The Dope Box TV Blog

Grey’s Anatomy, These Ties that Bind, ABC television series

Christina jumps into bed, 2 coffees in hand, next to sleeping Meredith and Derek. She proclaims her excitement about Hahn being gone (it rhymes!), which is understandable after the nouveau-lesbian’s blatant judgment/dislike/unwillingness to teach Dr. Yang. Derek discovers he’s unwanted in his own bed after saying, “Too bad, she was really talented,” and hearing crickets in response.

New liability alert! Giggly, backpacking, fan-of-the-morgue Sadie arrives at the Grey household. The two are old pals. I’m pretty sure she was calling Meredith “Death” which is maybe not the best nickname for a girl who tried to drown herself. She’s apparently a new intern at Seattle Grace. Also, she seems a little too eager and comfortable slicing herself open.

Another newbie: Asperger’s syndrome afflicted (which I totally called after 5 seconds) heart surgeon, Dr. Dixon. “I do hearts.”

Callie is obviously upset about Hahn leaving her so suddenly. The compacted, knotted, and impaled-on-his-own-self vagrant cheers her right up, though. Dr. Hunt continues to show how much he respects the wishes of patients but is scolded by Derek for not trying to sway the patient’s decision toward surgery. Callie builds titanium bones for crushed guy’s legs but has an emotional explosion when he dies prior to having them implanted. The cause of her meltdown was probably nine-tenths feeling rejected by Erica, and one-tenth sorry homeless guy didn’t get to use the cool fake bones. Drs. Hunt and Yang share animalistic kiss in the alley of Joe’s. He’s such a tortured soul. Sigh.

A little déjà vu: Izzie, freaked out about Denny, stands outside the hospital apprehensively. This time when she enters she’s greeted by Denny the ghost who, thankfully, now has dialogue.

I’m going to pause to be realistic for just a second. If a doctor actually thought she was hallucinating, shouldn’t she, like, stop practicing medicine? Maybe take a visit to the psych ward?

Continuing…Izzie has a Native American patient who wants his donated heart removed because it is haunting him. Strangely, when the docs remove his heart, the old one starts beating on its own. Is it normal for the old heart to be left in the patient’s chest during a transplant?

The Denny storyline has me torn. I thought they jumped the shark when they killed Denny in the first place so it’s nice to have him (and all his smoldering goodness) back. But it doesn’t fit with the set structure of the show. If the show’s genesis had incorporated hallucinations (like Six Feet Under) or actual ghosts (like Medium) then the dead Denny plot, regardless of what he turns out to be, would be organic. As it is, having him show up ruptures the initial fabric of the show and makes me question whether the writers really have a clear vision anymore.

Aside from all that, the Denny/Izzie scenes made my icy heart melt. Her decision to have Alex burn Denny’s sweater (which she’s told will free the spirit) was excruciating to watch. She goes back to her room and he’s there. And she finally touches him. And they kiss. Can this end in any way other than heartbreak?

“Human pretzel. That’ll do.” –Callie

More Grey’s Anatomy articles available under “Thursdays” and “Grey’s Anatomy” in the category list.

The Hills, MTV Series, Mondays

Obviously this episode’s purpose was to setup Whitney’s future spinoff. Kelly Cutrone, the matron of darkness, sends Whit and LC off to NY for fashion week where they help out by dressing and interrogating male models (seriously, what was with the 20 questions?). Model #1 wouldn’t divulge his age, and I was certain his delicate sensibilities had been disturbed. Until he asked the girls out.

They meet up with Model #1 and Alex at Il Bastardo (perfect) where Whitney begins her juggling act. She eyes hairy musician Jay who she fauns over, and subsequently ignores Alex. LC encourages her to “be forward” (all praise promiscuity!) with the “serenader”.  Alex is clearly sweet on Whitney and stayed, waiting for attention, for an emasculating, embarrassingly long time. He and his trucker hat were ditched for the newest Aussie love interest on the show.

Back in LA: Heidi, looking pensive and synthetic, is upset over losing her “job” and seeks comfort from…Spencer? He seems giddy and can’t understand why being fired would be an issue. This is because a). Being Heidi’s boyfriend/wet-blanket is the only gig he’s ever had, and b). They’re making $65K each, per episode for filming this malarkey. But they can’t mention that on camera. It’s sort of like Fight Club; the first rule about The Hills is you don’t talk about The Hills.

Spencer convinces Heidi that being fired is a reason to party. While they’re out they just happen to run into Brent Bolthouse, which is totally not a setup by producers or anything. Mr. Pratt actually surprised me by being genuinely apologetic and trying to get Heidi her job back (despite secretly wanting her to be unemployed so he can get in some serious smothering). Spencer is told he’s “bad news”. Heidi tries to resolve the conflict with her standard doe-eyed-crinkly-brow “I’m, like, upset” expression.

“Dude, your boyfriend’s a nightmare; what’s wrong with you?”

 –Brent Bolthouse, to…guess who