Archive

“Grey’s Anatomy” Deluxe Recap: Season 6 Finale

Well, it’s official. You can take your theories about when or whether Grey’s Anatomy jumped the shark and toss them out the nearest window. After six years of weird diseases, musical chairs pair-ups, and sex with ghosts, Shonda Rhimes knocked it out of the park with her edge-of-your-seat, shocking, wrenching Season 6 finale.

If you fell asleep during any part of the two-hour finale, there’s something seriously wrong with you. You should seek medical attention. Just don’t go to Seattle Grace. They have a lot of mopping to do.

Part 1: “Sanctuary”

It’s morning and Cristina and Callie are sitting at the breakfast bar, crying into their Fruit Loops. Stop crying. No, you stop crying. Owen and Arizona aren’t there these days, offering morning sex and drinking all their coffee, because life is complicated. On the bright side, more hot water for everyone.

Meredith, however, is in a great mood. She tells us the hospital has always been her school, her church, her sanctuary. As a kid, she learned to read in the OR gallery, got to draw on old charts and played in the morgue. Played in the morgue? No fair. The closest I ever got to a corpse at my mother’s job was the 100-year-old research librarian who smelled like wool.

Meredith now has one more reason to love the hospital: in one of its bathrooms, she finds out she’s pregnant. The first person she tells isn’t her baby’s daddy. It’s Cristina.

Articulate and warm as always, Cristina’s first reaction is classic Yang: “No fricking way!” Way.

If it’s a boy, it can be McWeenie. If it’s born early, it can be McPreemie. If it’s a little person, it can be McTeenie. And because I’m biased, I’m hoping for a future McSoftballteamie.

Today is one busy day at Seattle Grace Mercy West. Arizona’s young patient, Ruby, needs her appendix taken out. Callie has patients, too, but she spends most of her time narrowing her eyes scornfully at Arizona and walking away whenever they happen to occupy the same nurse’s station. Whatever temperature it may be outside, it’s colder in the ER.

Teddy and Owen aren’t talking either, but not for his lack of trying. Teddy isn’t interested in rehashing how he told Derek to give her job away, what she does or doesn’t mean to him, and how smooth Asian skin is. Instead, she takes on a road rage victim with a bullet wound. Owen’s only use to her now is assisting in the OR. Cristina is even less useful, and is told to look after her post-op patients. Great. If she wanted to watch a bunch of bleeding people sleep, she could just go out to the waiting room.

Elsewhere, Bailey and Big Foot, a.k.a., Dr. Percy, deliver some bad news to a woman with a colostomy bag. Her surgery to remove it will be delayed until after she gets a blood transfusion. Sick of trying to match her shoes with her bag, she’s understandably peeved and immediately sends her husband out for pizza. Bailey reminds her pizza now means bowel prep and enema later. I love pizza as much as the next person, but nothing is worth the words “bowel prep.”

Gary Clark, the scowling, angry widower who unsuccessfully sued Derek and the hospital over his wife’s death, is wandering around aimlessly, asking for Derek. Everyone is too busy to give him directions. He finds his way into supply room, where he asks Reed how to locate the Chief. She tells him impatiently that it’s not her turn to watch Derek.

Gary: Can you tell me where his office is? I’m kind of turned around here.

Reed: Sir, you know, I have a patient having seizures in there. Go find a nurse and ask them.

Gary: Ma’am?

Reed: Look, you’re not even supposed to be back here. I’m not a tour guide, I’m a surgeon.

Gary calmly pulls out a gun and shoots Reed in the head.

Day-um. I never liked her, but still.

Alex walks in and sees Reed on the floor. “Dude, what the…” is all he can utter before Gary squeezes off another round, hitting Alex in the side of his chest. Alex hits the floor, where he joins Reed. And my jaw. Holy crap!

Alex drags himself into an elevator. The doors close and the car begins to move. Fifth floor: Lingerie, house wares, women’s shoes, chest tubes.

