical supply closets and X-ray rooms.

After months of speculation about his fate, Isaiah Washington, the "Grey's Anatomy" co-star who publicly used a homophobic slur earlier this year after the show had won a Golden Globe for best drama, will not be returning to the popular ABC series.

ABC News, the corporate sibling of both ABC network and ABC Studios, the studio that produces "Grey's," announced the news in an exclusive on Friday morning. A spokeswoman from ABC Studios confirmed that the studio had not picked up his option.

In the ABC News story, Washington issued an unhappy statement through his publicist, Howard Bragman. "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore," it said.

Washington's future with "Grey's" was first called into question when reports leaked out in the fall of an on-set altercation with co-star Patrick Dempsey, during which he reportedly referred to fellow cast member T.R. Knight as a "faggot." A few months later, in front of reporters backstage at the Golden Globes, Washington denied the incident, but repeated the word in the process, causing another uproar.

-- Kate Aurthur

So are they firing Isaiah Washington or what? No doubt, the final scene of the season finale of “Grey’s Anatomy” left many viewers wondering if the tears Cristina was crying after being ditched at the altar were of heartbreak or relief, but some of us were more curious if her anguished “He’s gone” referred to Burke, her former fiance, or the man who plays him.
Washington, of course, was the center of a scandal earlier this year after he referred to cast member T.R. Knight, not once but twice, by a homophobic epithet. Since then, rumors have flown over whether he would be allowed to remain on a show that prides itself on love and tolerance and diversity.
Thursday night’s season finale certainly left that, and a few other things, pretty much hanging. Or not hanging, as the case may be.

If ever there were a motherless child, it is Meredith Grey. Earlier this season, her biological mother died, taking one of the show’s richest story lines—how you come to terms with brilliant but an emotionally abusive mother as she is eaten alive by Alzheimer’s—with her. Then last night, Meredith’s brief but promising relationship with her step-mother (the always welcome and wonderful Mare Winningham) was cut short by a strange infection complication that seemed lifted directly from “House.”

But never mind that. The important thing seems to be that the tentative, tenuous rapprochement Meredith had made with her dithering detached father was snapped, perhaps forever. When receiving the news of his wife’s unexpected death, he lashed out at his daughter, literally and figuratively, while Bailey, the Chief, McDreamy and the rest of us stood by in shock. Wasn’t this man once a doctor himself?

Kate Walsh, it would appear, is getting out in the nick of time. Next week, in a very special two-hour episode, her character, Dr. Addison Shepherd, will vamoose from Seattle for the sunny shores of L.A. May she never look back because “Grey’s Anatomy” is collapsing faster than a punctured lung.

Izzie and George. Izzie and her new hairstyle. Callie and George, Derek and Meredith, Derek and the chief’s job. Addison and Karev, Addison and McSteamy, Cristina and Burke and their wedding cake. Oh which will they pick? Oh what will happen then? Oh who really cares?

Last night’s episode presented the “Grey’s” team with their biggest challenge ever — acting in ways barely recognizable as human much less characteristic. All the interns were suddenly concerned, albeit it briefly and intermittently, with their wink-wink careers as they cutely “studied” for “the biggest test of their internship.” (Surely that has been staying friends with the drippy, relentlessly narcissistic Meredith, no?)

Does anyone but me remember how the series began, with a whole bunch of interns being told by Bailey to look around because more than half of them wouldn’t be there in a few months? Whatever happened to the idea of benching some of these beauties?

So, who'd have thought — George O'Malley, surgical tramp. The doe-eyed, baby-faced, stammering intern, "Grey's Anatomy's" answer to Radar O'Reilly, has now bedded not one, not two, but three of the female leads. Nice guys do get lucky. Or maybe not. By having a drunken liaison with Izzie mere weeks after marrying Callie, George has lost a lot of nice-guy cred. Which probably means he'll be making it with Cristina any minute now, since she seems to like mean guys.

See, this is why we love "Grey's." It allows us a guilt-free opportunity to advise, counsel and pass judgment on people who are having way more sex with way more people than the average American. No character on the show has children (except Bailey, and I'd like to see the man who could seduce her), so we don't have to fret about innocent bystander victims of random couplings and uncouplings. All the adult characters have the soap-opera requisite "Eternal Sunshine" mind wipes that allow them to maintain relationships with people who'd basely betrayed them just a few episodes ago.

Here's a shocker — Meredith Grey is not dead. And so ABC will not have to change the name of its hit show to "Yin and Yang" after Cristina or "Bailey's Irish Cream" after Miranda.

From the moment Meredith went into the water in the first part of a three-episode "Grey's Anatomy" special event, we all knew she wasn't going to die — why, many of us had just seen Ellen Pompeo at the Golden Globes, and she did not look even remotely like a woman who'd been canned. So as the Meredith-battles-for-life plot line engulfed the second and third portion of a narrative following what looked to be the worst ferry accident in American history, tension was noticeable only in its absence.

In its place were some of the worst script decisions since, yes, I'll say it, Fonzie jumped the shark.

There are several reasons "Grey's Anatomy" is an award-winning hit and if last week's episode did not include any of them, this week more than made up for it. The trademark combination of weird medicine — patient with toxic blood practically kills half the leads — and weird romance — George and Callie got married in Vegas! Addison and Karev make hungry-wolf eyes at each other! — kept the action moving in full scrubs-flapping, one-line snapping form.

But more important was the near surgical display of the show's beating heart — the non-romantic relationship.

The problem with having a real-life publicity problem plaguing your hit television show is that it tears down the fourth wall, allowing the viewer to engage in way too much actor-analysis and general sub-texting, which, no matter what Us Weekly may tell you, is never a good thing. Especially for a relationship-driven quasi-soap opera like “Grey’s Anatomy” where the lovability of the characters is key.

Unfortunately, last night’s episode was one of the weakest in a while: runaway Amish girls coped with cervical cancer (allowing Dr. Bailey to give one of her famous operating table lectures—ladies, get those pap smears). George attempted to find solace for his father’s death by having lots of sex (worth it just to hear partner Callie’s heaving I-can’t-take-it monologue—“I’m tired of having my legs bent in ways my legs don’t go”). The Chief of Surgery officially announced his retirement and all the leads at Seattle Grace suddenly began vying to fill his shoes.

'Grey's Anatomy': high school dramas relived

It is to be hoped that the writers and producers settle their differences quickly, if for no other reason than that "Grey's Anatomy" is getting good again. While it is far too easy for fans to read things into any sort of change on such a clacked-about show, there does seem to be a relationship between the complaints of last season and the developments of this. So maybe those interactive network websites aren't just for show after all.

First there was the introduction of Dr. Erica Hahn (Brooke Smith) to the permanent staff. Competitive and combative, Hahn cut through a lot of the treacle build-up from last season, making comments that could have come right from America's exasperated living rooms and giving us reason to hope that some of the women might just remember they are doctors, not high school drama queens.

Last night took the theme of self-examination one step further, with Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) informing us that a hospital can, at times, seem like nothing so much as high school. No kidding. A few minutes later, Bailey (Chandra Wilson), the new chief resident, read everyone the riot act, pointing out that the locker room was for changing, "not crying," and that the on-call room should not be used for anything requiring a locked door. "Grow up," she told Izzie (Katherine Heigl), busy whispering about her fizzling romance with George, and thousands cheered.

An accident involving high school students and their teacher made for some interesting medicine but, more important,  was a way to deconstruct some of the irritation aspects of the staff/show. Derek (Patrick Dempsey) gets busted for cliquishness by a nurse who has worked with him dozens of times without him so much as learning her name. Bailey, our tough-talking Bailey, is reduced to a flirting mewling mess by a former classmate who was the object of her unrequited love. For my money, any episode's success is directly proportionate to the amount of time Wilson is on-screen.

For another show, an episode seeing the cast through the lens of high school would be a nice break from the routine; for "Grey's," it is a smart, entertaining and almost heroic way of acknowledging complaints about the decreasing maturity levels of the characters and giving everyone a chance to step back, breathe and perhaps start again. Including Izzie and George (T.R. Knight), who have finally acknowledged that they are better friends than lovers. Though viewers may not quite be ready to forgive all the hours wasted on that silly and doomed relationship, it is a relief to know that finally we are all on, if not the same page, then at least the same planet.

(Photo courtesy ABC)

Just when you think you're out, they pull you back in. Brooke Smith! How I love Brooke Smith. And it's been a big season for her, with guest appearances on "Weeds" and too briefly, "Dirty Sexy Money." But now she has found a home and one in which she can do so much good. "Grey's Anatomy" remains a big hit, but fans are still waiting for the change they were promised after the dismal third season. And this, ladies and gentleman, might just be it.

Indeed, from the moment two seasons ago when her Erica Hahn faced off with Isaiah Washington's Preston Burke I have nursed a secret hope that Burke would be out and Hahn would be in, and look. All those years of saying the beads have paid off. She breezed in last week like a desperately needed bracing breath of fresh air, cutting through all the Seattle Grace baloney like a woman who actually knows how to wield a scalpel.

Last episode, she dressed down Cristina for her penchant for sleeping with her mentors. Last night, she had the guys in her headlights, pointing out to the chief that favoring the male surgeons over the female surgeons was sexist, and wondering why exactly the male surgeons were so "ridiculously attractive. But perhaps the best moment of the entire show was when she gave McSteamy and McDreamy a long cool stare and asked the first question that would come to any normal person's mind: "Are you a couple?"

There's life in the old "Grey's" yet, it would seem. One can only hope the writers will continue to use Hahn as a voice of the people, taking apart many of the sacred but irritating cows the show has somehow accumulated, rather than throwing her quickly into the arms of Derek or Mark or both. Okay, both would be interesting, but this isn't HBO. Just please not George. That story line mooches on, improving only in that Callie seems to have regained consciousness. Spurred by the sight of two women holding onto a bloody wedding dress for dear life in hopes they will win their dream wedding, Callie has decided to let go and return to her normal sassy, smart self. Izzie and George, however, continue to pursue the most unlikely relationship ever conceived, which is so boring that even Izzie fell asleep before they could consummate it.

And Meredith remains mired in her self-indulgent "issues," pushing Derek away as she turns to Cristina for comfort. Yawn. Maybe they should become a couple. That would explain a lot and offer a much more interesting plot line than the whole tired Derek thing. Because even if Mer/Der does come to be, how compelling will it be, really, after all this?

The good news is we care again. Because if anyone can shake Seattle Grace up, it's Brooke Smith. Or rather Erica Hahn. But you know what I mean.

(Photo courtesy ABC)

I don't know what condition of post-feminism we are currently living under (post-post-post perhaps), but after last night's "Grey's Anatomy," I think everyone should scramble through their boxed-up college paperbacks and find their copies of "The Golden Notebook" because we need to get back to basics, people.

The headliner of the episode was that, in time-honored fashion, Callie forgave the adulterous George and confronted Izzie, calling her a traitorous . . . rhymes with witch. "You did this to another woman," Callie said, blaming the woman who was not even her friend in the sentiments of 20,000 drink-and-dials. Indeed, it was George who had to explain to the suddenly, inexplicably spineless Callie that she didn't really forgive him because what he did was unforgivable. In the words of Tracy Lord: "Aren't men wonderful?"

Izzie, meanwhile, thought Callie's request to meet in the cafeteria was a girl fight throw-down, which is just insane (Is this a hospital? Are they doctors?), but then Izzie has been gone from the rational part of this planet for so long there really is no point in discussing it. Again, it was up to a man -- this time, Alex -- to put things in perspective. When he found out about the George thing, he was justifiably disgusted and hurt -- Izzie could have had Alex, but she settled for George? After Denny? Izzie makes Meredith look like the healthiest girl on the block.

And that's tough to do since Meredith was so busy twittering and twitching over the fact that Derek was "bonding" with her stepsister Lexie that she allows her bumbling intern to inform the wrong patient that she is dying from cancer. She got a wrist-slap from Dr. McSteamy and a lecture from Derek, who told her once again that she is a child and he loves her but he isn't quite sure he can wait for her to grow up.

If you think for a moment, this is exactly why many people argued against women becoming doctors or being in the workplace at all -- they are too emotional, they will only distract their male colleagues with damaging sexual affairs, and they can't be serious professionals. In early "Grey's," the women were a much more interesting mix of strength and weakness, with characters like Bailey, Cristina and Callie balancing the more broken personalities of Meredith and Izzie. Who, in the old days, were still actually interested in medicine and their careers as well as their love lives. But with Bailey inexplicably sidelined and Callie wandering around in a haze, there is not a single functioning female spine in view. Even Cristina is too busy abusing Lexie because of the Meredith connection to do her job -- teaching interns -- properly, as Derek (of course) reminded her in another male-on-female dress-down.

If only Callie could come out swinging, or Izzie get some therapy. Meredith and Lexie could duke it out and get their father into AA. Thankfully, Ava's coming back. She's one tough cookie, and we need some tough cookies. Because Lessing won the Nobel this year. And that has to mean something.

-- Mary McNamara

(Photo courtesy ABC)

Edward Herrmann has joined the cast of "Grey's Anatomy." I know, I know, I should have led with: George finally told Callie that he slept with Izzie! Oh my! But frankly, the appearance of Herrmann, that veteran actor last seen on "The Gilmore Girls," is a lot more interesting and uplifting, proving as it does two things: "Grey's" is definitely on an upswing and old-guy interns are the latest TV trend.

Over at Fox, an AARP member is trying to become part of "House's" team, despite the fact that he never graduated medical school, and now Herrmann gives us Norman, a pharmacist-turned-doc-wannabe. He didn't have much to do on last night's episode, except spout old-guy platitudes and generally test Dr. Karev's ability to control his own intern, but we've already gleaned that his wife is dead, his children are grown and now he wants to be a doctor. Given that it's Herrmann (I still cry when I think of his character's tragic demise in "The Great Waldo Pepper"), I think we can expect great things.

