I love when shows do things like try to convince us that something has been going on all along that clearly hasn't. So, while Mark hasn't even been a doctor at Seattle Grace for two years, he's somehow been working on setting up a face transplant surgery for the last three. His patient is a really sweet guy who has no family, and friends that he has only met online are arriving to take care of him after it's over. They arrive early and he freaks out since he didn't want them to see his pre-op (lack of) face but manages to be convinced by the doctors that it will be okay. He lets his three friends see him, and of course they are amazing and love him no matter what the state of his face -- something that Izzie takes particular note of since she's trying to hide her cancer from everyone. The face transplant is successful and totally tear-jerking, and afterward it also convinces Lexie to kiss Mark in front of all of the other interns who have been total jerks about their rumored relationship. The interns don't really have any stones to throw, however, given that they have their own dramas going on that totally mirror some of the things our gang went through in their own intern year.
But back to Izzie: Cristina has been busting her ass to help her, and has managed to get Iz an appointment with a top oncologist. But Izzie ultimately flakes on the appointment and when Cristina confronts her about it, admits she's not sure she even wants to try and get treatment. She's worried about how her own friends will look at her and treat her, and is even afraid of surgery since she knows too well what it's really like, what her chances are, and how doctors can be callous to get themselves through the procedure. Cristina demands to know why Izzie even told her, then, so Izzie yells a whole lot and tells Cristina to just forget about it. Cristina can't really do that, though -- she's gotten her first solo surgery and has basically brushed off the patient while trying to set things up for Izzie. The woman whose hernia she is fixing calls her on it right before the surgery, and Cristina assures her patient that this is really important to her and she'll get her through it. Then, once her patient is asleep but before she takes her first cut, she announces to Bailey and Alex that Izzie has cancer. When she fesses up to Izzie about what she did, it's kind of a miracle -- Izzie actually thanks her, and as Bailey has told Meredith and George, they all help Izzie go from being a doctor to being a patient.
Derek has spent the whole day getting drunk at the trailer, so Bailey sends Callie to go get him back. Callie starts talking about a patient who she killed and winds up feeling like crap and getting drunk with Derek; when she doesn't show back up at the hospital, Bailey sends Hunt after both of them. Of course, he tells his own story and also winds up in the pathetic drinking party. Bailey finally admits to Richard what she did, so he goes after all three of them and when he arrives, Derek yells at him for being selfish in telling Meredith about the ring. Derek then proceeds to actually blame his horrible behavior, including batting away the ring and yelling at Mere, on the Chief. But the Chief doesn't accept it and yells at least a bit of sense back into Derek so that Derek finally admits he was an asshole. Richard assures him that he can fix his life, and says he'll be there for Derek when he is ready to come back to work. Derek then calls Meredith, and when she arrives at the trailer that evening he tells her that he loves her. He then asks if she would still love him if he wasn't a surgeon and she tells him... no! But of course it's not so cold-blooded as it sounds -- she tells him about Izzie's cancer and that he's one of only a handful of surgeons with any hope of saving her life, and that she couldn't love someone who would throw that talent away. It's nauseating, but I'll admit it was also rather well done. And so the circle is complete: Meredith leaves Derek with Izzie's scans, and he finally pulls them out and starts looking at them, which presumably means he'll come back to work at least for a day to try and be the god he's supposed to be.
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"Surgeons aren't known for being warm and cuddly." And their un-warm, un-cuddly leader, Cristina, is sitting at the kitchen table at Mere's, doing research with Izzie on Izzie's cancer. "They're arrogant, impatient, mean as often as not. To illustrate, Cristina crushes a poor little pot of flowers as she puts down a pile of papers but she tells Izzie that though the rates of survival are bad with radiation and chemo, a metastasectomy might be the answer -- they could cut it out. Izzie then shuts her up as Alex walks in and Mere's voice continues, "You think they wouldn't have friends, 'cause who could stand them?" Alex asks what they are hiding and thinks it's some sort of cool surgery, and when Izzie lies that it's nothing he points out that if it's a cool surgery he'll get it since he's already flown solo. "You're still in training wheels." Then he kisses her. Aw, I love it when my boyfriend insults me on his way out the door in the morning. Cristina asks if Izzie is sure she doesn't want to tell Alex, and Izzie is sure. Cristina then tells Izzie to read all of the research she's done before her oncologist appointment that afternoon -- Cristina pulled all the strings she could to get an appointment with the best one in the hospital. Mere then sweeps in wondering why Cristina is there, since Meredith is totally fine. Both of the girls are confused because I don't think they expected Meredith to make this all about herself, but Cristina reminds Mere she's not fine, and Mere agrees that she'd be fine if she knew Derek was fine. Izzie then gets up to go to work despite Cristina's thinking she should call in sick on account of her being sick. But when Mere reminds them there's a big surgery today, Izzie just runs out after her to Cristina's disbelief.
"But surgeons are like a bad cold: nasty, but persistent." Bailey walks up to the Chief to ask him something but he interrupts her twice to ask first Mark and then Meredith if they've seen Derek, which they have not. Meredith adds that she has not heard from him in three days and adds with a grim smile that no, she will not go back out there again. The Chief turns back to the board and as Bailey glares at him, Callie wonders who moved her surgery. When she asks, Richard ignores her too and walks away as Bailey tells her not to try. "He's a wreck, he's disintegrating before our very eyes. That's why men die earlier than women." They comment that the board is a mess, and Bailey says that Richard can't lose Shepherd -- she'd go out and try to get the neuro god herself, but she's too busy and he won't answer his phone. She then gives Callie a very pointed look, and Callie realizes that Bailey wants her to try. Though she protests first that she doesn't "do" the woods (my kind of girl) and second that she barely even knows him, Bailey says that they are both surgeons and Callie has to remind him that they've all been there and all come back. Callie, defeated, calls Bailey a bully and as Bailey turns she looks incredibly satisfied and mumbles to herself, "I wouldn't do it if it didn't work so well."
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