Unaware of the approaching s—storm, Meredith bounces into Derek’s office and grinning ear to ear, tells him she has some news for later. Derek, who’s barely visible from behind a mountain of paperwork, listens with envy as his wife brags about pulling a rebar from a patient’s skull. Somehow, I don’t recall Chief Webber ever doing paperwork. Either he was the model of efficiency, or that stuff was going straight into the dumpster.

“I would love to have something jammed in my brain,” Derek says, “That way, I’d see the inside of an OR.” File that under “B” for Be Careful What You Wish For.

April enters the supply room and trips over Reed’s lifeless body. Suddenly covered in blood, she looks around and slowly realizes something is horribly, horribly wrong with her elfin friend. April’s first clue? That third eye in the middle of Reed’s head.

Shaking and white as a sheet, April goes straight to Derek’s office and starts babbling about growing up on a farm, pigs, pints of blood, and how Reed is so small. You wouldn’t think there would be so much blood… Derek just keeps staring at her, waiting to see where she’s going with this. She’s covered in blood and clearly in shock, and yet, he just lets the gibberish flow. Why? Because he’s used to babbling. Mister, you’ve been with Meredith too long.

Finally, Derek grabs her face and asks what’s wrong. April holds her breath and says, “Reed’s dead. Someone shot her!”

Derek can hardly believe his ears. You grew up on a farm?

Then this happened. Oh no. God, no. Not Cristina. I need her for my fantasy Joy Luck Club.

Gary asks for help finding the Chief. She may be preoccupied with her Owen drama, but Cristina isn’t too busy to help a visitor. She gives Gary detailed directions to Derek’s office. Gary steps off the elevator, turns to Yang, and says, “Have a nice day,” in that quiet monotone that serial killers are so fond of. Phew. And yikes.

Derek’s on the phone, getting nowhere with some never-seen, soon-to-be-fired Head of Security. Mr. 911 doesn’t have a clue about procedure. Good thing Derek finds the answer in his Chief Handbook. The hospital is going into lock-down.

The lock-down conveniently traps Callie on Arizona’s floor, Teddy, Owen and Avery in the same OR, and Bailey and Charles with Mrs. Poop Bag. Meredith and Cristina are left joined at the hip, but what else is new there?

 

In pediatrics, Arizona attempts lock-down small talk with Callie, who’s doing a great job of ignoring her.

Arizona: I really thought that was a joke.

Callie: [under her breath] Sick joke.

Arizona: What? You can’t be stuck on the same floor with me? That’s a hardship?

Callie: Uh, yeah. Frankly, it is.

So much that elusive thing called the amicable lesbo break-up.

Cristina and Meredith aren’t taking the lock-down very seriously. Maybe it’s an ax murderer? Hee hee. Meredith thinks that would be fun. Yup, it’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye. Or, some brain matter.

Lexie and Mark are sniping at each other about Alex when Gary makes his presence known by shooting up the place. He nails a nurse in the neck and robotically goes up some stairs, as everyone hits the floor, screaming. Seriously. How hard is it to find the Chief’s office?

Mark grabs Lexie, covers her head with his million dollar hands, and makes a break for the elevators. This one’s taken.

Finally. Alex has lost almost all his blood. Mark wanted Alex out of the way, but not this far out of the way.

Also not a moment too soon? The cops. Tactical teams are doing whatever it is they do outside the hospital. From all the rifles pointed at the hospital entrance, it’s reassuring to know the decorative shrubbery is safe. Where are all the cell phone calls from people inside the building saying, “He went thata way”?

As usual, Richard shows up late and demands to know what’s going on. It’s good to know that even on a day like today, some things never change. The commander tells Webber about the shooter and the lock-down. Richard thinks evacuation sounds like a better plan, because he’s always wanted to give a good “let my people go” speech. The commander tells him to get back.

If you’re going to get shot, let it be in a hospital. And if you’re going to be found, let it be by two doctors. Lexie and Mark throw Alex on a conference room table and assess his GSW. Alex is conscious and boy, is he pissed off. “I’m going to kick that guy’s ass when I see him,” he says through the pain.

Alex thinks he’s mad now? Wait until he finds out what worker’s comp pays.

Oblivious to what’s going on beyond their own little BFF world, Meredith and Cristina wander around, talking about Owen’s confusion over who he loves, and Cristina being a godmother. As they take a stroll around the floor, they’ve failed to notice the entire area is abandoned.