There was a definite geriatric theme at Seattle Grace last evening. Really Old Guy, the coma patient in whose room our intrepid team has gathered for lunch since Season 1, woke up. Woke up and started spouting all sorts of marriage-counselor wisdom, mainly that Izzie should not hold her breath for George because men almost never leave their wives. (Which, given the current divorce statistics, doesn't seem quite accurate, but then the man's been in a coma for years.)

It's still hard to see where we're going this season; there is a slowness and steadiness to the story lines, which, while less grim than last year, feel a little too careful and sometimes repetitive. Yes, George did finally tell Callie, and with any luck the fallout will be excruciating and terrific. The whole Izzie/George storyline cannot be resolved soon enough, although if it gives the writers an excuse to bring back the old weird and vibrant Callie (remember when she lived in the hospital and danced in her underwear?), I am all for it. This pale and wan Callie is a waste of Sarah Ramirez's considerable talents. She and Bailey have not had nearly enough to do in these opening episodes, though Bailey has at least been able to vent her "Nazi" character's common sense once or twice. Even Meredith seems subdued, her clandestine, closeted shagging of Derek notwithstanding.

It is, by necessity, a more diffuse "Grey's," and the writers seem to be proceeding with caution. The addition of the new interns destroys the show's original template -- focusing on a group of residents is a bit less tidy. But Herrmann can only improve things, and if rumor is to be believed, there are other new and returning characters waiting in the wings.  Me, I keep hoping Denny's ghost will materialize -- maybe he could do what Old Guy couldn't: knock a little sense into Izzie.

--Mary McNamara

(Photo courtesy ABC)

For too long, Justin Chambers has been the forgotten man of "Grey's Anatomy." He hasn't gotten the Emmy nods like pretty much the entire female cast and T.R. Knight, nor all those magazine covers, like Patrick Dempsey. But this may be a good thing. Because while every other character got sucked into last season's morass of despair and silliness, Chamber's Dr. Alex Karev actually had a pretty decent story line. While dallying with the dear departed Addison, he developed a soft spot for children, those small humans no one but Bailey seems to even register. And in the aftermath of the notorious ferry accident, Karev came to care for the horribly disfigured/beautifully reconstructed Ava/Rebecca, formerly a Jane Doe. Although, in the end, he could not manfully admit his feelings, Chambers did a lovely job revealing a previously prickly character's sweetness without falling into the general slosh of treacle that surrounded him.

This season it is clear that Rebecca is gone but not forgotten and will, if casting rumors are to be believed, be back soon. Meanwhile, Karev has become something of a moral center for the show, pretty interesting since he was originally introduced as pretty much a womanizing jerk. In last night's episode, the second of the season, Karev struggled to aid a baby harmed during an explosion in his apartment. When it turned out the apartment was really a meth lab and the picture-perfect family meth dealers, Karev's outrage bubbled to the surface -- he yelled at the father, who punched him out and stole the poor screaming meth-addicted baby.

Sometimes, as Meredith would say, you just need a break. Just take one look at the characters of "Grey’s Anatomy" assembled in the season premiere, all fresh and familiar in their lab coats with the irritated hopelessness of last season melted away. After months of fallout from Isaiah Washington’s dismissal and Kate Walsh’s spinoff, after Patrick Dempsey’s twins and Katherine Heigl's Emmy, it was nice to get back to business.

This year will be different, we tell ourselves with the hopeful conviction of fifth-graders. Even the voice-over didn’t seem so bothersome, maybe because it seemed to be speaking to us about the show as much as anything else. Change, we were told, is difficult but necessary, though sometimes the more things change, the more they stay the same. Perhaps not the most earthshaking news around, but for a season premiere with not one but three important characters MIA (Washington’s Dr. Burke, Walsh’s Dr. Addison and Kate Burton as Meredith’s mother), it was reassuring nonetheless.

Creator Shonda Rhimes wisely decided to give her characters a bit of a break too. So in Thursday’s episode, we met up with the gang 17 days after Burke left Cristina (Sandra Oh) at the altar, Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) and Derek (Dempsey) may or may not have broken up and George was going to dump Callie Sara Ramirez) for Izzie (Heigl) until he found out he was going to have to repeat his internship. Vacations have been taken — Meredith went with Cristina on her almost honeymoon, Alex drove up to find his former patient Ava (now Rebecca). But no one apparently has cellphones (have you noticed this about "Grey’s"? It’s quite endearing) because Cristina still hasn’t spoken to Burke, nor Meredith to Derek, nor George to Izzie. So there’s a lot of catching up needed to be done. In stairwells and operating theaters, medical supply closets and X-ray rooms.

After months of speculation about his fate, Isaiah Washington, the "Grey's Anatomy" co-star who publicly used a homophobic slur earlier this year after the show had won a Golden Globe for best drama, will not be returning to the popular ABC series.

ABC News, the corporate sibling of both ABC network and ABC Studios, the studio that produces "Grey's," announced the news in an exclusive on Friday morning. A spokeswoman from ABC Studios confirmed that the studio had not picked up his option.

In the ABC News story, Washington issued an unhappy statement through his publicist, Howard Bragman. "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore," it said.

Washington's future with "Grey's" was first called into question when reports leaked out in the fall of an on-set altercation with co-star Patrick Dempsey, during which he reportedly referred to fellow cast member T.R. Knight as a "faggot." A few months later, in front of reporters backstage at the Golden Globes, Washington denied the incident, but repeated the word in the process, causing another uproar.

-- Kate Aurthur

So are they firing Isaiah Washington or what? No doubt, the final scene of the season finale of “Grey’s Anatomy” left many viewers wondering if the tears Cristina was crying after being ditched at the altar were of heartbreak or relief, but some of us were more curious if her anguished “He’s gone” referred to Burke, her former fiance, or the man who plays him.
Washington, of course, was the center of a scandal earlier this year after he referred to cast member T.R. Knight, not once but twice, by a homophobic epithet. Since then, rumors have flown over whether he would be allowed to remain on a show that prides itself on love and tolerance and diversity.
Thursday night’s season finale certainly left that, and a few other things, pretty much hanging. Or not hanging, as the case may be.

If ever there were a motherless child, it is Meredith Grey. Earlier this season, her biological mother died, taking one of the show’s richest story lines—how you come to terms with brilliant but an emotionally abusive mother as she is eaten alive by Alzheimer’s—with her. Then last night, Meredith’s brief but promising relationship with her step-mother (the always welcome and wonderful Mare Winningham) was cut short by a strange infection complication that seemed lifted directly from “House.”

But never mind that. The important thing seems to be that the tentative, tenuous rapprochement Meredith had made with her dithering detached father was snapped, perhaps forever. When receiving the news of his wife’s unexpected death, he lashed out at his daughter, literally and figuratively, while Bailey, the Chief, McDreamy and the rest of us stood by in shock. Wasn’t this man once a doctor himself?

Kate Walsh, it would appear, is getting out in the nick of time. Next week, in a very special two-hour episode, her character, Dr. Addison Shepherd, will vamoose from Seattle for the sunny shores of L.A. May she never look back because “Grey’s Anatomy” is collapsing faster than a punctured lung.

Izzie and George. Izzie and her new hairstyle. Callie and George, Derek and Meredith, Derek and the chief’s job. Addison and Karev, Addison and McSteamy, Cristina and Burke and their wedding cake. Oh which will they pick? Oh what will happen then? Oh who really cares?

Last night’s episode presented the “Grey’s” team with their biggest challenge ever — acting in ways barely recognizable as human much less characteristic. All the interns were suddenly concerned, albeit it briefly and intermittently, with their wink-wink careers as they cutely “studied” for “the biggest test of their internship.” (Surely that has been staying friends with the drippy, relentlessly narcissistic Meredith, no?)

Does anyone but me remember how the series began, with a whole bunch of interns being told by Bailey to look around because more than half of them wouldn’t be there in a few months? Whatever happened to the idea of benching some of these beauties?

So, who'd have thought — George O'Malley, surgical tramp. The doe-eyed, baby-faced, stammering intern, "Grey's Anatomy's" answer to Radar O'Reilly, has now bedded not one, not two, but three of the female leads. Nice guys do get lucky. Or maybe not. By having a drunken liaison with Izzie mere weeks after marrying Callie, George has lost a lot of nice-guy cred. Which probably means he'll be making it with Cristina any minute now, since she seems to like mean guys.

See, this is why we love "Grey's." It allows us a guilt-free opportunity to advise, counsel and pass judgment on people who are having way more sex with way more people than the average American. No character on the show has children (except Bailey, and I'd like to see the man who could seduce her), so we don't have to fret about innocent bystander victims of random couplings and uncouplings. All the adult characters have the soap-opera requisite "Eternal Sunshine" mind wipes that allow them to maintain relationships with people who'd basely betrayed them just a few episodes ago.

Here's a shocker — Meredith Grey is not dead. And so ABC will not have to change the name of its hit show to "Yin and Yang" after Cristina or "Bailey's Irish Cream" after Miranda.

From the moment Meredith went into the water in the first part of a three-episode "Grey's Anatomy" special event, we all knew she wasn't going to die — why, many of us had just seen Ellen Pompeo at the Golden Globes, and she did not look even remotely like a woman who'd been canned. So as the Meredith-battles-for-life plot line engulfed the second and third portion of a narrative following what looked to be the worst ferry accident in American history, tension was noticeable only in its absence.

In its place were some of the worst script decisions since, yes, I'll say it, Fonzie jumped the shark.

There are several reasons "Grey's Anatomy" is an award-winning hit and if last week's episode did not include any of them, this week more than made up for it. The trademark combination of weird medicine — patient with toxic blood practically kills half the leads — and weird romance — George and Callie got married in Vegas! Addison and Karev make hungry-wolf eyes at each other! — kept the action moving in full scrubs-flapping, one-line snapping form.

But more important was the near surgical display of the show's beating heart — the non-romantic relationship.

The problem with having a real-life publicity problem plaguing your hit television show is that it tears down the fourth wall, allowing the viewer to engage in way too much actor-analysis and general sub-texting, which, no matter what Us Weekly may tell you, is never a good thing. Especially for a relationship-driven quasi-soap opera like “Grey’s Anatomy” where the lovability of the characters is key.

Unfortunately, last night’s episode was one of the weakest in a while: runaway Amish girls coped with cervical cancer (allowing Dr. Bailey to give one of her famous operating table lectures—ladies, get those pap smears). George attempted to find solace for his father’s death by having lots of sex (worth it just to hear partner Callie’s heaving I-can’t-take-it monologue—“I’m tired of having my legs bent in ways my legs don’t go”). The Chief of Surgery officially announced his retirement and all the leads at Seattle Grace suddenly began vying to fill his shoes.

'Grey's Anatomy': A reason to believe again

Just when you think you're out, they pull you back in. Brooke Smith! How I love Brooke Smith. And it's been a big season for her, with guest appearances on "Weeds" and too briefly, "Dirty Sexy Money." But now she has found a home and one in which she can do so much good. "Grey's Anatomy" remains a big hit, but fans are still waiting for the change they were promised after the dismal third season. And this, ladies and gentleman, might just be it.

Indeed, from the moment two seasons ago when her Erica Hahn faced off with Isaiah Washington's Preston Burke I have nursed a secret hope that Burke would be out and Hahn would be in, and look. All those years of saying the beads have paid off. She breezed in last week like a desperately needed bracing breath of fresh air, cutting through all the Seattle Grace baloney like a woman who actually knows how to wield a scalpel.

Last episode, she dressed down Cristina for her penchant for sleeping with her mentors. Last night, she had the guys in her headlights, pointing out to the chief that favoring the male surgeons over the female surgeons was sexist, and wondering why exactly the male surgeons were so "ridiculously attractive. But perhaps the best moment of the entire show was when she gave McSteamy and McDreamy a long cool stare and asked the first question that would come to any normal person's mind: "Are you a couple?"

There's life in the old "Grey's" yet, it would seem. One can only hope the writers will continue to use Hahn as a voice of the people, taking apart many of the sacred but irritating cows the show has somehow accumulated, rather than throwing her quickly into the arms of Derek or Mark or both. Okay, both would be interesting, but this isn't HBO. Just please not George. That story line mooches on, improving only in that Callie seems to have regained consciousness. Spurred by the sight of two women holding onto a bloody wedding dress for dear life in hopes they will win their dream wedding, Callie has decided to let go and return to her normal sassy, smart self. Izzie and George, however, continue to pursue the most unlikely relationship ever conceived, which is so boring that even Izzie fell asleep before they could consummate it.

And Meredith remains mired in her self-indulgent "issues," pushing Derek away as she turns to Cristina for comfort. Yawn. Maybe they should become a couple. That would explain a lot and offer a much more interesting plot line than the whole tired Derek thing. Because even if Mer/Der does come to be, how compelling will it be, really, after all this?

The good news is we care again. Because if anyone can shake Seattle Grace up, it's Brooke Smith. Or rather Erica Hahn. But you know what I mean.

(Photo courtesy ABC)

I don't know what condition of post-feminism we are currently living under (post-post-post perhaps), but after last night's "Grey's Anatomy," I think everyone should scramble through their boxed-up college paperbacks and find their copies of "The Golden Notebook" because we need to get back to basics, people.

The headliner of the episode was that, in time-honored fashion, Callie forgave the adulterous George and confronted Izzie, calling her a traitorous . . . rhymes with witch. "You did this to another woman," Callie said, blaming the woman who was not even her friend in the sentiments of 20,000 drink-and-dials. Indeed, it was George who had to explain to the suddenly, inexplicably spineless Callie that she didn't really forgive him because what he did was unforgivable. In the words of Tracy Lord: "Aren't men wonderful?"

