If you got through last night's episode of Grey's Anatomy without self-harming, congratulations. Seven seasons in, it was straight-up agonizing to hear Meredith complain about her "hostile uterus," Miranda Bailey dish out more tough love to the chief, McSteamy leer at a coworker and Cristina oddly sympathize with the patient who has been blocking his intestines with worms for science. Where's Katherine Heigl when you need her, right guys? Anyway! Grab that leftover codeine cough syrup in your medicine cabinet and join Movieline in assessing the staggering trauma that Shonda Rhimes delivered in last night's episode, "Can't Fight Biology."
Cristina and Owen Consider Buying an Abandoned Firehouse As Their Home
Where It Falls On the Pain Scale: 2. Hurts a little. This is wildly impractical but kind of fun. I'd rather see Cristina slide down the fireman's pole the next time she gets commitment anxiety than see her flee in the rain to Mer/Der's bed again. Plus, many opportunities for future Ghostbusters references.
Meredith's Diatribe About Her Hostile Uterus
Where It Falls On the Pain Scale: 4. Slight abdominal discomfort. You've all been there. You wait nearly two years for your Post-It note husband with great hair to get you pregnant, only to lose the baby while your friend performs emergency surgery on said Post-It note husband as a deranged gunman holds you all hostage. It happens! But when Meredith was told by a fertility specialist that her uterus was a "hostile environment" for a junior McDreamy, she flipped out. "How would you feel if she called your penis angry or snide?" Meredith asked McDreamy before leaving him on the street for rounds.
Francis Conroy as a Spurned Wife Who Drives Her Car Into a Laundromat After Seeing Her Husband Inside Washing Someone Else's Pink Panties
Where It Falls On the Pain Scale: 4. Four-time Emmy nominated actress Francis Conroy stopped by Seattle Grace to knock out a storyline befitting of a Lifetime movie. Conroy played a wife who, after 38 years of marriage, discovered that her husband was cheating on her and reacted appropriately -- by attempting vehicular manslaughter. Here is a sample of the unfortunate dialogue Conroy was given: "Her name's Kimmy. She sings at the choir of our church. Kimmy. That's a ridiculous name, right." Later, Conroy's Kimmy-hater would admit to the surgeons that she had indeed tried to kill her husband, incorrectly believing that there was a patient confidentiality agreement that extended past medicine into manslaughter.
Diane Farr As a Horny Patient With Huntington's Disease Who Just. Wants. To. Go. To. Brazil.
Where It Falls On the Pain Scale: 3. Moderate headache. Diane Farr's arc last night, as a second generation victim of Huntington's Disease, was by far the best patient arc of the night. But still, watching Farr plead with Meredith Grey to give her a clean bill of health in between flirting with sexy surgeons and dreaming about her ideal death (falling off the Eiffel tower after a particularly satisfying threesome) was aggravating.
Arizona Admitting Mid-Surgery That the Reason She Does Not Like Mark Is Because "He Stares at My Boobs"
Where It Falls On the Pain Scale: 7. Severe Pain. Could the Grey's writers not come up with a better reason for the show's lesbian power surgeon couple, Arizona and Callie, to fight? Other than the fact that Callie's best male friend Mark stares at Arizona's chest, and it makes her uncomfortable? Instead of mentioning sexual harassment, Arizona's girlfriend told her "they're good boobs. Deal with it." And then the pair finished operating inside someone's chest cavity. I think.
A Male Ballet Dancer Launching Into an Impromptu Interpretive Dance After Karev Tells Him That His Leg Will Have to Be Amputated
Where It Falls On the Pain Scale: 10. Agonizing, white-hot pain. Would be impossible to handle any more pain. Listen, I know that on the list of "People Who Do Not Want to Lose Their Legs to Cancer," ballet dancers are pretty far up there. This point did not have to be made by last night's patient getting his Baryshnikov on after Karev broke the news that his limb would have to be amputated. (So there is room in Seattle Grace for a dying patient to perform Swan Lake but there is not enough room for a Bariatric wing?) Fortunately, April came to the rescue by uncovering some new cancer research that might be able to save the kid's leg.
Worm Man
Where It Falls On the Pain Scale: 7. Nausea. Indigestion. Phantom worm cramps. Last week Shonda Rhimes imported a Treeman from Discovery Health for her "Superfreak" episode, and this week, she created a character who ingested worms for three years in attempt to gain valuable information about curing asthma. No one is quite sure how he was going to solve asthma with worms and that doesn't really matter. The worms gave him a nasty bowel obstruction and gave Cristina a patient with whom to oddly bond. "The fact that people find me strange does not matter," Worm Man sobbed before Cristina wheeled him off to destroy three years of research deftly with a scalpel. "Because I know who I am. Please. Save the worms."
Until next week, remember: Save the worms, guys. Save the worms.