Derek runs into them and asks why the hell they’re walking around like nothing’s wrong. He shoves them in a closet, finally telling them that there’s a shooter in the building. Meredith and Cristina are not the last to know, however. Charles returns to his patient’s room in a panic and blurts out to Poop Bag and Bailey that a shooter is coming their way. With two seconds to process the information, Bailey does what it takes the SWAT team 20 minutes to do: she comes up with a plan. She tells Charles to hide in the closet, her patient to play dead, and she scurries under the bed.

Gary comes in the room to mutter to himself about the crapola directions he’s been given. He hears something moving about in the closet and finds Charles. “Are you a surgeon?” he asks. As soon as Charles says “Yes” Gary shoots him. Bailey covers her mouth in horror, but goes into full-blown terror when she feels him pulling her out from under the bed.

“Are you a surgeon?” he asks again. Sensing there’s a method to crazy gunman’s madness, Bailey tells him she’s just a nurse. Gary believes her, apologized for the trouble and the mess and walks out. Why did he believe her? Can’t stout black ladies be surgeons? Is this probably the only time racial profiling was ever a good thing. In other news, the patient would’ve crapped her pants, if only she could.

In pediatrics, Arizona is trying to talk about their relationship, while Callie is giving Arizona the cold wheel chair. Finally, she tells Arizona she hates her guts. Ooh, harsh.

Arizona: Whoa, whoa. I don’t deserve this. OK? I’ve treated you with nothing but respect and love.

Callie: Oh no. See, that’s the thing. You think you have, but you haven’t.

Arizona: I’m sure that it feels great to act like I’m the bad guy, but that’s t e biggest load of you-know-what that I’ve ever heard.

I know that look. We all know that look. We hate that look.

Callie: I have spent the last month trying to convince myself that I don’t need kids to be happy and then I stopped for a second, and thought, did you really try? To imagine what it would be like to change for me? Because I don’t think you did. What you did was you dismissed my dream. My dream. Which says to me that you don’t give a rat’s ass if I’m happy.

We care that you’re happy, Callie. Please don’t karate chop us.

Arizona is about to counterpoint by bringing up Callie’s habit of falling in love with love when little Ruby’s appendix stops the show. Well, well. It all comes out when the gloves come off. What next? And by the way, I hate your k.d. lang CD’s?

Elsewhere, Charles is bleeding all over the floor, and Bailey has no one to help her except Poop Bag, who’s figuratively, if not literally, losing her s–t. Owen and Teddy have finished their surgery, and are only now finding out about the shooter from Avery. They decide to risk being killed to take their patient to post-op, against Derek’s direct orders. There are real emergencies happen all over the place. The problems of two lesbians don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Even so, Arizona keeps talking while Ruby’s appendix gets as big as an animal balloon.

“You have a huge heart, and I love that about you. But I don’t trust you,” Arizona tells Callie. Ruby’s appendix blows, pow! Seattle could be falling into the ocean and these two would be arguing about who tried harder.

Meanwhile, Cristina spies Gary and his gun from her hiding place and puts it all together. He’s hunting for Derek.

An hour or so later, Gary finally finds Derek. That is one confusing hospital! Derek doesn’t recognize the man who sat across the table from him during the lawsuit. He cluelessly tells Gary it’s not safe; there’s a nut with a gun loose in the hospital. Gary agrees it’s not safe and pulls his gun.

Even though there are a ton of windows, and he’s more out in the open than Adam Lambert, no one but Cristina and Meredith see Gary taking aiming at his prime target.

Where the hell are the cops? On this show, Seattle’s Best is just a coffee.

Gary tells Derek he’s the man. And a man protects his wife, but he couldn’t save her, so she’s dead. Also, Derek is not God. He shouldn’t get to play God. But Gary’s wife was terminally ill, and no man could save her. So, if Gary was supposed to save her, maybe it’s Gary who’s not God. Is anyone following me? No matter. There’s no talking to a crazy person.