Izzie, meanwhile, thought Callie's request to meet in the cafeteria was a girl fight throw-down, which is just insane (Is this a hospital? Are they doctors?), but then Izzie has been gone from the rational part of this planet for so long there really is no point in discussing it. Again, it was up to a man -- this time, Alex -- to put things in perspective. When he found out about the George thing, he was justifiably disgusted and hurt -- Izzie could have had Alex, but she settled for George? After Denny? Izzie makes Meredith look like the healthiest girl on the block.

And that's tough to do since Meredith was so busy twittering and twitching over the fact that Derek was "bonding" with her stepsister Lexie that she allows her bumbling intern to inform the wrong patient that she is dying from cancer. She got a wrist-slap from Dr. McSteamy and a lecture from Derek, who told her once again that she is a child and he loves her but he isn't quite sure he can wait for her to grow up.

If you think for a moment, this is exactly why many people argued against women becoming doctors or being in the workplace at all -- they are too emotional, they will only distract their male colleagues with damaging sexual affairs, and they can't be serious professionals. In early "Grey's," the women were a much more interesting mix of strength and weakness, with characters like Bailey, Cristina and Callie balancing the more broken personalities of Meredith and Izzie. Who, in the old days, were still actually interested in medicine and their careers as well as their love lives. But with Bailey inexplicably sidelined and Callie wandering around in a haze, there is not a single functioning female spine in view. Even Cristina is too busy abusing Lexie because of the Meredith connection to do her job -- teaching interns -- properly, as Derek (of course) reminded her in another male-on-female dress-down.

If only Callie could come out swinging, or Izzie get some therapy. Meredith and Lexie could duke it out and get their father into AA. Thankfully, Ava's coming back. She's one tough cookie, and we need some tough cookies. Because Lessing won the Nobel this year. And that has to mean something.

-- Mary McNamara

(Photo courtesy ABC)

Edward Herrmann has joined the cast of "Grey's Anatomy." I know, I know, I should have led with: George finally told Callie that he slept with Izzie! Oh my! But frankly, the appearance of Herrmann, that veteran actor last seen on "The Gilmore Girls," is a lot more interesting and uplifting, proving as it does two things: "Grey's" is definitely on an upswing and old-guy interns are the latest TV trend.

Over at Fox, an AARP member is trying to become part of "House's" team, despite the fact that he never graduated medical school, and now Herrmann gives us Norman, a pharmacist-turned-doc-wannabe. He didn't have much to do on last night's episode, except spout old-guy platitudes and generally test Dr. Karev's ability to control his own intern, but we've already gleaned that his wife is dead, his children are grown and now he wants to be a doctor. Given that it's Herrmann (I still cry when I think of his character's tragic demise in "The Great Waldo Pepper"), I think we can expect great things.

There was a definite geriatric theme at Seattle Grace last evening. Really Old Guy, the coma patient in whose room our intrepid team has gathered for lunch since Season 1, woke up. Woke up and started spouting all sorts of marriage-counselor wisdom, mainly that Izzie should not hold her breath for George because men almost never leave their wives. (Which, given the current divorce statistics, doesn't seem quite accurate, but then the man's been in a coma for years.)

It's still hard to see where we're going this season; there is a slowness and steadiness to the story lines, which, while less grim than last year, feel a little too careful and sometimes repetitive. Yes, George did finally tell Callie, and with any luck the fallout will be excruciating and terrific. The whole Izzie/George storyline cannot be resolved soon enough, although if it gives the writers an excuse to bring back the old weird and vibrant Callie (remember when she lived in the hospital and danced in her underwear?), I am all for it. This pale and wan Callie is a waste of Sarah Ramirez's considerable talents. She and Bailey have not had nearly enough to do in these opening episodes, though Bailey has at least been able to vent her "Nazi" character's common sense once or twice. Even Meredith seems subdued, her clandestine, closeted shagging of Derek notwithstanding.

It is, by necessity, a more diffuse "Grey's," and the writers seem to be proceeding with caution. The addition of the new interns destroys the show's original template -- focusing on a group of residents is a bit less tidy. But Herrmann can only improve things, and if rumor is to be believed, there are other new and returning characters waiting in the wings.  Me, I keep hoping Denny's ghost will materialize -- maybe he could do what Old Guy couldn't: knock a little sense into Izzie.

--Mary McNamara

(Photo courtesy ABC)

For too long, Justin Chambers has been the forgotten man of "Grey's Anatomy." He hasn't gotten the Emmy nods like pretty much the entire female cast and T.R. Knight, nor all those magazine covers, like Patrick Dempsey. But this may be a good thing. Because while every other character got sucked into last season's morass of despair and silliness, Chamber's Dr. Alex Karev actually had a pretty decent story line. While dallying with the dear departed Addison, he developed a soft spot for children, those small humans no one but Bailey seems to even register. And in the aftermath of the notorious ferry accident, Karev came to care for the horribly disfigured/beautifully reconstructed Ava/Rebecca, formerly a Jane Doe. Although, in the end, he could not manfully admit his feelings, Chambers did a lovely job revealing a previously prickly character's sweetness without falling into the general slosh of treacle that surrounded him.

This season it is clear that Rebecca is gone but not forgotten and will, if casting rumors are to be believed, be back soon. Meanwhile, Karev has become something of a moral center for the show, pretty interesting since he was originally introduced as pretty much a womanizing jerk. In last night's episode, the second of the season, Karev struggled to aid a baby harmed during an explosion in his apartment. When it turned out the apartment was really a meth lab and the picture-perfect family meth dealers, Karev's outrage bubbled to the surface -- he yelled at the father, who punched him out and stole the poor screaming meth-addicted baby.

Sometimes, as Meredith would say, you just need a break. Just take one look at the characters of "Grey’s Anatomy" assembled in the season premiere, all fresh and familiar in their lab coats with the irritated hopelessness of last season melted away. After months of fallout from Isaiah Washington’s dismissal and Kate Walsh’s spinoff, after Patrick Dempsey’s twins and Katherine Heigl's Emmy, it was nice to get back to business.

This year will be different, we tell ourselves with the hopeful conviction of fifth-graders. Even the voice-over didn’t seem so bothersome, maybe because it seemed to be speaking to us about the show as much as anything else. Change, we were told, is difficult but necessary, though sometimes the more things change, the more they stay the same. Perhaps not the most earthshaking news around, but for a season premiere with not one but three important characters MIA (Washington’s Dr. Burke, Walsh’s Dr. Addison and Kate Burton as Meredith’s mother), it was reassuring nonetheless.

Creator Shonda Rhimes wisely decided to give her characters a bit of a break too. So in Thursday’s episode, we met up with the gang 17 days after Burke left Cristina (Sandra Oh) at the altar, Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) and Derek (Dempsey) may or may not have broken up and George was going to dump Callie Sara Ramirez) for Izzie (Heigl) until he found out he was going to have to repeat his internship. Vacations have been taken — Meredith went with Cristina on her almost honeymoon, Alex drove up to find his former patient Ava (now Rebecca). But no one apparently has cellphones (have you noticed this about "Grey’s"? It’s quite endearing) because Cristina still hasn’t spoken to Burke, nor Meredith to Derek, nor George to Izzie. So there’s a lot of catching up needed to be done. In stairwells and operating theaters, medical supply closets and X-ray rooms.

After months of speculation about his fate, Isaiah Washington, the "Grey's Anatomy" co-star who publicly used a homophobic slur earlier this year after the show had won a Golden Globe for best drama, will not be returning to the popular ABC series.

ABC News, the corporate sibling of both ABC network and ABC Studios, the studio that produces "Grey's," announced the news in an exclusive on Friday morning. A spokeswoman from ABC Studios confirmed that the studio had not picked up his option.

In the ABC News story, Washington issued an unhappy statement through his publicist, Howard Bragman. "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore," it said.

Washington's future with "Grey's" was first called into question when reports leaked out in the fall of an on-set altercation with co-star Patrick Dempsey, during which he reportedly referred to fellow cast member T.R. Knight as a "faggot." A few months later, in front of reporters backstage at the Golden Globes, Washington denied the incident, but repeated the word in the process, causing another uproar.

-- Kate Aurthur

So are they firing Isaiah Washington or what? No doubt, the final scene of the season finale of “Grey’s Anatomy” left many viewers wondering if the tears Cristina was crying after being ditched at the altar were of heartbreak or relief, but some of us were more curious if her anguished “He’s gone” referred to Burke, her former fiance, or the man who plays him.
Washington, of course, was the center of a scandal earlier this year after he referred to cast member T.R. Knight, not once but twice, by a homophobic epithet. Since then, rumors have flown over whether he would be allowed to remain on a show that prides itself on love and tolerance and diversity.
Thursday night’s season finale certainly left that, and a few other things, pretty much hanging. Or not hanging, as the case may be.

If ever there were a motherless child, it is Meredith Grey. Earlier this season, her biological mother died, taking one of the show’s richest story lines—how you come to terms with brilliant but an emotionally abusive mother as she is eaten alive by Alzheimer’s—with her. Then last night, Meredith’s brief but promising relationship with her step-mother (the always welcome and wonderful Mare Winningham) was cut short by a strange infection complication that seemed lifted directly from “House.”

But never mind that. The important thing seems to be that the tentative, tenuous rapprochement Meredith had made with her dithering detached father was snapped, perhaps forever. When receiving the news of his wife’s unexpected death, he lashed out at his daughter, literally and figuratively, while Bailey, the Chief, McDreamy and the rest of us stood by in shock. Wasn’t this man once a doctor himself?

Kate Walsh, it would appear, is getting out in the nick of time. Next week, in a very special two-hour episode, her character, Dr. Addison Shepherd, will vamoose from Seattle for the sunny shores of L.A. May she never look back because “Grey’s Anatomy” is collapsing faster than a punctured lung.

Izzie and George. Izzie and her new hairstyle. Callie and George, Derek and Meredith, Derek and the chief’s job. Addison and Karev, Addison and McSteamy, Cristina and Burke and their wedding cake. Oh which will they pick? Oh what will happen then? Oh who really cares?

Last night’s episode presented the “Grey’s” team with their biggest challenge ever — acting in ways barely recognizable as human much less characteristic. All the interns were suddenly concerned, albeit it briefly and intermittently, with their wink-wink careers as they cutely “studied” for “the biggest test of their internship.” (Surely that has been staying friends with the drippy, relentlessly narcissistic Meredith, no?)

Does anyone but me remember how the series began, with a whole bunch of interns being told by Bailey to look around because more than half of them wouldn’t be there in a few months? Whatever happened to the idea of benching some of these beauties?

So, who'd have thought — George O'Malley, surgical tramp. The doe-eyed, baby-faced, stammering intern, "Grey's Anatomy's" answer to Radar O'Reilly, has now bedded not one, not two, but three of the female leads. Nice guys do get lucky. Or maybe not. By having a drunken liaison with Izzie mere weeks after marrying Callie, George has lost a lot of nice-guy cred. Which probably means he'll be making it with Cristina any minute now, since she seems to like mean guys.

See, this is why we love "Grey's." It allows us a guilt-free opportunity to advise, counsel and pass judgment on people who are having way more sex with way more people than the average American. No character on the show has children (except Bailey, and I'd like to see the man who could seduce her), so we don't have to fret about innocent bystander victims of random couplings and uncouplings. All the adult characters have the soap-opera requisite "Eternal Sunshine" mind wipes that allow them to maintain relationships with people who'd basely betrayed them just a few episodes ago.

Here's a shocker — Meredith Grey is not dead. And so ABC will not have to change the name of its hit show to "Yin and Yang" after Cristina or "Bailey's Irish Cream" after Miranda.

From the moment Meredith went into the water in the first part of a three-episode "Grey's Anatomy" special event, we all knew she wasn't going to die — why, many of us had just seen Ellen Pompeo at the Golden Globes, and she did not look even remotely like a woman who'd been canned. So as the Meredith-battles-for-life plot line engulfed the second and third portion of a narrative following what looked to be the worst ferry accident in American history, tension was noticeable only in its absence.

In its place were some of the worst script decisions since, yes, I'll say it, Fonzie jumped the shark.

There are several reasons "Grey's Anatomy" is an award-winning hit and if last week's episode did not include any of them, this week more than made up for it. The trademark combination of weird medicine — patient with toxic blood practically kills half the leads — and weird romance — George and Callie got married in Vegas! Addison and Karev make hungry-wolf eyes at each other! — kept the action moving in full scrubs-flapping, one-line snapping form.

But more important was the near surgical display of the show's beating heart — the non-romantic relationship.

The problem with having a real-life publicity problem plaguing your hit television show is that it tears down the fourth wall, allowing the viewer to engage in way too much actor-analysis and general sub-texting, which, no matter what Us Weekly may tell you, is never a good thing. Especially for a relationship-driven quasi-soap opera like “Grey’s Anatomy” where the lovability of the characters is key.

Unfortunately, last night’s episode was one of the weakest in a while: runaway Amish girls coped with cervical cancer (allowing Dr. Bailey to give one of her famous operating table lectures—ladies, get those pap smears). George attempted to find solace for his father’s death by having lots of sex (worth it just to hear partner Callie’s heaving I-can’t-take-it monologue—“I’m tired of having my legs bent in ways my legs don’t go”). The Chief of Surgery officially announced his retirement and all the leads at Seattle Grace suddenly began vying to fill his shoes.

'Grey's Anatomy': What's going on with these women?

I don't know what condition of post-feminism we are currently living under (post-post-post perhaps), but after last night's "Grey's Anatomy," I think everyone should scramble through their boxed-up college paperbacks and find their copies of "The Golden Notebook" because we need to get back to basics, people.

The headliner of the episode was that, in time-honored fashion, Callie forgave the adulterous George and confronted Izzie, calling her a traitorous . . . rhymes with witch. "You did this to another woman," Callie said, blaming the woman who was not even her friend in the sentiments of 20,000 drink-and-dials. Indeed, it was George who had to explain to the suddenly, inexplicably spineless Callie that she didn't really forgive him because what he did was unforgivable. In the words of Tracy Lord: "Aren't men wonderful?"

