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(S04E15) "Tell her... tell her the train is leaving the station and she better get on it... yeah." - Webber

I don't know what to think anymore. You know, at the end of Grey's Anatomy when you see the title card for Shonda Rhimes' production company? Have you noticed what it is? Shondaland? It's a roller coaster. How appropriate. I mean, don't get me wrong. Even though I feel like everything on TV is still getting sort of a free pass to some extent due to post writer's strike "hey, at least it's new" syndrome, this was actually a great episode... for the most part. Which I suppose could be interpreted as getting a free pass due to "hey, at least there was a lesbian kiss" syndrome.

Gallery: Grey's Anatomy: Losing My Mind

Alright, lots to talk about but I feel like getting Meredith and Derek out of the way first. They had another tumor patient for their clinical trial and much like all the others, the brain mass is causing her to act abnormally. In her case? Imaginary boyfriend (not really). Random question regarding these tumor patients though... is there something in the water in Seattle? Is it just me thinking this or are there are lot of brain tumor patients, not to mention severe ones, in upstate Washington? Ones that are so bad that they qualify for Mer and Der's study? I'm just saying, these poor people are coming in by the truckload it seems.

Anyway, the issue was this. After mixing the injectable virus solution, there's only a short window to use it before the solution is dead and useless. The patient was convinced her boyfriend (no pictures, no phone calls, no one has ever seen him - soooooo fake) was coming to see her before the surgery. Derek was willing to give her a few more hours of happy thoughts (since the virus solution wasn't dead yet) and Meredith just wanted to get on with it. She was cold to put it bluntly. It seems like the one thing that's truly bothering Derek is that yeah, he's still in love with Meredith. What's troubling to him is that he can't stand how negative, pessimistic, depressing, and anti-love she is. That's why, when he patched things up with Rose at the end of the episode, he asked if things could be happy and (taking a cue from Sloan) easy.

That being said, Meredith realizes this. She told Wyatt to fix her. Is she broken? To me, that's an odd word to use with a person, but she definitely has issues. With her mother, Ellis. With her sister, Lexie. With Derek. With Cristina. The list goes on. Her mental repair job has been a work in progress all season and it looks like she'll have a better outlook on life by next week's two hour finale. I liked some of the ways that Wyatt was using to describe Meredith. She never called her suicidal - only Meredith used that word. But she did say that Meredith was "careless with her life." Also, she called her a quitter. All very appropriate. I think Meredith saw it as a challenge though, a reason to prove her psychiatrist wrong. Derek too.

The rest of Seattle Grace had its collective panties in a bunch over the arrival of Dr. Walter Tapley, Webber's mentor. The guy is the godfather of cardiothoracic surgery. A real heart transplant rock star. Well guess what? He's old, overweight, has a laundry list of complications, and he needs a few serious valve transplant thing-a-ma-jigs. No one wants to operate on him because there's a very good chance he'll die on the table. So he came to Webber (who was once a young African-American doctor with no real career prospects until he met Dr. Tapley) to guilt him into doing the surgery. Hahn reluctantly agreed and Tapley made it out alive. Beyond that, there wasn't much point to him being there. He was a one-shot character that I didn't really care about and it felt like a lot a filler. You could make the argument that his sole purpose was to bolster George's confidence by the end of the episode, but Webber gave George a pat on the back anyway. Tapley just seemed a little pointless to me.

Now speaking of George, he's still the Chief's intern. Why? For lack of a better term, he's become the Chief's bitch. Running around like a chicken with its head cut off, holding charts, taking calls, e-mailing Adele. Here's what I don't get. George's ultimate concern is advancing his career. Well... he said he's missing out on tons of valuable OR time by doing all this busy work for the Chief. Sure, all the ass-kissing could lead to a promotion but is that really worth the experience he's giving up to get it? I don't see George as that type of person. He needs more than just an atta-boy.

Moving on to Cristina. She has just completely given up. She cleaned the apartment, then went to work and proceeded to do nothing but fill out charts all day. She cares about nothing and doesn't seem to have any desire to get in on a surgery. She even passed on assisting Hahn with Tapley. It seems like Hahn's constant disdain for Yang and the re-emergence of Burke (via that newspaper clipping) has finally taken its toll. I know I often view Yang in a negative light, but that's just how I see her. The whole Burke thing got me wondering though. He was more than just a potential husband for Cristina. Marrying him was a guarantee that she had a mentor and teacher to help further her career. His departure took that away and I think it's finally sinking in for her that Hahn will never teach her in the same way that Preston did. So she's shut down. It's about time she took some of the advice she gave to Lexie and started looking out for herself. She needs to be fierce and get what she wants. It's kind of hypocritical for her to say that stuff to someone while she just sits around and fills out forms.

The one person who was being proactive this episode was Izzie. She finally spilled the beans and told Alex that Rebecca isn't pregnant. This has gotten ridiculous though. I really just can't believe she's still in the picture. The latest development? After asking Sloan for a boob job, he and Izzie swapped stories and figured out that Rebecca must have acute stress disorder. According to Sloan (who's doing his best to no longer be a whore) severe trauma patients can develop it after plastic surgery because they look in a mirror and truly don't know who they are anymore. So Rebecca wants boobs, makes up a pregnancy in her mind, and forgets she already has a kid. She needs a psych eval and Alex looks the other way. I don't get it. He's king of the insensitive a-holes and now he chooses to pity her and ignore the obvious? What's he trying to prove? That he's a man who can handle things? I'm going back to my original prediction - Rebecca is gonna flip out and attack him. I hope anyway. That would make sense to me anyway. And now she's nuts, so it's believable.

Some more thoughts...

• Andre (brain tumor lady's boyfriend) was real. I know it was predictable right from the beginning, but that's just it - it was too predictable. I seriously can't believe they went through with that. I mean, the writers went out of their way to establish him as symptom of the brain tumor. When he showed up, I laughed.
• I also laughed at that scene when Meredith and Lexie had it out in the bathroom and Dr. Wyatt was in a stall listening to the whole thing.
• Bailey and Tucker arguing is boring to me. It's the same thing every time. The one positive thing to come out of it is seeing George interact with Tucker Jr. O'Malley is gonna make a good father some day.

And then there was that kiss. Honestly, it was anti-climactic. Ever since Addison made the comment to Callie, you knew it was going to happen. Sure, all the threesome jokes were funny but it was still kind of like, "oh look - it's finally happening." Makes you wonder what Hahn was discussing with Wyatt when Meredith walked in on her session. It's worth noting that it was Hahn who initiated the smooch, although Callie (and Sloan) both seemed to enjoy it. I'm sure some people will argue that it's clichéd since it's the two moderately overweight, sort of attractive, kind of butch, female characters who locked lips, but whatever. It'll get people talking and Grey's Anatomy needs that bad. Besides, didn't you read my first paragraph? "Hey, at least there was a lesbian kiss" syndrome = free pass.