Season 1 Episode 5 : Shake Your Groove Thing

Shake Your Groove Thing
Air Date: April 24, 2005

"I mean, seriously. Don't be fooled by all the hot shoes and the great sex and the no parents anywhere telling you what to do. Adulthood is responsibility."

Exhaustion begins to take its toll on Meredith. She falls asleep in the shower and she has troubles keeping her eyes open at work. The fact that the nursing home demands her immediate attention to take care of some overdue paperwork for her mom doesn't help either. During open heart surgery with Burke, Meredith has the simple task of actually holding the heart. After the surgery, though, she notices that a fingernail was protruding from a glove and worries that she may have punctured the heart. Should she tell Burke? George points out that had there been a problem, they would've known during the surgery, but there wasn't a problem, the heart is working fine, so telling Burke only risks getting in trouble for something you didn't really do. She opts not to tell Burke, but the issue is still a pressing one for her.

George meanwhile has a case of doctor error of his own to deal with - fortunately not his error, though. He assists Bailey and Richard on a case where a towel is found inside a woman - a towel left in her from a previous surgery five years ago. Bailey orders Cristina to look into the patient's history, to see if she can find out who's responsible. Izzie's boyfriend Hank is visiting Seattle just for the night, so Izzie is planning a really special night - just her and Hank& and everyone else in the entire hospital. She plans a party at Meredith's that just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Just about everyone gets invited, except, of course, for Alex. To Cristina this is telling - Izzie doesn't want to be alone with Hank. But Izzie is in denial, insisting the relationship is still quite strong.

Derek orders Alex to install a central line to a patient with chronic pain problems. Alex ignores those orders when he determines the patient is just a junkie looking for a fix, which doesn't make Derek happy because the first rule in pain management is always to err on the side of caution. He might very well be a junkie, but his pain is very much real to him.

Burke's heart patient, the one that Meredith held the heart for, crashes bedside. They are able to revive and stabilize her, but in a panic Meredith asks if this could have anything to do with her possibly puncturing the heart with a fingernail. Though Burke doesn't think so, her admonition couldn't have come at a worse time - the patient's husband is standing right there. He hears Meredith and decides to take legal action. Meredith and Burke must meet with Richard and the hospital counsel the very next morning - a meeting that will essentially decide Meredith's fate as a doctor.

Meredith's problems pile up when she finally has to find time to go to the nursing home to officially get power of attorney over her mom's estate. Unfortunately, they don't give her a very big window of time to do it, and it's nearly impossible to get out of work long enough to get there in time. When she arrives, her mother is already "sundowning" and not lucid enough to sign anything in front of Meredith (as needed to be).

Cristina finds a file on the surgery where the towel got left behind, and she sees a familiar name on the roster of doctors: Dr. Preston Burke. She gives the file to Bailey, who gives it to Burke himself. When Cristina asks Bailey what will happen, she's told simply not to worry about it anymore. "It's taken care of." Suspecting a cover up, Cristina is immensely bothered.

Izzie has but one more task to do before she can head home to attend her own party and be with her boyfriend - discharge Alex's pain patient. But the pain patient doesn't want to go. He gets in a tussle with the orderlies, bangs his head on some medical equipment, and does severe damage requiring immediate surgery. Derek asks her and Alex to scrub in, to which Izzie can't decline. She winds up missing her own party, having to meet her boyfriend in the hospital parking lot, where they find they don't exactly see eye-to-eye on their relationship. He wants things the way they've always been, but to Izzie, since she's a doctor now, the top priority has to be the hospital and her patients, and things just have to be different.

Meredith doesn't miss the party. She arrives to find her house overrun with strangers. Initially very upset, she has no choice but to give in - after all, she's just hours away from having the fate of her career decided. And that's when Derek shows up. Feeling like she has nothing to lose, Meredith gives in to temptation and she and Derek wind up in his car together, doing what they haven't done since, well& the night they met. Unfortunately for the both of them, Derek's car is blocking in Bailey's, and she sees everything. And she lets them know that she saw everything.

The next morning, Meredith attends her meeting, and it does not begin well. Even though it's agreed that the patient's heart was weak because of excessive weight loss - and not a puncture from a nail - the fact that Meredith said something in front of the patient's husband is considered inexcusable to the hospital lawyers. But it's Burke who stands up for her, using his own mistake five years earlier - leaving the towel behind - as an example of how a surgeon shouldn't act. To him, she didn't make a mistake being honest about the glove. If only he had been as honest about his suspicions that maybe he didn't check everything properly five years earlier, a woman would not have been found with a towel in her today. Meredith did the right thing that he couldn't do five years earlier. She is put on a short probation, and that's it. Thanks to Burke, her future as a surgeon is not in jeopardy.