Izzie, meanwhile, thought Callie's request to meet in the cafeteria was a girl fight throw-down, which is just insane (Is this a hospital? Are they doctors?), but then Izzie has been gone from the rational part of this planet for so long there really is no point in discussing it. Again, it was up to a man -- this time, Alex -- to put things in perspective. When he found out about the George thing, he was justifiably disgusted and hurt -- Izzie could have had Alex, but she settled for George? After Denny? Izzie makes Meredith look like the healthiest girl on the block.

And that's tough to do since Meredith was so busy twittering and twitching over the fact that Derek was "bonding" with her stepsister Lexie that she allows her bumbling intern to inform the wrong patient that she is dying from cancer. She got a wrist-slap from Dr. McSteamy and a lecture from Derek, who told her once again that she is a child and he loves her but he isn't quite sure he can wait for her to grow up.

If you think for a moment, this is exactly why many people argued against women becoming doctors or being in the workplace at all -- they are too emotional, they will only distract their male colleagues with damaging sexual affairs, and they can't be serious professionals. In early "Grey's," the women were a much more interesting mix of strength and weakness, with characters like Bailey, Cristina and Callie balancing the more broken personalities of Meredith and Izzie. Who, in the old days, were still actually interested in medicine and their careers as well as their love lives. But with Bailey inexplicably sidelined and Callie wandering around in a haze, there is not a single functioning female spine in view. Even Cristina is too busy abusing Lexie because of the Meredith connection to do her job -- teaching interns -- properly, as Derek (of course) reminded her in another male-on-female dress-down.

If only Callie could come out swinging, or Izzie get some therapy. Meredith and Lexie could duke it out and get their father into AA. Thankfully, Ava's coming back. She's one tough cookie, and we need some tough cookies. Because Lessing won the Nobel this year. And that has to mean something.

-- Mary McNamara

(Photo courtesy ABC)

Edward Herrmann has joined the cast of "Grey's Anatomy." I know, I know, I should have led with: George finally told Callie that he slept with Izzie! Oh my! But frankly, the appearance of Herrmann, that veteran actor last seen on "The Gilmore Girls," is a lot more interesting and uplifting, proving as it does two things: "Grey's" is definitely on an upswing and old-guy interns are the latest TV trend.

Over at Fox, an AARP member is trying to become part of "House's" team, despite the fact that he never graduated medical school, and now Herrmann gives us Norman, a pharmacist-turned-doc-wannabe. He didn't have much to do on last night's episode, except spout old-guy platitudes and generally test Dr. Karev's ability to control his own intern, but we've already gleaned that his wife is dead, his children are grown and now he wants to be a doctor. Given that it's Herrmann (I still cry when I think of his character's tragic demise in "The Great Waldo Pepper"), I think we can expect great things.

There was a definite geriatric theme at Seattle Grace last evening. Really Old Guy, the coma patient in whose room our intrepid team has gathered for lunch since Season 1, woke up. Woke up and started spouting all sorts of marriage-counselor wisdom, mainly that Izzie should not hold her breath for George because men almost never leave their wives. (Which, given the current divorce statistics, doesn't seem quite accurate, but then the man's been in a coma for years.)

It's still hard to see where we're going this season; there is a slowness and steadiness to the story lines, which, while less grim than last year, feel a little too careful and sometimes repetitive. Yes, George did finally tell Callie, and with any luck the fallout will be excruciating and terrific. The whole Izzie/George storyline cannot be resolved soon enough, although if it gives the writers an excuse to bring back the old weird and vibrant Callie (remember when she lived in the hospital and danced in her underwear?), I am all for it. This pale and wan Callie is a waste of Sarah Ramirez's considerable talents. She and Bailey have not had nearly enough to do in these opening episodes, though Bailey has at least been able to vent her "Nazi" character's common sense once or twice. Even Meredith seems subdued, her clandestine, closeted shagging of Derek notwithstanding.

It is, by necessity, a more diffuse "Grey's," and the writers seem to be proceeding with caution. The addition of the new interns destroys the show's original template -- focusing on a group of residents is a bit less tidy. But Herrmann can only improve things, and if rumor is to be believed, there are other new and returning characters waiting in the wings.  Me, I keep hoping Denny's ghost will materialize -- maybe he could do what Old Guy couldn't: knock a little sense into Izzie.

--Mary McNamara

(Photo courtesy ABC)

For too long, Justin Chambers has been the forgotten man of "Grey's Anatomy." He hasn't gotten the Emmy nods like pretty much the entire female cast and T.R. Knight, nor all those magazine covers, like Patrick Dempsey. But this may be a good thing. Because while every other character got sucked into last season's morass of despair and silliness, Chamber's Dr. Alex Karev actually had a pretty decent story line. While dallying with the dear departed Addison, he developed a soft spot for children, those small humans no one but Bailey seems to even register. And in the aftermath of the notorious ferry accident, Karev came to care for the horribly disfigured/beautifully reconstructed Ava/Rebecca, formerly a Jane Doe. Although, in the end, he could not manfully admit his feelings, Chambers did a lovely job revealing a previously prickly character's sweetness without falling into the general slosh of treacle that surrounded him.

This season it is clear that Rebecca is gone but not forgotten and will, if casting rumors are to be believed, be back soon. Meanwhile, Karev has become something of a moral center for the show, pretty interesting since he was originally introduced as pretty much a womanizing jerk. In last night's episode, the second of the season, Karev struggled to aid a baby harmed during an explosion in his apartment. When it turned out the apartment was really a meth lab and the picture-perfect family meth dealers, Karev's outrage bubbled to the surface -- he yelled at the father, who punched him out and stole the poor screaming meth-addicted baby.

Sometimes, as Meredith would say, you just need a break. Just take one look at the characters of "Grey’s Anatomy" assembled in the season premiere, all fresh and familiar in their lab coats with the irritated hopelessness of last season melted away. After months of fallout from Isaiah Washington’s dismissal and Kate Walsh’s spinoff, after Patrick Dempsey’s twins and Katherine Heigl's Emmy, it was nice to get back to business.

This year will be different, we tell ourselves with the hopeful conviction of fifth-graders. Even the voice-over didn’t seem so bothersome, maybe because it seemed to be speaking to us about the show as much as anything else. Change, we were told, is difficult but necessary, though sometimes the more things change, the more they stay the same. Perhaps not the most earthshaking news around, but for a season premiere with not one but three important characters MIA (Washington’s Dr. Burke, Walsh’s Dr. Addison and Kate Burton as Meredith’s mother), it was reassuring nonetheless.

Creator Shonda Rhimes wisely decided to give her characters a bit of a break too. So in Thursday’s episode, we met up with the gang 17 days after Burke left Cristina (Sandra Oh) at the altar, Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) and Derek (Dempsey) may or may not have broken up and George was going to dump Callie Sara Ramirez) for Izzie (Heigl) until he found out he was going to have to repeat his internship. Vacations have been taken — Meredith went with Cristina on her almost honeymoon, Alex drove up to find his former patient Ava (now Rebecca). But no one apparently has cellphones (have you noticed this about "Grey’s"? It’s quite endearing) because Cristina still hasn’t spoken to Burke, nor Meredith to Derek, nor George to Izzie. So there’s a lot of catching up needed to be done. In stairwells and operating theaters, medical supply closets and X-ray rooms.

After months of speculation about his fate, Isaiah Washington, the "Grey's Anatomy" co-star who publicly used a homophobic slur earlier this year after the show had won a Golden Globe for best drama, will not be returning to the popular ABC series.

ABC News, the corporate sibling of both ABC network and ABC Studios, the studio that produces "Grey's," announced the news in an exclusive on Friday morning. A spokeswoman from ABC Studios confirmed that the studio had not picked up his option.

In the ABC News story, Washington issued an unhappy statement through his publicist, Howard Bragman. "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore," it said.

Washington's future with "Grey's" was first called into question when reports leaked out in the fall of an on-set altercation with co-star Patrick Dempsey, during which he reportedly referred to fellow cast member T.R. Knight as a "faggot." A few months later, in front of reporters backstage at the Golden Globes, Washington denied the incident, but repeated the word in the process, causing another uproar.

-- Kate Aurthur

So are they firing Isaiah Washington or what? No doubt, the final scene of the season finale of “Grey’s Anatomy” left many viewers wondering if the tears Cristina was crying after being ditched at the altar were of heartbreak or relief, but some of us were more curious if her anguished “He’s gone” referred to Burke, her former fiance, or the man who plays him.
Washington, of course, was the center of a scandal earlier this year after he referred to cast member T.R. Knight, not once but twice, by a homophobic epithet. Since then, rumors have flown over whether he would be allowed to remain on a show that prides itself on love and tolerance and diversity.
Thursday night’s season finale certainly left that, and a few other things, pretty much hanging. Or not hanging, as the case may be.

If ever there were a motherless child, it is Meredith Grey. Earlier this season, her biological mother died, taking one of the show’s richest story lines—how you come to terms with brilliant but an emotionally abusive mother as she is eaten alive by Alzheimer’s—with her. Then last night, Meredith’s brief but promising relationship with her step-mother (the always welcome and wonderful Mare Winningham) was cut short by a strange infection complication that seemed lifted directly from “House.”

But never mind that. The important thing seems to be that the tentative, tenuous rapprochement Meredith had made with her dithering detached father was snapped, perhaps forever. When receiving the news of his wife’s unexpected death, he lashed out at his daughter, literally and figuratively, while Bailey, the Chief, McDreamy and the rest of us stood by in shock. Wasn’t this man once a doctor himself?

Kate Walsh, it would appear, is getting out in the nick of time. Next week, in a very special two-hour episode, her character, Dr. Addison Shepherd, will vamoose from Seattle for the sunny shores of L.A. May she never look back because “Grey’s Anatomy” is collapsing faster than a punctured lung.

Izzie and George. Izzie and her new hairstyle. Callie and George, Derek and Meredith, Derek and the chief’s job. Addison and Karev, Addison and McSteamy, Cristina and Burke and their wedding cake. Oh which will they pick? Oh what will happen then? Oh who really cares?

Last night’s episode presented the “Grey’s” team with their biggest challenge ever — acting in ways barely recognizable as human much less characteristic. All the interns were suddenly concerned, albeit it briefly and intermittently, with their wink-wink careers as they cutely “studied” for “the biggest test of their internship.” (Surely that has been staying friends with the drippy, relentlessly narcissistic Meredith, no?)

Does anyone but me remember how the series began, with a whole bunch of interns being told by Bailey to look around because more than half of them wouldn’t be there in a few months? Whatever happened to the idea of benching some of these beauties?

So, who'd have thought — George O'Malley, surgical tramp. The doe-eyed, baby-faced, stammering intern, "Grey's Anatomy's" answer to Radar O'Reilly, has now bedded not one, not two, but three of the female leads. Nice guys do get lucky. Or maybe not. By having a drunken liaison with Izzie mere weeks after marrying Callie, George has lost a lot of nice-guy cred. Which probably means he'll be making it with Cristina any minute now, since she seems to like mean guys.

See, this is why we love "Grey's." It allows us a guilt-free opportunity to advise, counsel and pass judgment on people who are having way more sex with way more people than the average American. No character on the show has children (except Bailey, and I'd like to see the man who could seduce her), so we don't have to fret about innocent bystander victims of random couplings and uncouplings. All the adult characters have the soap-opera requisite "Eternal Sunshine" mind wipes that allow them to maintain relationships with people who'd basely betrayed them just a few episodes ago.

Here's a shocker — Meredith Grey is not dead. And so ABC will not have to change the name of its hit show to "Yin and Yang" after Cristina or "Bailey's Irish Cream" after Miranda.

From the moment Meredith went into the water in the first part of a three-episode "Grey's Anatomy" special event, we all knew she wasn't going to die — why, many of us had just seen Ellen Pompeo at the Golden Globes, and she did not look even remotely like a woman who'd been canned. So as the Meredith-battles-for-life plot line engulfed the second and third portion of a narrative following what looked to be the worst ferry accident in American history, tension was noticeable only in its absence.

In its place were some of the worst script decisions since, yes, I'll say it, Fonzie jumped the shark.

There are several reasons "Grey's Anatomy" is an award-winning hit and if last week's episode did not include any of them, this week more than made up for it. The trademark combination of weird medicine — patient with toxic blood practically kills half the leads — and weird romance — George and Callie got married in Vegas! Addison and Karev make hungry-wolf eyes at each other! — kept the action moving in full scrubs-flapping, one-line snapping form.

But more important was the near surgical display of the show's beating heart — the non-romantic relationship.

The problem with having a real-life publicity problem plaguing your hit television show is that it tears down the fourth wall, allowing the viewer to engage in way too much actor-analysis and general sub-texting, which, no matter what Us Weekly may tell you, is never a good thing. Especially for a relationship-driven quasi-soap opera like “Grey’s Anatomy” where the lovability of the characters is key.

Unfortunately, last night’s episode was one of the weakest in a while: runaway Amish girls coped with cervical cancer (allowing Dr. Bailey to give one of her famous operating table lectures—ladies, get those pap smears). George attempted to find solace for his father’s death by having lots of sex (worth it just to hear partner Callie’s heaving I-can’t-take-it monologue—“I’m tired of having my legs bent in ways my legs don’t go”). The Chief of Surgery officially announced his retirement and all the leads at Seattle Grace suddenly began vying to fill his shoes.

'Grey's Anatomy': It's old guys' night

Edward Herrmann has joined the cast of "Grey's Anatomy." I know, I know, I should have led with: George finally told Callie that he slept with Izzie! Oh my! But frankly, the appearance of Herrmann, that veteran actor last seen on "The Gilmore Girls," is a lot more interesting and uplifting, proving as it does two things: "Grey's" is definitely on an upswing and old-guy interns are the latest TV trend.