Derek tells Gary he understands his loss. He witnessed three men kill his father for his watch. “I didn’t become a doctor because I wanted to be God. I became a doctor to save lives,” Derek says. Maybe becoming a police officer would’ve made more sense, but the hours sucks.

Derek’s childhood memory is a touching story, and it almost works, until April comes flying out of Derek’s office exclaiming, “Dr. Shepherd, thank God you’re back!”

I don’t know why, but that sets ol’ Gary Guns back over the edge. He raises his hand. Everything goes into slo-mo. Derek takes a single shot in the chest. Meredith screams as Cristina drags her to cover. Good job, April. If you live, you’re so fired.

Part 2: “Death and All His Friends”

Derek lies helplessly on the ground. Gary takes aim at April, who starts rattling off her life’s story. She’s from Ohio. Her mother is a teacher and her father grows corn. She has two sisters. Sensing he’s not going to be interested in her 4-H ribbons, she blurts out, “I haven’t done anything yet. I’ve barely lived. I’m not finished. No one’s loved me yet. Please. Please, I’m someone’s child. I’m a person. I’m a person!”

April’s life is so dull, Gary tells her to take off, just so he doesn’t have to hear about her awkward teen years.

Downstairs, a SWAT team sweeps in, looking everywhere. Everywhere, but up at the catwalk. Yoo hoo. Up here. Oh well, there they go, into the cafeteria to secure the salad bar.

Meanwhile, Meredith must get to Derek, danger be damned, and pushes Cristina aside with mama bear strength. Teddy and Owen creep through the hallway with their patient — no really, take your time — and discuss Owen’s Sophie’s Choice. He tells Teddy he’s decided to choose C) none of the above. That might be the smartest thing Owen’s ever done. That and call 911.

In fact, everyone is suddenly on their cells. Somehow, the command station is picking up the phones like short wave radio chatter. Richard listens in with the commander, as bits and pieces of distress calls squawk from the speaker. “Dr. Miranda Bailey. I’m on five”… “there are two dead security guards”… “six-one, mustache”… “Karev”… “he shot Dr. Derek Shepherd right in front of us.”

Meredith hovers over Derek, frantically begging, “Do. Not. Die. I can’t live without you. If you die, I die.” Cristina loses her cool for a moment and mutters, “Wha, wha, what do we do? What do we do?” She realizes no one is coming in time. Yang gets her act together and runs off to find a wheelchair; they’ll take Derek to surgery themselves.

Cristina finds April slumped in a corner. She tells Cristina that she learned how to talk her way out of being murdered by watching Oprah. Once again, Oprah saves lives. Obviously, Oprah is God. Cristina tells April to snap out of it and get with the program.

Lexie is the next person to run into Gary. In case you’re wondering, the cops are busy looking for their asses using both hands and a mirror. Stand by for updates on that, as they develop.

Gary tells Lexie he didn’t mean to shoot all those people. He only came to kill Derek, Webber and who else? Oh yeah. You. “You pulled the plug that killed my Allison,” he says as he raises his gun at Lexie’s head.

Instead of making a run for it, and hoping he’s a lousy shot, Lexie closes her eyes and prepares to die.

A shot rings out. Lexie tumbles backwards. Goodbye, Lexie Grey. Goodbye.

Kidding. She’s fine. The bullet came from a SWAT member. Gary is on the floor, with a hole in his chest. Now would be a great time to move in and disarm the suspect — or so one would think. The cop motions to Lexie to run away.

The SWAT guy gives Gary time to get up and wander off. Why would we want to rush the suspect as he lays there, injured? Or call in his position? Or shoot to kill? Are real law enforcement people everywhere slapping their foreheads and yelling at their TV’s “That would never happen!” Forget it — we tried that with The L Word. It doesn’t work.

After Lexie gets away, she returns to Alex, who’s still on the conference room table. Tearfully, she tells him she loves him, as Mark looks on, crestfallen. Crisis has a way of bringing out the true nature in people. That would explain good Samaritans. But intense situations also bring out intense feelings that are sometimes false. That explains most reality shows.

Arizona and Callie are working on Ruby when Gary shows up, bleeding. Really? Is there any place in the hospital this guy hasn’t managed to visit undetected? How about dermatology? I hear they have a nice waiting room.

