- After learning of Richard's drinking problem, Derek confronts him for the sake of his friend and the hospital, Izzie returns, hoping to reconcile with Alex, and tensions run high between Teddy, Cristina and Owen in the aftermath of Cristina's startling confession.—ABC Publicity
- Voiceover Meredith started the night by telling us Rule No. 1 in surgery is to limit exposure, using it as a metaphor for life. Several doctors watched from the gallery while Bailey put on a demonstration of a chemo lavage, which Teddy found fascinating. Callie wasn't so into it, and left to get coffee. Teddy and Cristina chatted about their confrontation last week. Teddy said the chief asked her to finish her contract and Cristina tried to take back what she said about being willing to give up Owen in exchange for continuing to learn from Teddy (she said Cristina was trying to trade Owen "like a horse"). Voiceover Meredith said Rule No. 2 is that when you can't limit exposure, you have to change tactics and cut bigger.
Back at their house, Derek and Meredith were shouting at each about the chief. Derek wanted to report him for his drinking. Meredith was defending the chief. She said he only wanted to report the chief to the board because he wants the chief's job. Meredith "called Post-It." She told Derek that she was sharing the chief's situation with her "husband," not "the head of neurosurgery." He agreed not to tell. Then they made out. Then Meredith's pager went off. Izzie was coming home.
Meredith went to tell Alex that Izzie was coming back, and she found Lexie in Alex's bed. Shortly after, in the kitchen, Alex told her not to judge him. Just as Meredith was saying, "Izzie is coming home. No one needs to know," Izzie walked in and said, "Know what?"
Derek went to the chief and said he wanted to help. He wasn't specific about what he was offering to help with, but the chief told Derek he could help, "by doing your own job and letting me do mine."
Alex and Izzie's first chat was awkward, at best. She said she was applying for jobs, and that one was close enough (in Tacoma) that they would "be OK." Alex said he had to go. Izzie tried to charm him, but he left.
The chief put his name down for a whipple, and was ready to give Meredith the most difficult part of the operation.
Alex found an opera singer who had bronchitis and was losing his upper register. Callie and Arizona were making out in an on-call room when Arizona discovered that Callie had chicken pox.
Cristina filled Meredith in on the Teddy-Owen story, from start to finish. She said she wasn't sure if she meant that she'd trade Owen for Teddy's expertise. Meredith told her she couldn't talk like that.
Arizona handed Callie over to Lexie, who'd had her chicken pox vaccine. Arizona had not, nor had she already had the chicken pox. Izzie asked Meredith to see if Derek would recommend her for the Tacoma job. Derek came to Meredith and said he didn't trust the chief in the complicated whipple surgery.
Alex's opera singer, it turned out, might have a heart condition or cancer. The singer was worried he'd have to get his lung removed, and said that singing was his entire life. His partner jumped in and said, "Besides me?"
Bailey complained to Derek that the chief took her whipple and put Meredith on it. She said "the chief's judgement is not clear and rational." She admitted that she was looking in the gallery during her earlier procedure to see if the chief was there. She said she shouldn't have expected him, "because the truth is, he's gone. And he's been gone a long time."
Callie begged Lexie to take off her "gauze paws" and let her scratch her itchy pox. She said she was in scary pain and she was going pretty crazy. To distract Callie, Lexie blurted out, "I had sex with Alex." She said she told Callie because she was in pain, too. Callie kicked Lexie out of the room, saying she had pox between her butt cheeks and Lexie's pain didn't compare to hers.
Cristina wanted to know from the other doctors whether they would choose surgery or love. Izzie walked in and asked, "Choose what?" Meredith admitted she would choose surgery, if a gun was held to her head. Izzie said that was stupid, because surgery was just a job and you could get another one, "but if you think you're losing your love, then suddenly nothing else matters." She looked at Alex, who said he was with Meredith and Cristina on this one. "Love comes and goes," he said. "Surgery doesn't."
Cristina told the opera singer that he did have a tumor lining his lung. The worst-case scenario was that they'd have to remove his whole lung. The man told his partner, who was trying to be encouraging, to shut up. He went on to tell the doctors that the stage was the only place he got to be himself, "and if I can't do that ... then I don't want to live." Cristina listened to all of this very intently.
Derek caught Owen stashing sterile supplies, which were hard to come by (and Derek had complained to the chief about it earlier). Derek told Owen he wanted to do something that would make him look bad, "like I did it for the wrong reasons, like I did it for myself." Owen told him that if he did something for the right reasons, it would work out. Derek asked how he'd know if something was the right decision and Owen said it would be "the thing that keeps the most people alive."