Over at Fox, an AARP member is trying to become part of "House's" team, despite the fact that he never graduated medical school, and now Herrmann gives us Norman, a pharmacist-turned-doc-wannabe. He didn't have much to do on last night's episode, except spout old-guy platitudes and generally test Dr. Karev's ability to control his own intern, but we've already gleaned that his wife is dead, his children are grown and now he wants to be a doctor. Given that it's Herrmann (I still cry when I think of his character's tragic demise in "The Great Waldo Pepper"), I think we can expect great things.

There was a definite geriatric theme at Seattle Grace last evening. Really Old Guy, the coma patient in whose room our intrepid team has gathered for lunch since Season 1, woke up. Woke up and started spouting all sorts of marriage-counselor wisdom, mainly that Izzie should not hold her breath for George because men almost never leave their wives. (Which, given the current divorce statistics, doesn't seem quite accurate, but then the man's been in a coma for years.)

It's still hard to see where we're going this season; there is a slowness and steadiness to the story lines, which, while less grim than last year, feel a little too careful and sometimes repetitive. Yes, George did finally tell Callie, and with any luck the fallout will be excruciating and terrific. The whole Izzie/George storyline cannot be resolved soon enough, although if it gives the writers an excuse to bring back the old weird and vibrant Callie (remember when she lived in the hospital and danced in her underwear?), I am all for it. This pale and wan Callie is a waste of Sarah Ramirez's considerable talents. She and Bailey have not had nearly enough to do in these opening episodes, though Bailey has at least been able to vent her "Nazi" character's common sense once or twice. Even Meredith seems subdued, her clandestine, closeted shagging of Derek notwithstanding.

It is, by necessity, a more diffuse "Grey's," and the writers seem to be proceeding with caution. The addition of the new interns destroys the show's original template -- focusing on a group of residents is a bit less tidy. But Herrmann can only improve things, and if rumor is to be believed, there are other new and returning characters waiting in the wings.  Me, I keep hoping Denny's ghost will materialize -- maybe he could do what Old Guy couldn't: knock a little sense into Izzie.

--Mary McNamara

(Photo courtesy ABC)

For too long, Justin Chambers has been the forgotten man of "Grey's Anatomy." He hasn't gotten the Emmy nods like pretty much the entire female cast and T.R. Knight, nor all those magazine covers, like Patrick Dempsey. But this may be a good thing. Because while every other character got sucked into last season's morass of despair and silliness, Chamber's Dr. Alex Karev actually had a pretty decent story line. While dallying with the dear departed Addison, he developed a soft spot for children, those small humans no one but Bailey seems to even register. And in the aftermath of the notorious ferry accident, Karev came to care for the horribly disfigured/beautifully reconstructed Ava/Rebecca, formerly a Jane Doe. Although, in the end, he could not manfully admit his feelings, Chambers did a lovely job revealing a previously prickly character's sweetness without falling into the general slosh of treacle that surrounded him.

This season it is clear that Rebecca is gone but not forgotten and will, if casting rumors are to be believed, be back soon. Meanwhile, Karev has become something of a moral center for the show, pretty interesting since he was originally introduced as pretty much a womanizing jerk. In last night's episode, the second of the season, Karev struggled to aid a baby harmed during an explosion in his apartment. When it turned out the apartment was really a meth lab and the picture-perfect family meth dealers, Karev's outrage bubbled to the surface -- he yelled at the father, who punched him out and stole the poor screaming meth-addicted baby.

Sometimes, as Meredith would say, you just need a break. Just take one look at the characters of "Grey’s Anatomy" assembled in the season premiere, all fresh and familiar in their lab coats with the irritated hopelessness of last season melted away. After months of fallout from Isaiah Washington’s dismissal and Kate Walsh’s spinoff, after Patrick Dempsey’s twins and Katherine Heigl's Emmy, it was nice to get back to business.

This year will be different, we tell ourselves with the hopeful conviction of fifth-graders. Even the voice-over didn’t seem so bothersome, maybe because it seemed to be speaking to us about the show as much as anything else. Change, we were told, is difficult but necessary, though sometimes the more things change, the more they stay the same. Perhaps not the most earthshaking news around, but for a season premiere with not one but three important characters MIA (Washington’s Dr. Burke, Walsh’s Dr. Addison and Kate Burton as Meredith’s mother), it was reassuring nonetheless.

Creator Shonda Rhimes wisely decided to give her characters a bit of a break too. So in Thursday’s episode, we met up with the gang 17 days after Burke left Cristina (Sandra Oh) at the altar, Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) and Derek (Dempsey) may or may not have broken up and George was going to dump Callie Sara Ramirez) for Izzie (Heigl) until he found out he was going to have to repeat his internship. Vacations have been taken — Meredith went with Cristina on her almost honeymoon, Alex drove up to find his former patient Ava (now Rebecca). But no one apparently has cellphones (have you noticed this about "Grey’s"? It’s quite endearing) because Cristina still hasn’t spoken to Burke, nor Meredith to Derek, nor George to Izzie. So there’s a lot of catching up needed to be done. In stairwells and operating theaters, medical supply closets and X-ray rooms.

After months of speculation about his fate, Isaiah Washington, the "Grey's Anatomy" co-star who publicly used a homophobic slur earlier this year after the show had won a Golden Globe for best drama, will not be returning to the popular ABC series.

ABC News, the corporate sibling of both ABC network and ABC Studios, the studio that produces "Grey's," announced the news in an exclusive on Friday morning. A spokeswoman from ABC Studios confirmed that the studio had not picked up his option.

In the ABC News story, Washington issued an unhappy statement through his publicist, Howard Bragman. "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore," it said.

Washington's future with "Grey's" was first called into question when reports leaked out in the fall of an on-set altercation with co-star Patrick Dempsey, during which he reportedly referred to fellow cast member T.R. Knight as a "faggot." A few months later, in front of reporters backstage at the Golden Globes, Washington denied the incident, but repeated the word in the process, causing another uproar.

-- Kate Aurthur

So are they firing Isaiah Washington or what? No doubt, the final scene of the season finale of “Grey’s Anatomy” left many viewers wondering if the tears Cristina was crying after being ditched at the altar were of heartbreak or relief, but some of us were more curious if her anguished “He’s gone” referred to Burke, her former fiance, or the man who plays him.
Washington, of course, was the center of a scandal earlier this year after he referred to cast member T.R. Knight, not once but twice, by a homophobic epithet. Since then, rumors have flown over whether he would be allowed to remain on a show that prides itself on love and tolerance and diversity.
Thursday night’s season finale certainly left that, and a few other things, pretty much hanging. Or not hanging, as the case may be.

If ever there were a motherless child, it is Meredith Grey. Earlier this season, her biological mother died, taking one of the show’s richest story lines—how you come to terms with brilliant but an emotionally abusive mother as she is eaten alive by Alzheimer’s—with her. Then last night, Meredith’s brief but promising relationship with her step-mother (the always welcome and wonderful Mare Winningham) was cut short by a strange infection complication that seemed lifted directly from “House.”

But never mind that. The important thing seems to be that the tentative, tenuous rapprochement Meredith had made with her dithering detached father was snapped, perhaps forever. When receiving the news of his wife’s unexpected death, he lashed out at his daughter, literally and figuratively, while Bailey, the Chief, McDreamy and the rest of us stood by in shock. Wasn’t this man once a doctor himself?

Kate Walsh, it would appear, is getting out in the nick of time. Next week, in a very special two-hour episode, her character, Dr. Addison Shepherd, will vamoose from Seattle for the sunny shores of L.A. May she never look back because “Grey’s Anatomy” is collapsing faster than a punctured lung.

Izzie and George. Izzie and her new hairstyle. Callie and George, Derek and Meredith, Derek and the chief’s job. Addison and Karev, Addison and McSteamy, Cristina and Burke and their wedding cake. Oh which will they pick? Oh what will happen then? Oh who really cares?

Last night’s episode presented the “Grey’s” team with their biggest challenge ever — acting in ways barely recognizable as human much less characteristic. All the interns were suddenly concerned, albeit it briefly and intermittently, with their wink-wink careers as they cutely “studied” for “the biggest test of their internship.” (Surely that has been staying friends with the drippy, relentlessly narcissistic Meredith, no?)

Does anyone but me remember how the series began, with a whole bunch of interns being told by Bailey to look around because more than half of them wouldn’t be there in a few months? Whatever happened to the idea of benching some of these beauties?

So, who'd have thought — George O'Malley, surgical tramp. The doe-eyed, baby-faced, stammering intern, "Grey's Anatomy's" answer to Radar O'Reilly, has now bedded not one, not two, but three of the female leads. Nice guys do get lucky. Or maybe not. By having a drunken liaison with Izzie mere weeks after marrying Callie, George has lost a lot of nice-guy cred. Which probably means he'll be making it with Cristina any minute now, since she seems to like mean guys.

See, this is why we love "Grey's." It allows us a guilt-free opportunity to advise, counsel and pass judgment on people who are having way more sex with way more people than the average American. No character on the show has children (except Bailey, and I'd like to see the man who could seduce her), so we don't have to fret about innocent bystander victims of random couplings and uncouplings. All the adult characters have the soap-opera requisite "Eternal Sunshine" mind wipes that allow them to maintain relationships with people who'd basely betrayed them just a few episodes ago.

Here's a shocker — Meredith Grey is not dead. And so ABC will not have to change the name of its hit show to "Yin and Yang" after Cristina or "Bailey's Irish Cream" after Miranda.

From the moment Meredith went into the water in the first part of a three-episode "Grey's Anatomy" special event, we all knew she wasn't going to die — why, many of us had just seen Ellen Pompeo at the Golden Globes, and she did not look even remotely like a woman who'd been canned. So as the Meredith-battles-for-life plot line engulfed the second and third portion of a narrative following what looked to be the worst ferry accident in American history, tension was noticeable only in its absence.

In its place were some of the worst script decisions since, yes, I'll say it, Fonzie jumped the shark.

There are several reasons "Grey's Anatomy" is an award-winning hit and if last week's episode did not include any of them, this week more than made up for it. The trademark combination of weird medicine — patient with toxic blood practically kills half the leads — and weird romance — George and Callie got married in Vegas! Addison and Karev make hungry-wolf eyes at each other! — kept the action moving in full scrubs-flapping, one-line snapping form.

But more important was the near surgical display of the show's beating heart — the non-romantic relationship.

The problem with having a real-life publicity problem plaguing your hit television show is that it tears down the fourth wall, allowing the viewer to engage in way too much actor-analysis and general sub-texting, which, no matter what Us Weekly may tell you, is never a good thing. Especially for a relationship-driven quasi-soap opera like “Grey’s Anatomy” where the lovability of the characters is key.

Unfortunately, last night’s episode was one of the weakest in a while: runaway Amish girls coped with cervical cancer (allowing Dr. Bailey to give one of her famous operating table lectures—ladies, get those pap smears). George attempted to find solace for his father’s death by having lots of sex (worth it just to hear partner Callie’s heaving I-can’t-take-it monologue—“I’m tired of having my legs bent in ways my legs don’t go”). The Chief of Surgery officially announced his retirement and all the leads at Seattle Grace suddenly began vying to fill his shoes.

"Grey's Anatomy": Alex gets his priorities straight

For too long, Justin Chambers has been the forgotten man of "Grey's Anatomy." He hasn't gotten the Emmy nods like pretty much the entire female cast and T.R. Knight, nor all those magazine covers, like Patrick Dempsey. But this may be a good thing. Because while every other character got sucked into last season's morass of despair and silliness, Chamber's Dr. Alex Karev actually had a pretty decent story line. While dallying with the dear departed Addison, he developed a soft spot for children, those small humans no one but Bailey seems to even register. And in the aftermath of the notorious ferry accident, Karev came to care for the horribly disfigured/beautifully reconstructed Ava/Rebecca, formerly a Jane Doe. Although, in the end, he could not manfully admit his feelings, Chambers did a lovely job revealing a previously prickly character's sweetness without falling into the general slosh of treacle that surrounded him.

This season it is clear that Rebecca is gone but not forgotten and will, if casting rumors are to be believed, be back soon. Meanwhile, Karev has become something of a moral center for the show, pretty interesting since he was originally introduced as pretty much a womanizing jerk. In last night's episode, the second of the season, Karev struggled to aid a baby harmed during an explosion in his apartment. When it turned out the apartment was really a meth lab and the picture-perfect family meth dealers, Karev's outrage bubbled to the surface -- he yelled at the father, who punched him out and stole the poor screaming meth-addicted baby.

Sometimes, as Meredith would say, you just need a break. Just take one look at the characters of "Grey’s Anatomy" assembled in the season premiere, all fresh and familiar in their lab coats with the irritated hopelessness of last season melted away. After months of fallout from Isaiah Washington’s dismissal and Kate Walsh’s spinoff, after Patrick Dempsey’s twins and Katherine Heigl's Emmy, it was nice to get back to business.

This year will be different, we tell ourselves with the hopeful conviction of fifth-graders. Even the voice-over didn’t seem so bothersome, maybe because it seemed to be speaking to us about the show as much as anything else. Change, we were told, is difficult but necessary, though sometimes the more things change, the more they stay the same. Perhaps not the most earthshaking news around, but for a season premiere with not one but three important characters MIA (Washington’s Dr. Burke, Walsh’s Dr. Addison and Kate Burton as Meredith’s mother), it was reassuring nonetheless.

Creator Shonda Rhimes wisely decided to give her characters a bit of a break too. So in Thursday’s episode, we met up with the gang 17 days after Burke left Cristina (Sandra Oh) at the altar, Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) and Derek (Dempsey) may or may not have broken up and George was going to dump Callie Sara Ramirez) for Izzie (Heigl) until he found out he was going to have to repeat his internship. Vacations have been taken — Meredith went with Cristina on her almost honeymoon, Alex drove up to find his former patient Ava (now Rebecca). But no one apparently has cellphones (have you noticed this about "Grey’s"? It’s quite endearing) because Cristina still hasn’t spoken to Burke, nor Meredith to Derek, nor George to Izzie. So there’s a lot of catching up needed to be done. In stairwells and operating theaters, medical supply closets and X-ray rooms.