Arizona freezes, shielding Ruby with her body. “There are only children here,” she says loudly, and then, again and again, softly. Callie bravely but slowly puts herself between Gary and Arizona, and offers him some bandages. He thanks her and backs away. Ruby cries for her mommy.

Callie tells her Arizona is smiling her super duper smile and making it all better. This seems to calm the kid, even though Arizona is crying on the inside. Callie smiles her super duper smile, and holds Arizona’s face for good measure.

What’s sexier than saving the day? Nothing, that’s what. Can you say, “reconciliation”?

Meanwhile, here’s something you’ll never see again: April with her arm latched onto Cristina. Any other day, she’d lose that arm.

Cristina, Meredith and April have managed to get Derek to the OR floor, where they find Avery and the nurses. He tells them Owen and Teddy have left for post-op. Nobody here but us chickens.

Doesn’t anyone follow directions in that place? Avery tells April to get the nurses and gas man from his OR and bring them to Derek’s room. April asks, “Who’s going to operate on Dr. Shepherd?”

Avery looks at Cristina with his hypnotic Husky peepers. Cristina knows what it all means. She says, “I am.”

Meredith’s husband’s life depends on her best friend’s skill. It doesn’t get more twisted than that.

Cristina: You can’t be in there. I can’t do this if you’re in there, staring at me with big, sad “don’t kill McDreamy” eyes.

April: We’re ready for you.

Cristina: April, Meredith is going to sit here, on the floor. I want you to stay with her. If she tries to enter my OR, or even if she looks like she’s going to get up to take a peek, I want you to stop her. I don’t care how, you stop her.

Meredith: He is my husband.

Cristina: Do you want me to kill him? Please, Meredith. I am begging you. Sit down and wait.

On the bright side, maybe April will tell Meredith a story about Hog Days, her hometown’s summer festival.

Things are finally moving along on other floors in the building. Alex is so far gone, he calls Lexie “Izzie” and makes her promise she’ll never leave him again. She plays along, pretending to be Izzie, even though it’s killing her. Just then, the SWAT team arrives and tells them they can move out. Move out, sure. Move on? Never!

Owen and Teddy have not only managed to get their patient out of the OR, they’ve wheeled him all the way outside. Who needs post-op when there’s the parking lot? A cop tells them there are still doctors inside. Teddy can see that Owen is chomping at the bit to get to Cristina.

Teddy tells him, “Go. Go. It’s OK to choose.” When did Teddy become Duckie?

In the OR scrub room, Meredith has had it with April’s tears.

Meredith: It took me a long time to find him. A long time. And even then, it took me a long time to even know that I wanted him, to be married, to be his wife, to have his kids. And now that I realize that, he’s lying on a table in there, and my best friend’s hands are inside his chest. You don’t get to cry about that.

April: Reed was my best friend. She died today.

OK, so. Not always about you. Got it.

Still alone with no help in sight, Bailey and her patient try desperately to get Charles to the OR floor. Only after dragging someone twice her size across the entire floor, does Bailey find out the elevators have been shut off. Charles isn’t going to make it. So, Bailey does something she never does. She loses it.

Charles knows the answer but asks anyway, “I’m dying, right?” Bailey and her patient sit with him and hold his hand. “You are not alone. You hear me? You are not alone.”

Seems no one’s alone. Owen finds Meredith and April on the floor in the scrub room, and Avery, Cristina and Derek in the OR. Owen also sees what Meredith and April can’t: Gary has a gun to Cristina’s head. Her voice quivers at the sight of him, “Ohh-wennn…”

Gary screams at Cristina, “Do you want me to shoot you? Stop fixing him!” Cristina doesn’t stop. Avery doesn’t stop. The old surgical nurse that looks like my grandmother doesn’t stop. If you’re wondering why Gary didn’t just kill Derek when he first had him at the end of his gun barrel, or why he doesn’t just shoot him now, you can forget it. When a person snaps, and they have so many bullets, they’re falling out of his pants, logic and reason left the building a long time ago.