Season 1 Episode 4 : No Man's Land

No Man's Land
Air Date: April 17, 2005


Intimacy is a four syllable word for "Here are my heart and soul - please grind them into hamburger and enjoy."


It dawns on George that Izzie and Meredith treat him more like a sister than, well, a man, and that's troubling for him. But even more troubling for George: that Alex has picked up on George's "sister role" and won't let George forget it. Cristina's aggressive pre-pre-rounding (arriving to the hospital at least a ½ hour before the other interns) gets her on a patient with pancreatic cancer (and its corresponding "whipple" surgery). That patient is Liz Fallon, a scrub nurse of 20 years for Dr. Ellis Grey. Despite working with Meredith's mom for that length of time, though, she's never met Meredith. George isn't the only one annoyed by Alex. Izzie feels the brunt of his machismo whenever he calls her "Dr. Model" because of how she earned her way through college and med school, a past that directly conflicts with her present when she gets assigned to a patient (with prostate cancer) who's familiar with her work (in a Bethany Whisper lingerie ad). The prostate patient doesn't want her working on him. And Meredith works with Derek (with a little help from Alex and George) on the case of a construction worker with 6 nails embedded in his head.

Friction forms between George and Izzie when he passive-aggressively "forgets" to buy the tampons she asked him to buy. Cristina finds herself a "cruise director" for Liz, taking her around the hospital to all the old services she used to work with, but not setting up any actual surgery. Derek asks Meredith out for a meal together - which she declines.

Meredith finally meets Liz, admitting for the first time to someone else that her mom is in a nursing home, with Alzheimer's, and that she is the only one allowed to see her or know of her condition. Meredith also visits her mother, who is unable to recall Meredith's childhood or even her own husband. But her old co-worker Liz, though, Ellis recalls with complete lucidity.

Once Alex gets wind of Izzie's lingerie ad, it's just more fuel for him. He copies and hangs up her half-naked photos all over the hospital. The subject of momentary ridicule, Izzie puts Alex and the others amused by the photos in their place by angrily stripping down to her underwear to show them - quite convincingly - that she has no problem with her body and them seeing it, while simultaneously reminding them that this body is why she completely lacks the debt that plagues them.

Meredith suspects there is more to the construction worker's ails than just nails in his head. After Derek removes the nails successfully, she believes the reason why he had the accident with the nail gun in the first place was because of an undiagnosed brain disease. And she's right. He has a tumor. This puts Derek and Meredith at odds with each other for the first time, when she disagrees over the proper course of treatment for the tumor. Derek lets the patient and his wife make the decision - to have surgery that will prolong his life, but potentially wipe out his personality and many memories. Meredith, reeling from her responsibility to take care of Ellis, oversteps her bounds as a doctor and chastises them for their decision, saying they should go for the option that will preserve his memories and personality, even if it means fewer years.

Cristina learns that there isn't going to be a whipple. There isn't going to be any surgery for Liz and there never was. Liz came to the hospital to die, and Cristina was merely giving her a chance to say good-bye to everyone, but not without imparting much wisdom to the hardened intern. When Liz finally crashes, despite Do Not Rescusitate orders, Cristina won't let her go. But to no avail, as Burke and Richard have to practically pull her off the dying Liz. Liz becomes Cristina's first time of death. This isn't easy for Cristina, and Burke is there for her in the end.

Meredith finally agrees to get some breakfast with Derek.

Season 1 Episode 3 : Winning a Battle, Losing the War

Winning a Battle, Losing the War

Air Date : April 10, 2005

"After a while, the rules of residency become the rules of life.

Rule #1: Always keep score.

Rule #2: Do whatever you can to outsmart the other guy.

Rule #3: Don't make friends with the enemy."

It's Dead Baby Bike day in Seattle - the day of an annual bike race with no rules (sponsored by the Dead Baby Bar). This throws off the hospital's entire surgical schedule, filling up the surgical floor with free-spirited - albeit injured - bike messengers, including one named Viper with spokes sticking out of his abdomen. Meredith and Alex both want him, but Viper immediately takes to Alex's handling of the situation - Alex just yanks out the spokes and lets him get back to the race, leaving Meredith to suture and do the paperwork. Meredith reluctantly discharges the charismatic Viper, but not before he kisses her - in front of a jealous Derek who claims not to be jealous.