After months of speculation about his fate, Isaiah Washington, the "Grey's Anatomy" co-star who publicly used a homophobic slur earlier this year after the show had won a Golden Globe for best drama, will not be returning to the popular ABC series.

ABC News, the corporate sibling of both ABC network and ABC Studios, the studio that produces "Grey's," announced the news in an exclusive on Friday morning. A spokeswoman from ABC Studios confirmed that the studio had not picked up his option.

In the ABC News story, Washington issued an unhappy statement through his publicist, Howard Bragman. "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore," it said.

Washington's future with "Grey's" was first called into question when reports leaked out in the fall of an on-set altercation with co-star Patrick Dempsey, during which he reportedly referred to fellow cast member T.R. Knight as a "faggot." A few months later, in front of reporters backstage at the Golden Globes, Washington denied the incident, but repeated the word in the process, causing another uproar.

-- Kate Aurthur

So are they firing Isaiah Washington or what? No doubt, the final scene of the season finale of “Grey’s Anatomy” left many viewers wondering if the tears Cristina was crying after being ditched at the altar were of heartbreak or relief, but some of us were more curious if her anguished “He’s gone” referred to Burke, her former fiance, or the man who plays him.
Washington, of course, was the center of a scandal earlier this year after he referred to cast member T.R. Knight, not once but twice, by a homophobic epithet. Since then, rumors have flown over whether he would be allowed to remain on a show that prides itself on love and tolerance and diversity.
Thursday night’s season finale certainly left that, and a few other things, pretty much hanging. Or not hanging, as the case may be.

If ever there were a motherless child, it is Meredith Grey. Earlier this season, her biological mother died, taking one of the show’s richest story lines—how you come to terms with brilliant but an emotionally abusive mother as she is eaten alive by Alzheimer’s—with her. Then last night, Meredith’s brief but promising relationship with her step-mother (the always welcome and wonderful Mare Winningham) was cut short by a strange infection complication that seemed lifted directly from “House.”

But never mind that. The important thing seems to be that the tentative, tenuous rapprochement Meredith had made with her dithering detached father was snapped, perhaps forever. When receiving the news of his wife’s unexpected death, he lashed out at his daughter, literally and figuratively, while Bailey, the Chief, McDreamy and the rest of us stood by in shock. Wasn’t this man once a doctor himself?

Kate Walsh, it would appear, is getting out in the nick of time. Next week, in a very special two-hour episode, her character, Dr. Addison Shepherd, will vamoose from Seattle for the sunny shores of L.A. May she never look back because “Grey’s Anatomy” is collapsing faster than a punctured lung.

Izzie and George. Izzie and her new hairstyle. Callie and George, Derek and Meredith, Derek and the chief’s job. Addison and Karev, Addison and McSteamy, Cristina and Burke and their wedding cake. Oh which will they pick? Oh what will happen then? Oh who really cares?

Last night’s episode presented the “Grey’s” team with their biggest challenge ever — acting in ways barely recognizable as human much less characteristic. All the interns were suddenly concerned, albeit it briefly and intermittently, with their wink-wink careers as they cutely “studied” for “the biggest test of their internship.” (Surely that has been staying friends with the drippy, relentlessly narcissistic Meredith, no?)

Does anyone but me remember how the series began, with a whole bunch of interns being told by Bailey to look around because more than half of them wouldn’t be there in a few months? Whatever happened to the idea of benching some of these beauties?

So, who'd have thought — George O'Malley, surgical tramp. The doe-eyed, baby-faced, stammering intern, "Grey's Anatomy's" answer to Radar O'Reilly, has now bedded not one, not two, but three of the female leads. Nice guys do get lucky. Or maybe not. By having a drunken liaison with Izzie mere weeks after marrying Callie, George has lost a lot of nice-guy cred. Which probably means he'll be making it with Cristina any minute now, since she seems to like mean guys.

See, this is why we love "Grey's." It allows us a guilt-free opportunity to advise, counsel and pass judgment on people who are having way more sex with way more people than the average American. No character on the show has children (except Bailey, and I'd like to see the man who could seduce her), so we don't have to fret about innocent bystander victims of random couplings and uncouplings. All the adult characters have the soap-opera requisite "Eternal Sunshine" mind wipes that allow them to maintain relationships with people who'd basely betrayed them just a few episodes ago.

Here's a shocker — Meredith Grey is not dead. And so ABC will not have to change the name of its hit show to "Yin and Yang" after Cristina or "Bailey's Irish Cream" after Miranda.

From the moment Meredith went into the water in the first part of a three-episode "Grey's Anatomy" special event, we all knew she wasn't going to die — why, many of us had just seen Ellen Pompeo at the Golden Globes, and she did not look even remotely like a woman who'd been canned. So as the Meredith-battles-for-life plot line engulfed the second and third portion of a narrative following what looked to be the worst ferry accident in American history, tension was noticeable only in its absence.

In its place were some of the worst script decisions since, yes, I'll say it, Fonzie jumped the shark.

There are several reasons "Grey's Anatomy" is an award-winning hit and if last week's episode did not include any of them, this week more than made up for it. The trademark combination of weird medicine — patient with toxic blood practically kills half the leads — and weird romance — George and Callie got married in Vegas! Addison and Karev make hungry-wolf eyes at each other! — kept the action moving in full scrubs-flapping, one-line snapping form.

But more important was the near surgical display of the show's beating heart — the non-romantic relationship.

The problem with having a real-life publicity problem plaguing your hit television show is that it tears down the fourth wall, allowing the viewer to engage in way too much actor-analysis and general sub-texting, which, no matter what Us Weekly may tell you, is never a good thing. Especially for a relationship-driven quasi-soap opera like “Grey’s Anatomy” where the lovability of the characters is key.

Unfortunately, last night’s episode was one of the weakest in a while: runaway Amish girls coped with cervical cancer (allowing Dr. Bailey to give one of her famous operating table lectures—ladies, get those pap smears). George attempted to find solace for his father’s death by having lots of sex (worth it just to hear partner Callie’s heaving I-can’t-take-it monologue—“I’m tired of having my legs bent in ways my legs don’t go”). The Chief of Surgery officially announced his retirement and all the leads at Seattle Grace suddenly began vying to fill his shoes.

'Grey's Anatomy' gets back to basics

Sometimes, as Meredith would say, you just need a break. Just take one look at the characters of "Grey’s Anatomy" assembled in the season premiere, all fresh and familiar in their lab coats with the irritated hopelessness of last season melted away. After months of fallout from Isaiah Washington’s dismissal and Kate Walsh’s spinoff, after Patrick Dempsey’s twins and Katherine Heigl's Emmy, it was nice to get back to business.

This year will be different, we tell ourselves with the hopeful conviction of fifth-graders. Even the voice-over didn’t seem so bothersome, maybe because it seemed to be speaking to us about the show as much as anything else. Change, we were told, is difficult but necessary, though sometimes the more things change, the more they stay the same. Perhaps not the most earthshaking news around, but for a season premiere with not one but three important characters MIA (Washington’s Dr. Burke, Walsh’s Dr. Addison and Kate Burton as Meredith’s mother), it was reassuring nonetheless.

Creator Shonda Rhimes wisely decided to give her characters a bit of a break too. So in Thursday’s episode, we met up with the gang 17 days after Burke left Cristina (Sandra Oh) at the altar, Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) and Derek (Dempsey) may or may not have broken up and George was going to dump Callie Sara Ramirez) for Izzie (Heigl) until he found out he was going to have to repeat his internship. Vacations have been taken — Meredith went with Cristina on her almost honeymoon, Alex drove up to find his former patient Ava (now Rebecca). But no one apparently has cellphones (have you noticed this about "Grey’s"? It’s quite endearing) because Cristina still hasn’t spoken to Burke, nor Meredith to Derek, nor George to Izzie. So there’s a lot of catching up needed to be done. In stairwells and operating theaters, medical supply closets and X-ray rooms.

After months of speculation about his fate, Isaiah Washington, the "Grey's Anatomy" co-star who publicly used a homophobic slur earlier this year after the show had won a Golden Globe for best drama, will not be returning to the popular ABC series.

ABC News, the corporate sibling of both ABC network and ABC Studios, the studio that produces "Grey's," announced the news in an exclusive on Friday morning. A spokeswoman from ABC Studios confirmed that the studio had not picked up his option.

In the ABC News story, Washington issued an unhappy statement through his publicist, Howard Bragman. "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore," it said.

Washington's future with "Grey's" was first called into question when reports leaked out in the fall of an on-set altercation with co-star Patrick Dempsey, during which he reportedly referred to fellow cast member T.R. Knight as a "faggot." A few months later, in front of reporters backstage at the Golden Globes, Washington denied the incident, but repeated the word in the process, causing another uproar.

-- Kate Aurthur

So are they firing Isaiah Washington or what? No doubt, the final scene of the season finale of “Grey’s Anatomy” left many viewers wondering if the tears Cristina was crying after being ditched at the altar were of heartbreak or relief, but some of us were more curious if her anguished “He’s gone” referred to Burke, her former fiance, or the man who plays him.
Washington, of course, was the center of a scandal earlier this year after he referred to cast member T.R. Knight, not once but twice, by a homophobic epithet. Since then, rumors have flown over whether he would be allowed to remain on a show that prides itself on love and tolerance and diversity.
Thursday night’s season finale certainly left that, and a few other things, pretty much hanging. Or not hanging, as the case may be.

If ever there were a motherless child, it is Meredith Grey. Earlier this season, her biological mother died, taking one of the show’s richest story lines—how you come to terms with brilliant but an emotionally abusive mother as she is eaten alive by Alzheimer’s—with her. Then last night, Meredith’s brief but promising relationship with her step-mother (the always welcome and wonderful Mare Winningham) was cut short by a strange infection complication that seemed lifted directly from “House.”

But never mind that. The important thing seems to be that the tentative, tenuous rapprochement Meredith had made with her dithering detached father was snapped, perhaps forever. When receiving the news of his wife’s unexpected death, he lashed out at his daughter, literally and figuratively, while Bailey, the Chief, McDreamy and the rest of us stood by in shock. Wasn’t this man once a doctor himself?

Kate Walsh, it would appear, is getting out in the nick of time. Next week, in a very special two-hour episode, her character, Dr. Addison Shepherd, will vamoose from Seattle for the sunny shores of L.A. May she never look back because “Grey’s Anatomy” is collapsing faster than a punctured lung.

Izzie and George. Izzie and her new hairstyle. Callie and George, Derek and Meredith, Derek and the chief’s job. Addison and Karev, Addison and McSteamy, Cristina and Burke and their wedding cake. Oh which will they pick? Oh what will happen then? Oh who really cares?

Last night’s episode presented the “Grey’s” team with their biggest challenge ever — acting in ways barely recognizable as human much less characteristic. All the interns were suddenly concerned, albeit it briefly and intermittently, with their wink-wink careers as they cutely “studied” for “the biggest test of their internship.” (Surely that has been staying friends with the drippy, relentlessly narcissistic Meredith, no?)

Does anyone but me remember how the series began, with a whole bunch of interns being told by Bailey to look around because more than half of them wouldn’t be there in a few months? Whatever happened to the idea of benching some of these beauties?

So, who'd have thought — George O'Malley, surgical tramp. The doe-eyed, baby-faced, stammering intern, "Grey's Anatomy's" answer to Radar O'Reilly, has now bedded not one, not two, but three of the female leads. Nice guys do get lucky. Or maybe not. By having a drunken liaison with Izzie mere weeks after marrying Callie, George has lost a lot of nice-guy cred. Which probably means he'll be making it with Cristina any minute now, since she seems to like mean guys.

See, this is why we love "Grey's." It allows us a guilt-free opportunity to advise, counsel and pass judgment on people who are having way more sex with way more people than the average American. No character on the show has children (except Bailey, and I'd like to see the man who could seduce her), so we don't have to fret about innocent bystander victims of random couplings and uncouplings. All the adult characters have the soap-opera requisite "Eternal Sunshine" mind wipes that allow them to maintain relationships with people who'd basely betrayed them just a few episodes ago.

Here's a shocker — Meredith Grey is not dead. And so ABC will not have to change the name of its hit show to "Yin and Yang" after Cristina or "Bailey's Irish Cream" after Miranda.

From the moment Meredith went into the water in the first part of a three-episode "Grey's Anatomy" special event, we all knew she wasn't going to die — why, many of us had just seen Ellen Pompeo at the Golden Globes, and she did not look even remotely like a woman who'd been canned. So as the Meredith-battles-for-life plot line engulfed the second and third portion of a narrative following what looked to be the worst ferry accident in American history, tension was noticeable only in its absence.

In its place were some of the worst script decisions since, yes, I'll say it, Fonzie jumped the shark.

There are several reasons "Grey's Anatomy" is an award-winning hit and if last week's episode did not include any of them, this week more than made up for it. The trademark combination of weird medicine — patient with toxic blood practically kills half the leads — and weird romance — George and Callie got married in Vegas! Addison and Karev make hungry-wolf eyes at each other! — kept the action moving in full scrubs-flapping, one-line snapping form.

But more important was the near surgical display of the show's beating heart — the non-romantic relationship.

The problem with having a real-life publicity problem plaguing your hit television show is that it tears down the fourth wall, allowing the viewer to engage in way too much actor-analysis and general sub-texting, which, no matter what Us Weekly may tell you, is never a good thing. Especially for a relationship-driven quasi-soap opera like “Grey’s Anatomy” where the lovability of the characters is key.

