Grey’s Anatomy Gets Naked When Everybody Has Sex In Hotel Rooms

Grey’s Anatomy is a good old-fashioned soap opera. People fall in and out of relationships and fill on call rooms with erotic moans and get in fights in the OR over trivial matters that would likely have them thrown out of any actual hospital. The show has become almost classically sudsy in the last few years. It turned from the edgy and often radical show of the first and second season into something awfully close to ER or General Hospital. There was a shooter in the hospital and a musical episode and countless betrayals (and if my suspicions are correct there will be a virus outbreak in the finale this year).

But even when it wallowed in the trappings of its genre it maintained something special. Super couples like MerDer and Crowen and the incredibly visible and wonderful for lesbians Calzona might, for many, be the bread and butter of the show, but they’re still just super couples and in the television landscape those are a dime a dozen (well except for the last one–that one you only find on Showtime usually). What set Grey’s apart beyond was the friendship between Meredith and Cristina. It wasn’t just a Sex in the City style gabfest. These weren’t just friends on the surface.

This was a deep spiritual connection that may very well mirror a friendship you’ve been lucky to experience. Derek and Owen are the husbands but Meredith and Cristina are the “one true pairing.” And they’ve had fights. The fifth season was onerous to watch because they hated each other, and their growing distance this season has made more than one episode drag a bit. They’re at their best and most watchable when they’re actively being friends. When they’re doing anything they can for one another and sacrificing everything.

Even though their scenes clocked in under ten minutes last night they dominated the hour. As much as the episode was about sexy times and dying babies and Callie making faces in the OR it was ultimately about two friends separated by a door and realizing that in the end life goes on and what they have–no matter how important it is–is ending.

Because friendships–even the deepest ones–can end. People move. People die. People fall out of platonic love. Meredith and Cristina are acutely aware of how fickle life is and they’re not the kind of people who sat around on the last day of school getting people to sign their yearbook and promising they’d see each other soon. They’re pragmatic realists holding hands through a crack in the door.

Now April. That is a character who would get you to sign her yearbook. She’s abhorrently perky and for this show that’s a major character flaw. She was also, until last night, a virgin. The show never discussed why she was a virgin. We just all accepted it and personally I figured it was one of those 40 Year Old Virgin accidental virginity scenarios. Nope!

Jesus Christ they went there. I just…good for her having faith. Let’s not knock a woman for loving Jesus and “saving herself,” but I will mock the show for an eternity for whipping that particular level of devoutness out of left field and thrusting it on the character. If she was religious enough to believe Jesus hated her for banging Pretty Eyes wouldn’t we have heard her make mention of her faith before? Or was this supposed to be a culmination of the episode’s events and her having some sort of psychotic break?

Either way:

God bless Sarah Drew for making it through that without laughing. Because you KNOW it must have been hard. I’ve watched the scene three times now and can’t make it through with out great big heaving guffaws.

And God bless Richard because that dude GOT SOME and wasn’t haunted by his poor wife’s decline or, you know, Jesus. I will continue to praise any and every show that has people in the 50+ set get some. Also daaaang those two look good. Also YES. You can have your Crowen and April/Jackson feelings. I will have my Richard/Jackson’s mom feelings.

WORK IT DEBBIE ALLEN.

Also I will have feelings for Callie–because even though Bailey was the one fixing the Teddy/Owen debacle it was Callie, flitting in and out of the room like a manic butterfly that stole every single scene. And we didn’t even see her face! She was hidden behind a mask the whole time! FIGHTING BEARS WITH KNIVES.

Elsewhere Callie’s wife failed at being a mentor to Alex because she let that dude be an IDIOT. Look. I get it. Alex is a big dumb gorilla who feels too much and hides it behind assholerly. Fine. But why, oh why, was he so monumentally dense this episode? Didn’t he just give a rant about how that little baby was going to die and the mom needed to function all on her own and he couldn’t be there for her? And then he was?

And Arizona was all sage and sad in a corner instead of dragging him by the ear back to San Francisco? NO.

Also Lexie still loves Mark but won’t tell him until the finale when they are in mortal jeopardy.

And Zola dressed like a bee.

I hope it turns out this entire show takes place in Zola's mind while vomiting in her bee costume.

I will suffer though all that. All that bad decisions by Alex, and April’s Jesus tears and Jackson’s mom high fiving Richard for breaking Jackson’s brain. I will push through the endless Lexie/Mark back and forth (they haven’t made out in over a year I’M OVER IT). Because at the end of the day Cristina risked sickness to hold Meredith’s hand under a door.

Notes

• So Callie comes in holding a mask over her face to tease Bailey for failing to fix Teddy and she stands there with that mask over her face while Bailey rips her own mask off and gives an aria about forgiveness. Bailey probably just killed a kid with mouth infections.
• Debbie Allen and Richard high fiving over Jackson’s broken brain? The tops.
• Cristina acquired a huge IV bag from a HOTEL. She is magic.
• Jessica Capshaw’s baby bump kills me every episode. They’re not even trying. I half expect a Frasier style fat camp storyline next season to explain it.
• Next Week: Someone failed and we find out who. My money is on Cristina or Alex. Also Arizona’s long-lost best friend shows up so we can actually learn something about her.