Grey’s Anatomy – Bailey & Ben bond while Teddy grieves

Though the 18-hour separation of the conjoined twins took front and center in this episode of Grey’s Anatomy, I was more interested in Bailey and Ben moving (literally) closer together and in Teddy’s insistence that Cristina repeat, over and over and over again, exactly what she did while operating on Henry before he died.

It was heartening to hear Bailey finally place her current situation into a larger context, something the characters (who sometimes seem like they have amnesia) don’t do all that often: She and Ben started dating, he loved her little boy, then there was the mass shooting and, in her post-traumatic shock, Bailey sent Ben packing. Just recently, Bailey resumed dating Ben again and she’s now fearful that it’ll all go kaflooey, like her marriage did when she had been complacent believing that her life was great and perfect, just like she did before a gunman went on a rampage through the halls of Seattle Grace.

After transforming Bailey into an irrational hate machine hell-bent on demonizing Meredith after the whole Alzheimer’s trial scandal, it was a welcome change to have the familiar, wry Bailey back. The missing surgical sponge scene, in the wake of Bailey’s declaration that she couldn’t move in with Ben because she needed to focus like a laser while operating, worked very well.

As for Teddy’s seemingly masochistic requests for Cristina to stand in the OR and recite the exact order of events that led to her husband’s death, the eventual resolution of that thread paid off when we learned that Teddy wasn’t doing this to punish Cristina. In fact, Teddy tearfully told Cristina that she’d done just what she would have done had she been operating. Teddy simply wanted to memorize exactly what happened, imagine her hands doing what Cristina described, so she’d know, inside and out, what occurred as a way to come to terms with Henry’s death.

I was less impressed with Richard gaming Alex, manipulating him and preying upon his humanity — the softer side of Alex that he doesn’t often share with others — in order to get in on the conjoined twins’ surgery. Tacky. Certainly Alex, who has been ruthless in vying against his colleagues over the past seasons in order to get the best surgeries, doesn’t need any lessons on ambition. This whole thing felt wrong and beneath Richard.

However the heartwarming Zola moments, featuring the beaming Meredith and Derek doting over their daughter, seemed like big packets of sugar, sweetening the episode and contrasting with Teddy’s melancholy and the tortuous journey Meredith and Derek made to parenthood. Plus the kid’s undeniably adorable.

Clacked by Meredith O'Brien
on Jan 13, 2012 @ 12:13 EST5EDT