Unfortunately, last night’s episode was one of the weakest in a while: runaway Amish girls coped with cervical cancer (allowing Dr. Bailey to give one of her famous operating table lectures—ladies, get those pap smears). George attempted to find solace for his father’s death by having lots of sex (worth it just to hear partner Callie’s heaving I-can’t-take-it monologue—“I’m tired of having my legs bent in ways my legs don’t go”). The Chief of Surgery officially announced his retirement and all the leads at Seattle Grace suddenly began vying to fill his shoes.

Losing Isaiah: Washington won't be back to 'Grey's Anatomy'

After months of speculation about his fate, Isaiah Washington, the "Grey's Anatomy" co-star who publicly used a homophobic slur earlier this year after the show had won a Golden Globe for best drama, will not be returning to the popular ABC series.

ABC News, the corporate sibling of both ABC network and ABC Studios, the studio that produces "Grey's," announced the news in an exclusive on Friday morning. A spokeswoman from ABC Studios confirmed that the studio had not picked up his option.

In the ABC News story, Washington issued an unhappy statement through his publicist, Howard Bragman. "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore," it said.

Washington's future with "Grey's" was first called into question when reports leaked out in the fall of an on-set altercation with co-star Patrick Dempsey, during which he reportedly referred to fellow cast member T.R. Knight as a "faggot." A few months later, in front of reporters backstage at the Golden Globes, Washington denied the incident, but repeated the word in the process, causing another uproar.

-- Kate Aurthur

So are they firing Isaiah Washington or what? No doubt, the final scene of the season finale of “Grey’s Anatomy” left many viewers wondering if the tears Cristina was crying after being ditched at the altar were of heartbreak or relief, but some of us were more curious if her anguished “He’s gone” referred to Burke, her former fiance, or the man who plays him.
Washington, of course, was the center of a scandal earlier this year after he referred to cast member T.R. Knight, not once but twice, by a homophobic epithet. Since then, rumors have flown over whether he would be allowed to remain on a show that prides itself on love and tolerance and diversity.
Thursday night’s season finale certainly left that, and a few other things, pretty much hanging. Or not hanging, as the case may be.

If ever there were a motherless child, it is Meredith Grey. Earlier this season, her biological mother died, taking one of the show’s richest story lines—how you come to terms with brilliant but an emotionally abusive mother as she is eaten alive by Alzheimer’s—with her. Then last night, Meredith’s brief but promising relationship with her step-mother (the always welcome and wonderful Mare Winningham) was cut short by a strange infection complication that seemed lifted directly from “House.”

But never mind that. The important thing seems to be that the tentative, tenuous rapprochement Meredith had made with her dithering detached father was snapped, perhaps forever. When receiving the news of his wife’s unexpected death, he lashed out at his daughter, literally and figuratively, while Bailey, the Chief, McDreamy and the rest of us stood by in shock. Wasn’t this man once a doctor himself?

Kate Walsh, it would appear, is getting out in the nick of time. Next week, in a very special two-hour episode, her character, Dr. Addison Shepherd, will vamoose from Seattle for the sunny shores of L.A. May she never look back because “Grey’s Anatomy” is collapsing faster than a punctured lung.

Izzie and George. Izzie and her new hairstyle. Callie and George, Derek and Meredith, Derek and the chief’s job. Addison and Karev, Addison and McSteamy, Cristina and Burke and their wedding cake. Oh which will they pick? Oh what will happen then? Oh who really cares?

Last night’s episode presented the “Grey’s” team with their biggest challenge ever — acting in ways barely recognizable as human much less characteristic. All the interns were suddenly concerned, albeit it briefly and intermittently, with their wink-wink careers as they cutely “studied” for “the biggest test of their internship.” (Surely that has been staying friends with the drippy, relentlessly narcissistic Meredith, no?)

Does anyone but me remember how the series began, with a whole bunch of interns being told by Bailey to look around because more than half of them wouldn’t be there in a few months? Whatever happened to the idea of benching some of these beauties?

So, who'd have thought — George O'Malley, surgical tramp. The doe-eyed, baby-faced, stammering intern, "Grey's Anatomy's" answer to Radar O'Reilly, has now bedded not one, not two, but three of the female leads. Nice guys do get lucky. Or maybe not. By having a drunken liaison with Izzie mere weeks after marrying Callie, George has lost a lot of nice-guy cred. Which probably means he'll be making it with Cristina any minute now, since she seems to like mean guys.

See, this is why we love "Grey's." It allows us a guilt-free opportunity to advise, counsel and pass judgment on people who are having way more sex with way more people than the average American. No character on the show has children (except Bailey, and I'd like to see the man who could seduce her), so we don't have to fret about innocent bystander victims of random couplings and uncouplings. All the adult characters have the soap-opera requisite "Eternal Sunshine" mind wipes that allow them to maintain relationships with people who'd basely betrayed them just a few episodes ago.

Here's a shocker — Meredith Grey is not dead. And so ABC will not have to change the name of its hit show to "Yin and Yang" after Cristina or "Bailey's Irish Cream" after Miranda.

From the moment Meredith went into the water in the first part of a three-episode "Grey's Anatomy" special event, we all knew she wasn't going to die — why, many of us had just seen Ellen Pompeo at the Golden Globes, and she did not look even remotely like a woman who'd been canned. So as the Meredith-battles-for-life plot line engulfed the second and third portion of a narrative following what looked to be the worst ferry accident in American history, tension was noticeable only in its absence.

In its place were some of the worst script decisions since, yes, I'll say it, Fonzie jumped the shark.

There are several reasons "Grey's Anatomy" is an award-winning hit and if last week's episode did not include any of them, this week more than made up for it. The trademark combination of weird medicine — patient with toxic blood practically kills half the leads — and weird romance — George and Callie got married in Vegas! Addison and Karev make hungry-wolf eyes at each other! — kept the action moving in full scrubs-flapping, one-line snapping form.

But more important was the near surgical display of the show's beating heart — the non-romantic relationship.

The problem with having a real-life publicity problem plaguing your hit television show is that it tears down the fourth wall, allowing the viewer to engage in way too much actor-analysis and general sub-texting, which, no matter what Us Weekly may tell you, is never a good thing. Especially for a relationship-driven quasi-soap opera like “Grey’s Anatomy” where the lovability of the characters is key.

Unfortunately, last night’s episode was one of the weakest in a while: runaway Amish girls coped with cervical cancer (allowing Dr. Bailey to give one of her famous operating table lectures—ladies, get those pap smears). George attempted to find solace for his father’s death by having lots of sex (worth it just to hear partner Callie’s heaving I-can’t-take-it monologue—“I’m tired of having my legs bent in ways my legs don’t go”). The Chief of Surgery officially announced his retirement and all the leads at Seattle Grace suddenly began vying to fill his shoes.

'Grey's Anatomy': Tear of rage or tear of joy?

So are they firing Isaiah Washington or what? No doubt, the final scene of the season finale of “Grey’s Anatomy” left many viewers wondering if the tears Cristina was crying after being ditched at the altar were of heartbreak or relief, but some of us were more curious if her anguished “He’s gone” referred to Burke, her former fiance, or the man who plays him.
Washington, of course, was the center of a scandal earlier this year after he referred to cast member T.R. Knight, not once but twice, by a homophobic epithet. Since then, rumors have flown over whether he would be allowed to remain on a show that prides itself on love and tolerance and diversity.
Thursday night’s season finale certainly left that, and a few other things, pretty much hanging. Or not hanging, as the case may be.

If ever there were a motherless child, it is Meredith Grey. Earlier this season, her biological mother died, taking one of the show’s richest story lines—how you come to terms with brilliant but an emotionally abusive mother as she is eaten alive by Alzheimer’s—with her. Then last night, Meredith’s brief but promising relationship with her step-mother (the always welcome and wonderful Mare Winningham) was cut short by a strange infection complication that seemed lifted directly from “House.”

But never mind that. The important thing seems to be that the tentative, tenuous rapprochement Meredith had made with her dithering detached father was snapped, perhaps forever. When receiving the news of his wife’s unexpected death, he lashed out at his daughter, literally and figuratively, while Bailey, the Chief, McDreamy and the rest of us stood by in shock. Wasn’t this man once a doctor himself?

Kate Walsh, it would appear, is getting out in the nick of time. Next week, in a very special two-hour episode, her character, Dr. Addison Shepherd, will vamoose from Seattle for the sunny shores of L.A. May she never look back because “Grey’s Anatomy” is collapsing faster than a punctured lung.

Izzie and George. Izzie and her new hairstyle. Callie and George, Derek and Meredith, Derek and the chief’s job. Addison and Karev, Addison and McSteamy, Cristina and Burke and their wedding cake. Oh which will they pick? Oh what will happen then? Oh who really cares?

Last night’s episode presented the “Grey’s” team with their biggest challenge ever — acting in ways barely recognizable as human much less characteristic. All the interns were suddenly concerned, albeit it briefly and intermittently, with their wink-wink careers as they cutely “studied” for “the biggest test of their internship.” (Surely that has been staying friends with the drippy, relentlessly narcissistic Meredith, no?)

Does anyone but me remember how the series began, with a whole bunch of interns being told by Bailey to look around because more than half of them wouldn’t be there in a few months? Whatever happened to the idea of benching some of these beauties?

So, who'd have thought — George O'Malley, surgical tramp. The doe-eyed, baby-faced, stammering intern, "Grey's Anatomy's" answer to Radar O'Reilly, has now bedded not one, not two, but three of the female leads. Nice guys do get lucky. Or maybe not. By having a drunken liaison with Izzie mere weeks after marrying Callie, George has lost a lot of nice-guy cred. Which probably means he'll be making it with Cristina any minute now, since she seems to like mean guys.

See, this is why we love "Grey's." It allows us a guilt-free opportunity to advise, counsel and pass judgment on people who are having way more sex with way more people than the average American. No character on the show has children (except Bailey, and I'd like to see the man who could seduce her), so we don't have to fret about innocent bystander victims of random couplings and uncouplings. All the adult characters have the soap-opera requisite "Eternal Sunshine" mind wipes that allow them to maintain relationships with people who'd basely betrayed them just a few episodes ago.

Here's a shocker — Meredith Grey is not dead. And so ABC will not have to change the name of its hit show to "Yin and Yang" after Cristina or "Bailey's Irish Cream" after Miranda.

From the moment Meredith went into the water in the first part of a three-episode "Grey's Anatomy" special event, we all knew she wasn't going to die — why, many of us had just seen Ellen Pompeo at the Golden Globes, and she did not look even remotely like a woman who'd been canned. So as the Meredith-battles-for-life plot line engulfed the second and third portion of a narrative following what looked to be the worst ferry accident in American history, tension was noticeable only in its absence.

In its place were some of the worst script decisions since, yes, I'll say it, Fonzie jumped the shark.

There are several reasons "Grey's Anatomy" is an award-winning hit and if last week's episode did not include any of them, this week more than made up for it. The trademark combination of weird medicine — patient with toxic blood practically kills half the leads — and weird romance — George and Callie got married in Vegas! Addison and Karev make hungry-wolf eyes at each other! — kept the action moving in full scrubs-flapping, one-line snapping form.

But more important was the near surgical display of the show's beating heart — the non-romantic relationship.

The problem with having a real-life publicity problem plaguing your hit television show is that it tears down the fourth wall, allowing the viewer to engage in way too much actor-analysis and general sub-texting, which, no matter what Us Weekly may tell you, is never a good thing. Especially for a relationship-driven quasi-soap opera like “Grey’s Anatomy” where the lovability of the characters is key.

Unfortunately, last night’s episode was one of the weakest in a while: runaway Amish girls coped with cervical cancer (allowing Dr. Bailey to give one of her famous operating table lectures—ladies, get those pap smears). George attempted to find solace for his father’s death by having lots of sex (worth it just to hear partner Callie’s heaving I-can’t-take-it monologue—“I’m tired of having my legs bent in ways my legs don’t go”). The Chief of Surgery officially announced his retirement and all the leads at Seattle Grace suddenly began vying to fill his shoes.

'Grey's Anatomy': More Meredith misery, and Addison on the road

If ever there were a motherless child, it is Meredith Grey. Earlier this season, her biological mother died, taking one of the show’s richest story lines—how you come to terms with brilliant but an emotionally abusive mother as she is eaten alive by Alzheimer’s—with her. Then last night, Meredith’s brief but promising relationship with her step-mother (the always welcome and wonderful Mare Winningham) was cut short by a strange infection complication that seemed lifted directly from “House.”

But never mind that. The important thing seems to be that the tentative, tenuous rapprochement Meredith had made with her dithering detached father was snapped, perhaps forever. When receiving the news of his wife’s unexpected death, he lashed out at his daughter, literally and figuratively, while Bailey, the Chief, McDreamy and the rest of us stood by in shock. Wasn’t this man once a doctor himself?

Kate Walsh, it would appear, is getting out in the nick of time. Next week, in a very special two-hour episode, her character, Dr. Addison Shepherd, will vamoose from Seattle for the sunny shores of L.A. May she never look back because “Grey’s Anatomy” is collapsing faster than a punctured lung.

Izzie and George. Izzie and her new hairstyle. Callie and George, Derek and Meredith, Derek and the chief’s job. Addison and Karev, Addison and McSteamy, Cristina and Burke and their wedding cake. Oh which will they pick? Oh what will happen then? Oh who really cares?

Last night’s episode presented the “Grey’s” team with their biggest challenge ever — acting in ways barely recognizable as human much less characteristic. All the interns were suddenly concerned, albeit it briefly and intermittently, with their wink-wink careers as they cutely “studied” for “the biggest test of their internship.” (Surely that has been staying friends with the drippy, relentlessly narcissistic Meredith, no?)

Does anyone but me remember how the series began, with a whole bunch of interns being told by Bailey to look around because more than half of them wouldn’t be there in a few months? Whatever happened to the idea of benching some of these beauties?