Izzie, who was in the tube for her PET scan, asked Alex if he'd moved on. He admitted he'd slept with someone. She said they would get through it. She asked him to hold her hand, but he couldn't reach it. He held her foot instead, and she smiled.
Derek went into the chief's office, said nothing, put a bottle of scotch on his desk and set a glass in front of him. He poured some into the glass. Derek said he didn't want the chief to drink it, but he believed he would. He also believed it wouldn't be the first drink the chief had that day. Derek left and the chief stared at the glass.
Cristina, Alex and Teddy operated on the opera singer. Teddy wanted to try the chemo lavage procedure that Bailey had done earlier, in an effort to save the man's lung.
Sloan showed up and confided in Callie that he slept with Addison and thought he had to tell Lexie. Callie told him not to. Then he started rubbing her to relieve the itching without scarring.
Alex told the opera singer's partner that he was going to be OK. The man said he was just a little disappointed because a part of him was hoping that the opera singer would be taken down a level and have to live the way everyone else does. He said it was demeaning to be in love with someone who thinks so little of him. But then he reiterated that he loved him, and he told Alex that he should hear him sing.
Meredith was practicing her stitch for the whipple when Bailey walked in. Meredith told Bailey that the chief was going to let her do the complicated part, but Bailey said Meredith wasn't ready for that. Meredith left the OR. She was upset and talked to Derek, who said Meredith was acting dumb for not turning in the chief. Derek told Meredith that Tacoma passed on Izzie because there was "too much history." He said if he went to the board and they made him chief, the first thing he would do was hire Izzie back. He said it was her choice. Meredith said nothing and left.
Arizona and Lexie watched through the window as Sloan rubbed Callie's itchy spots. Arizona said she should've been in Callie's room scratching her, and confessed that she lied to Callie about not having had the chicken pox. She'd had them, but didn't want to see Callie that way. She wanted to "stay in the sexy part," and now Sloan was making scratching look sexy. "He makes everything look sexy," Lexie said.
Cristina told Teddy she understood someone who chose his gift, saying that Teddy chose to save the opera singer's lung because his singing was so important to him. Cristina said she wasn't going to apologize for choosing her gift of surgery over Owen. "I want to be great, and I want to learn from you," Cristina said.
Izzie asked Meredith if Derek had talked to Tacoma yet and Meredith claimed she didn't know. Izzie was excited that her scans showed she was cancer-free. Meredith didn't say anything. She went to Derek and told him he could go to the board. He leaned in to hug her and she held him off and walked out of the room.
Owen met up with Teddy at the bar, and she was already drunk. She was going on about Owen's former fiancee, and about Cristina. She told Owen that Cristina was willing to trade him for her. "If I stayed, she said I could have you," she said.
Izzie took her scans to Alex to share the good news. He was excited and hugged her. He realized how much had happened and couldn't believe they -- and specifically he -- got through it. He thanked her for showing him he was a good man -- because now he knew he was good enough not to deserve the way she'd treated him. He said he was happy for her, but he wanted her "to go and be happy, and not come back."
Meredith went to the chief's office, where he was sleeping on the couch. The board chairman was waiting outside. He apologized to Meredith about the surgery and she told him he didn't have to apologize for anything. She got up and left and he saw Jennings.
Meanwhile, Owen showed up at Cristina's. He was drunk and kissed Cristina. He told her that people do matter and that he does matter. "We matter," he said. He said he wouldn't let her toss him aside. She cried and kissed him back.
Back at the hospital, Lexie caught up to Sloan and he immediately confessed that he slept with Addison. She was relieved and said she slept with Alex, and she thought they were even. He was upset because she slept with Alex while he was hurting and after she'd broken up with him. He said he couldn't look at her.
Meredith told Izzie, who was packing, not to leave and Izzie said she had to start over. Meredith told Izzie that Seattle was her home, but Izzie said, "Not anymore. It's just a place that I worked and I can do that anywhere."
Arizona showed up in Callie's room and said she didn't care if she got the chicken pox.
Lying in bed, Meredith told Derek that he turned in the chief for himself. She said he chose surgery over love, but Derek said that she did, too. She knew she shouldn't have been in that complicated whipple surgery but she wanted it so badly that she was willing to overlook the chief's problem.
"We're the same," he said.
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