The race isn't all just cuts and bruises. There is a casualty. Izzie and Cristina are put in charge of an unidentified visitor to Seattle (has no wallet, just a hotel key card), who was hit by a car when jumped out of the way of the racers. The patient is put on the clock - if there's no sign of brain activity in 6 hours, he's to be declared brain dead. This is a very troubling prospect for Izzie.

George gets a special assignment from Richard, attend to a close, personal friend who's been admitted with liver failure. When the male patient makes a pass at George, George becomes paranoid that others in the hospital - namely his crush Meredith - might think he's gay.

Should Cristina and Izzie's patient be declard brain dead, Izzie wants to make the guy's death meaningful by getting his organs donated. But that's nearly impossible when the person is a John Doe. Cristina wants his organs donated, too, but really just because she wants to be in a harvest. While the man's family is tracked down, though, the patient crashes, needing a blood transfusion as well as surgery to keep his body viable as a donor. Izzie and Meredith do the transfusion, but Burke has to do the surgery, and he doesn't believe in operating on patients that are already dead (the six hours are almost up). So he declines. And without Burke's surgery, it won't be much longer before the heart fails again.

Derek lets Meredith in on a little secret: "You want Burke to do the surgery, get Richard on board first." And they do, by going to George and getting him to tell Richard that they may have a liver for his friend. It works, but not without raising Burke's ire. The surgery is done, the family is tracked down, and now all they need to do is get the patient's wife to agree to organ donation. It's a job that Cristina can't really handle, as observed by Bailey (who shows she can be as thoughtful to patients and family as she can be tough on her interns).

Viper returns, but not for another kiss with Meredith. He's sustained a life-threatening injury and Bailey and Meredith have to save him. The prospect of the harvest, though able to give the man's death more meaning, still isn't satisfying to Izzie. She really wanted the patient to wake up, to live. And Burke understands where she's coming from. The bittersweet harvest is done, giving Richard's friend a new liver, and when Izzie comes in to sew up the brain dead guy (who's now just dead guy) so he can be presentable to his family, Cristina sticks around to help, seeing the patient as a human being.

Season 1 Episode 2 : The First Cut Is the Deepest

The First Cut Is the Deepest
Air Date: April 03, 2005


"Here's what I know. There are some lines too dangerous to cross. But there are others ¦if you're willing to throw caution to the wind and take a chance, the view from the other side is spectacular."


Meredith doesn't want a relationship with Derek, but in a moment of weakness - when it's just the two of them alone in an elevator - she kisses him. Alex gets switched to Bailey's team of interns, forcing him to work closely with those who hate him most. He and Cristina get assigned the seemingly simple chore of delivering good lab results to patients and their families, but they quickly find themselves bombarded with hugs and tears of joy - two things they simply can't handle. Izzie gets to practice "actual medicine" sewing up minor cuts and injuries. One patient, though, who doesn't speak any English, becomes troubling to Izzie, as the patient desperately tries to tell her something and just won't leave. Bailey assigns George to run the code team, responsible for shocking patients on the brink of death back to life when their vital signs crash. And when not fending off the advances of Derek, Meredith is put in possession of a bit of evidence retrieved from the body of a rape victim - the attacker's penis.

Burke's world is turned upside-down when he realizes that he isn't Richard's top surgeon anymore. Richard feels Burke's gotten too complacent, and has brought in Derek specifically to compete to be his replacement one day. This leads Burke to take Meredith's side when she wishes to interfere with a patient in another service (a big no-no usually). Meredith thinks a baby might have a serious heart defect, but the pediatric intern actually caring for the baby strongly disagrees. Turns out, Meredith is right, but Burke still scolds her for using unorthodox tactics to get around the pediatric intern (i.e. going straight to the baby's parents).

When the rape victim's attacker stumbles into the hospital needing emergency care, Bailey gets to make the call - without a hint of sadness - that reattaching his penis isn't possible. Izzie finally finds out what the non-English speaking patient needs - her daughter is outside, also needing medical attention, but is afraid to come in because she doesn't have a green card. Izzie helps the both of them, stitching up their wounds outside the hospital, even though it's way against hospital policy to do so (and could Izzie in much trouble). Failing to save any lives, George learns the sad truth that being on the code team means 90% of all patients are beyond recovering by the time you even get there. And Cristina and Alex don't really learn anything at all, except that they'd rather be doing anything else all day than delivery lab results.

Derek spends a great deal of time by the rape victim's bedside, revealing a softer side to Meredith (the victim has no friends or family in Seattle), but it's not enough to win her over. When given the option to ride in another elevator alone with Derek, she opts to take the stairs.