So, who'd have thought — George O'Malley, surgical tramp. The doe-eyed, baby-faced, stammering intern, "Grey's Anatomy's" answer to Radar O'Reilly, has now bedded not one, not two, but three of the female leads. Nice guys do get lucky. Or maybe not. By having a drunken liaison with Izzie mere weeks after marrying Callie, George has lost a lot of nice-guy cred. Which probably means he'll be making it with Cristina any minute now, since she seems to like mean guys.

See, this is why we love "Grey's." It allows us a guilt-free opportunity to advise, counsel and pass judgment on people who are having way more sex with way more people than the average American. No character on the show has children (except Bailey, and I'd like to see the man who could seduce her), so we don't have to fret about innocent bystander victims of random couplings and uncouplings. All the adult characters have the soap-opera requisite "Eternal Sunshine" mind wipes that allow them to maintain relationships with people who'd basely betrayed them just a few episodes ago.

Here's a shocker — Meredith Grey is not dead. And so ABC will not have to change the name of its hit show to "Yin and Yang" after Cristina or "Bailey's Irish Cream" after Miranda.

From the moment Meredith went into the water in the first part of a three-episode "Grey's Anatomy" special event, we all knew she wasn't going to die — why, many of us had just seen Ellen Pompeo at the Golden Globes, and she did not look even remotely like a woman who'd been canned. So as the Meredith-battles-for-life plot line engulfed the second and third portion of a narrative following what looked to be the worst ferry accident in American history, tension was noticeable only in its absence.

In its place were some of the worst script decisions since, yes, I'll say it, Fonzie jumped the shark.

There are several reasons "Grey's Anatomy" is an award-winning hit and if last week's episode did not include any of them, this week more than made up for it. The trademark combination of weird medicine — patient with toxic blood practically kills half the leads — and weird romance — George and Callie got married in Vegas! Addison and Karev make hungry-wolf eyes at each other! — kept the action moving in full scrubs-flapping, one-line snapping form.

But more important was the near surgical display of the show's beating heart — the non-romantic relationship.

The problem with having a real-life publicity problem plaguing your hit television show is that it tears down the fourth wall, allowing the viewer to engage in way too much actor-analysis and general sub-texting, which, no matter what Us Weekly may tell you, is never a good thing. Especially for a relationship-driven quasi-soap opera like “Grey’s Anatomy” where the lovability of the characters is key.

Unfortunately, last night’s episode was one of the weakest in a while: runaway Amish girls coped with cervical cancer (allowing Dr. Bailey to give one of her famous operating table lectures—ladies, get those pap smears). George attempted to find solace for his father’s death by having lots of sex (worth it just to hear partner Callie’s heaving I-can’t-take-it monologue—“I’m tired of having my legs bent in ways my legs don’t go”). The Chief of Surgery officially announced his retirement and all the leads at Seattle Grace suddenly began vying to fill his shoes.

'Grey's Anatomy': Hittin' the road with Kate

Kate Walsh, it would appear, is getting out in the nick of time. Next week, in a very special two-hour episode, her character, Dr. Addison Shepherd, will vamoose from Seattle for the sunny shores of L.A. May she never look back because “Grey’s Anatomy” is collapsing faster than a punctured lung.

Izzie and George. Izzie and her new hairstyle. Callie and George, Derek and Meredith, Derek and the chief’s job. Addison and Karev, Addison and McSteamy, Cristina and Burke and their wedding cake. Oh which will they pick? Oh what will happen then? Oh who really cares?

Last night’s episode presented the “Grey’s” team with their biggest challenge ever — acting in ways barely recognizable as human much less characteristic. All the interns were suddenly concerned, albeit it briefly and intermittently, with their wink-wink careers as they cutely “studied” for “the biggest test of their internship.” (Surely that has been staying friends with the drippy, relentlessly narcissistic Meredith, no?)

Does anyone but me remember how the series began, with a whole bunch of interns being told by Bailey to look around because more than half of them wouldn’t be there in a few months? Whatever happened to the idea of benching some of these beauties?

So, who'd have thought — George O'Malley, surgical tramp. The doe-eyed, baby-faced, stammering intern, "Grey's Anatomy's" answer to Radar O'Reilly, has now bedded not one, not two, but three of the female leads. Nice guys do get lucky. Or maybe not. By having a drunken liaison with Izzie mere weeks after marrying Callie, George has lost a lot of nice-guy cred. Which probably means he'll be making it with Cristina any minute now, since she seems to like mean guys.

See, this is why we love "Grey's." It allows us a guilt-free opportunity to advise, counsel and pass judgment on people who are having way more sex with way more people than the average American. No character on the show has children (except Bailey, and I'd like to see the man who could seduce her), so we don't have to fret about innocent bystander victims of random couplings and uncouplings. All the adult characters have the soap-opera requisite "Eternal Sunshine" mind wipes that allow them to maintain relationships with people who'd basely betrayed them just a few episodes ago.

Here's a shocker — Meredith Grey is not dead. And so ABC will not have to change the name of its hit show to "Yin and Yang" after Cristina or "Bailey's Irish Cream" after Miranda.

From the moment Meredith went into the water in the first part of a three-episode "Grey's Anatomy" special event, we all knew she wasn't going to die — why, many of us had just seen Ellen Pompeo at the Golden Globes, and she did not look even remotely like a woman who'd been canned. So as the Meredith-battles-for-life plot line engulfed the second and third portion of a narrative following what looked to be the worst ferry accident in American history, tension was noticeable only in its absence.

In its place were some of the worst script decisions since, yes, I'll say it, Fonzie jumped the shark.

There are several reasons "Grey's Anatomy" is an award-winning hit and if last week's episode did not include any of them, this week more than made up for it. The trademark combination of weird medicine — patient with toxic blood practically kills half the leads — and weird romance — George and Callie got married in Vegas! Addison and Karev make hungry-wolf eyes at each other! — kept the action moving in full scrubs-flapping, one-line snapping form.

But more important was the near surgical display of the show's beating heart — the non-romantic relationship.

The problem with having a real-life publicity problem plaguing your hit television show is that it tears down the fourth wall, allowing the viewer to engage in way too much actor-analysis and general sub-texting, which, no matter what Us Weekly may tell you, is never a good thing. Especially for a relationship-driven quasi-soap opera like “Grey’s Anatomy” where the lovability of the characters is key.

Unfortunately, last night’s episode was one of the weakest in a while: runaway Amish girls coped with cervical cancer (allowing Dr. Bailey to give one of her famous operating table lectures—ladies, get those pap smears). George attempted to find solace for his father’s death by having lots of sex (worth it just to hear partner Callie’s heaving I-can’t-take-it monologue—“I’m tired of having my legs bent in ways my legs don’t go”). The Chief of Surgery officially announced his retirement and all the leads at Seattle Grace suddenly began vying to fill his shoes.

'Grey's Anatomy': George's serial bedside manner

So, who'd have thought — George O'Malley, surgical tramp. The doe-eyed, baby-faced, stammering intern, "Grey's Anatomy's" answer to Radar O'Reilly, has now bedded not one, not two, but three of the female leads. Nice guys do get lucky. Or maybe not. By having a drunken liaison with Izzie mere weeks after marrying Callie, George has lost a lot of nice-guy cred. Which probably means he'll be making it with Cristina any minute now, since she seems to like mean guys.

See, this is why we love "Grey's." It allows us a guilt-free opportunity to advise, counsel and pass judgment on people who are having way more sex with way more people than the average American. No character on the show has children (except Bailey, and I'd like to see the man who could seduce her), so we don't have to fret about innocent bystander victims of random couplings and uncouplings. All the adult characters have the soap-opera requisite "Eternal Sunshine" mind wipes that allow them to maintain relationships with people who'd basely betrayed them just a few episodes ago.

Here's a shocker — Meredith Grey is not dead. And so ABC will not have to change the name of its hit show to "Yin and Yang" after Cristina or "Bailey's Irish Cream" after Miranda.

From the moment Meredith went into the water in the first part of a three-episode "Grey's Anatomy" special event, we all knew she wasn't going to die — why, many of us had just seen Ellen Pompeo at the Golden Globes, and she did not look even remotely like a woman who'd been canned. So as the Meredith-battles-for-life plot line engulfed the second and third portion of a narrative following what looked to be the worst ferry accident in American history, tension was noticeable only in its absence.

In its place were some of the worst script decisions since, yes, I'll say it, Fonzie jumped the shark.

There are several reasons "Grey's Anatomy" is an award-winning hit and if last week's episode did not include any of them, this week more than made up for it. The trademark combination of weird medicine — patient with toxic blood practically kills half the leads — and weird romance — George and Callie got married in Vegas! Addison and Karev make hungry-wolf eyes at each other! — kept the action moving in full scrubs-flapping, one-line snapping form.

But more important was the near surgical display of the show's beating heart — the non-romantic relationship.

The problem with having a real-life publicity problem plaguing your hit television show is that it tears down the fourth wall, allowing the viewer to engage in way too much actor-analysis and general sub-texting, which, no matter what Us Weekly may tell you, is never a good thing. Especially for a relationship-driven quasi-soap opera like “Grey’s Anatomy” where the lovability of the characters is key.

Unfortunately, last night’s episode was one of the weakest in a while: runaway Amish girls coped with cervical cancer (allowing Dr. Bailey to give one of her famous operating table lectures—ladies, get those pap smears). George attempted to find solace for his father’s death by having lots of sex (worth it just to hear partner Callie’s heaving I-can’t-take-it monologue—“I’m tired of having my legs bent in ways my legs don’t go”). The Chief of Surgery officially announced his retirement and all the leads at Seattle Grace suddenly began vying to fill his shoes.

'Grey's Anatomy': Meredith becomes a drip, in three parts

Here's a shocker — Meredith Grey is not dead. And so ABC will not have to change the name of its hit show to "Yin and Yang" after Cristina or "Bailey's Irish Cream" after Miranda.

From the moment Meredith went into the water in the first part of a three-episode "Grey's Anatomy" special event, we all knew she wasn't going to die — why, many of us had just seen Ellen Pompeo at the Golden Globes, and she did not look even remotely like a woman who'd been canned. So as the Meredith-battles-for-life plot line engulfed the second and third portion of a narrative following what looked to be the worst ferry accident in American history, tension was noticeable only in its absence.

In its place were some of the worst script decisions since, yes, I'll say it, Fonzie jumped the shark.

There are several reasons "Grey's Anatomy" is an award-winning hit and if last week's episode did not include any of them, this week more than made up for it. The trademark combination of weird medicine — patient with toxic blood practically kills half the leads — and weird romance — George and Callie got married in Vegas! Addison and Karev make hungry-wolf eyes at each other! — kept the action moving in full scrubs-flapping, one-line snapping form.

But more important was the near surgical display of the show's beating heart — the non-romantic relationship.

The problem with having a real-life publicity problem plaguing your hit television show is that it tears down the fourth wall, allowing the viewer to engage in way too much actor-analysis and general sub-texting, which, no matter what Us Weekly may tell you, is never a good thing. Especially for a relationship-driven quasi-soap opera like “Grey’s Anatomy” where the lovability of the characters is key.

Unfortunately, last night’s episode was one of the weakest in a while: runaway Amish girls coped with cervical cancer (allowing Dr. Bailey to give one of her famous operating table lectures—ladies, get those pap smears). George attempted to find solace for his father’s death by having lots of sex (worth it just to hear partner Callie’s heaving I-can’t-take-it monologue—“I’m tired of having my legs bent in ways my legs don’t go”). The Chief of Surgery officially announced his retirement and all the leads at Seattle Grace suddenly began vying to fill his shoes.

'Grey's Anatomy': A return to form

There are several reasons "Grey's Anatomy" is an award-winning hit and if last week's episode did not include any of them, this week more than made up for it. The trademark combination of weird medicine — patient with toxic blood practically kills half the leads — and weird romance — George and Callie got married in Vegas! Addison and Karev make hungry-wolf eyes at each other! — kept the action moving in full scrubs-flapping, one-line snapping form.

But more important was the near surgical display of the show's beating heart — the non-romantic relationship.

The problem with having a real-life publicity problem plaguing your hit television show is that it tears down the fourth wall, allowing the viewer to engage in way too much actor-analysis and general sub-texting, which, no matter what Us Weekly may tell you, is never a good thing. Especially for a relationship-driven quasi-soap opera like “Grey’s Anatomy” where the lovability of the characters is key.

Unfortunately, last night’s episode was one of the weakest in a while: runaway Amish girls coped with cervical cancer (allowing Dr. Bailey to give one of her famous operating table lectures—ladies, get those pap smears). George attempted to find solace for his father’s death by having lots of sex (worth it just to hear partner Callie’s heaving I-can’t-take-it monologue—“I’m tired of having my legs bent in ways my legs don’t go”). The Chief of Surgery officially announced his retirement and all the leads at Seattle Grace suddenly began vying to fill his shoes.

'Grey's Anatomy': The incredible shrinking 'Grey's'

The problem with having a real-life publicity problem plaguing your hit television show is that it tears down the fourth wall, allowing the viewer to engage in way too much actor-analysis and general sub-texting, which, no matter what Us Weekly may tell you, is never a good thing. Especially for a relationship-driven quasi-soap opera like “Grey’s Anatomy” where the lovability of the characters is key.

Unfortunately, last night’s episode was one of the weakest in a while: runaway Amish girls coped with cervical cancer (allowing Dr. Bailey to give one of her famous operating table lectures—ladies, get those pap smears). George attempted to find solace for his father’s death by having lots of sex (worth it just to hear partner Callie’s heaving I-can’t-take-it monologue—“I’m tired of having my legs bent in ways my legs don’t go”). The Chief of Surgery officially announced his retirement and all the leads at Seattle Grace suddenly began vying to fill his shoes.