Owen says angrily, “Hey! That is the woman that I love. You shoot her, you touch her, and I will kill you!” With that PTSD rage, I have no doubt he would. With those forearms like hams, I have no doubt he could.

And just when you think it can’t get any crazier in there, Meredith bursts in and says, “Shoot me.” Sure, come on in. Now it’s a party! She tells Gary if he wants an eye for an eye, he should kill Derek’s wife, Lexie’s sister and Webber’s almost-daughter. Cristina blurts out she’s pregnant. Gary shoots Owen just because it’s been a while. Cristina screams. Avery puts his hands up. Cristina puts up her hands. It’s over.

Avery tells Gary to just wait and watch the monitor. In a few seconds, the machine flat lines, sending Meredith to her knees, in a full-blown wail. McDreamy dreams no more. Omg, I need a drink.

Mission accomplished, Gary doesn’t know what to do with himself. Hey I know. Why don’t you go kill the person who printed your wife’s DNR order? Or the person who sold the pen she used to sign it? Or maybe just kill the descendents of the person who invented paper. You’ll have to go to China to do it, but so what?

As soon as Chuckles leaves the OR, Avery reconnects the wires to Derek’s monitor. It starts beeping again. Cristina resumes operating while Meredith looks up, confused. Gary fell for the oldest trick in the book: The Pull the Leads and Surrender While a Crazy Person Waves a Gun Around trick. Nicely played. Cristina looks at Owen, who’s still on the floor, and tells Meredith to save her guy, while she saves hers.

Charles doesn’t have that kind of get-saved luck. Close to death on another floor, he asks Bailey to tell Reed he loved her very much. In five minutes, you can tell her yourself, buddy. “I know you don’t like me. But you were always my favorite doctor,” he says to Bailey, “I thought you should know.” He’s gone. And that is how the Neanderthals died out.

In the other OR, Meredith works on Owen. It’s not fatal. April sees blood running down Meredith’s thigh. She’s having a miscarriage, right then and there, but doesn’t stop working on Cristina’s guy. OK, that’s gross. But it’s so hardcore, even her mother would be impressed.

Things are quiet, but they’re far from over. Webber has snuck into the hospital because he hates to be left out. He finds Gary is sitting in the room where his wife died. Gary tells Richard he has a bit of a problem. He wanted to shoot Webber in the face, and then, shoot himself. But he only has one bullet left. Well, if you line up your heads just right… What am I saying?

Richard lays out Gary’s options: shoot him and spend the rest of his crummy life in prison. Or shoot himself and see his wife. Richard says he’s not afraid to die, ’cause he’s had a great run. A shot goes off. You know damn well what happened. Suffice it to say, Richard will be at the next staff meeting on patient relations.

After the most harrowing surgery in the annals of medicine, Cristina’s skills came through. She saved Derek’s life. Now would be a great time to ask for a raise. Just saying.

Also, Alex will live, but now he’s in the Love Chain from Hell. To review: Teddy wants Mark, but Mark wants Lexie. Lexie wants Alex, but Alex wants Izzie. And Izzie just wants a hit movie.

Outside, Arizona and Callie are sending the pediatrics patients off to other hospitals. Arizona starts to turn away when Callie says, “People died. People are dead.”

Callie: I don’t want to have kids if it means I can’t be with you.

Arizona: No. No, we’ll have kids. We’ll have all kinds of kids. And I always thought that I wasn’t cut out to be a mom, but you’ll be a great mom. You’ll be an amazing mom, and I love you so much. And I can’t live without you and our 10 kids.”

Whoa. Easy there, Angelina.

Nothing like a near-death experience to make some people want to populate the earth. Personally, I’d be in the first plane to Spain. But like Derek says, life is about choices. It’s also short. Do what makes you happy.

Will Callie and Arizona really have 10 little calzones? Will any of them be named Maddox, Pax or Zahara? Or will Spain be looking better and better at the first sign of the Terrible Two’s, times 10? To find out that and more, we’ll see you on the other side of summer for Season 7. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for my recaps of The Real L Word: LA!

Lesbian Apparel and Accessories Gay All Day sweatshirt -- AE exclusive

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Back to top button