Grey's Anatomy recap: Tick Tock

As if we didn’t already know that a lot can happen in a Grey’s hour, this episode gave us a real-time look at one hour of the controlled chaos that can be a busy ER. Meredith showed off her chief resident skills by volunteering to run the show, all against the backdrop of a college hoops game that everyone seemed to be psyched about or trying to get to. The patients and their issues were front and center, appropriately outrageous (a dude with a knife in his head!) and touching (a loving dad with suspicious chest pains; a 4-year-old crying in pain with broken femur) cases. But that’s not to say we were devoid of the docs and their little dramas.

Baby, Baby

Cristina cautiously let Meredith know that Callie asked her to play godmother to the latest Sloan baby. Okay… but really, who besides Meredith would consider Cristina godmother material? Anyhow, it turns out that Meredith really didn’t want Cristina to take on the mantle of godmother to any other child than the future baby Shepherd. Not that Cristina would actually step up to raise any godchildren should the parents drop dead because that’s what boarding schools are for, after all. But the cold one honored her bestie’s request after this exchange while binging on baby cuteness in front of the maternity ward window:

Meredith: It just seems like if you agree to be Callie’s baby’s godmother, you’re saying I’ll never have a baby of my own.

Cristina: Meredith, you know that I’m in no way saying…

Meredith: I know. It just feels that way

I love having these two back to their intuitive and honest (should-be-dysfunctional-but-it’s-not) closeness. And then Cristina cleaned some blood off of Meredith’s neck with her sleeve. Loved that touch.

Speaking of the Shepherds’ fertility issues, were you as gullible as I was about Derek and Meredith’s date? I really thought that Derek was trying to talk Meredith into having sex in the elevator when he told her that he’d be “in and out” and to drop her pants. But no, the happy, baby-focused couple were just lightheartedly keeping on top of Meredith’s fertility injections. No elevator sex there.

Bailey had to carry the whole sex angle this week. That’s right — smiling, blushing, flustered Bailey. Oh how fun it was to see the sexy, persistent Nurse Eli push Bailey’s buttons in all the right ways as he talked her into the on-call room for that favorite hospital staff pastime. I don’t think that even having Derek accidentally walk in on her little interlude dimmed her fires because I’m pretty sure I know where she was going on her next break.

NEXT: Teddy juggles her husband and her dateMeanwhile, Karev’s gruff a—hole-with-a-heart thing was really working for him. He came in on his day off to do paperwork necessary to keep him from being suspended but he got to multitask by also making time with Callie’s OB, Lucy. She went from banning him from the NICU a week ago to helping him sign his papers, lightly flirting with him in the elevator, and looking on admiringly when he scrapped his plans to go to the game so that he could operate on the kid with the broken leg.

You just knew this episode wouldn’t end well for someone and I kept fearing it would be the little boy who was woefully neglected throughout as he waited for an OR, but instead it was the fit and fine looking dad who came in with what he thought was just heartburn. Meredith, busy putting out fires and plugging holes, was particularly affected by his sudden death and later having to speak to his family. I know she was extra hormonal from the drugs (super peppy at the top of the hour, equally weepy by the end of it) but it sure seemed like that circle of life thing really got to her as she stood in front of the window of babies. Somehow the drunk idiot who ended up with a knife in his head after a bar brawl managed to walk out the hospital with no permanent damage, but this guy barely made it onto the OR table and would never go home again.

The Chief barks while burying his head

That’s not to say the night didn’t hold some wins for Meredith, like catching the henpecked “migraine” sufferer’s stroke on the early side and getting him up to surgery. (Which seemed to clear his mind from the spell his bitchy girlfriend had put him under.) But Meredith couldn’t stand up to the Chief when it came to his wife, Adele, who went to the ER with a fractured wrist. Meredith noticed very alarming things about Adele’s memory but when she brought them up to the Chief, he chewed her out, telling her she had “Alzheimers on the brain.” You would think that Meredith had enough experience playing enabler to the Chief back when he fell off the wagon that she’d stand up a little more to him and force him to acknowledge that something is wrong with Adele, rather than just hanging her head in silence.

On the sweet and funny side, Teddy, sidetracked by the dying dad’s case, had to watch her husband-of-convenience hang out with her date William (Josh Randall). After which, Scott Foley’s too-cute Henry gave her the lowdown on William (not good — he wears driving gloves and used the word “shan’t” without intentionally being funny). And then Henry said, with those big earnest eyes of his, “As your husband, I think we can do better.” Yes, Teddy, it’s about time you started looking at him in a different light.

What did you think of Meredith’s chance to shine? Where do you think the Chief-Adele story line is going?

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