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Original Air Date: Feb 18, 2010

Farrah Kaye – Associate Editor
farrah@thetwocentscorp.com

You knew it was coming. Every show does it. But I don’t think I expected a flashback episode that revealed so much with such little detail. I was expecting some big storyline where Little Meredith saw the Chief and her mother running around town together or us getting to see Izzie growing up in her trailer.

What we got was the most interesting flashback episode of a show I think I’ve ever seen. Three flashbacks – THREE – is all it took for my jaw to hit the ground.

We find out how the Chief became an alcoholic, how Bailey became, well, Bailey and about an unexpected hookup Callie once had. All of this intertwined during “Lecture Day” with an ending that brought me to tears (maybe you too, or maybe I’m just a sap). No drama about Lexie being blonde or post-it notes or wives that aren’t there. It was back-to-basics Grey’s Anatomy.

By the way, this review is going to have a slightly different format. Because of the three majorly different flashbacks, I’m going to separate them into the storylines to make it easier to follow.

Richard takes the voiceover about surgeries being addicted to surgeries as Bailey is getting ready for her day, with Dr. Warren looking on telling her she looks nice. Callie is puking over having to speak in front of everyone. Richard is actually speaking at an AA meeting about how some people survive being addicted to the surgeries, some break, some don’t … he’s 45 days sober (yay!). He says he’s grateful and thankful for that. He goes to Derek and is told the board didn’t’ approve him coming back as Chief but can be Assistant General Surgeon. Thanks but no thanks he says. However, today is Lecture Day and Derek asks him to give on last lecture … go out in style pretty much. Derek opens up Lecture Day (did anyone know the hospital was renamed Seattle Grace Mercy West Hospital? It’s on the sign…BOO!). Cristina and Meredith are practicing stitching and Cristina gets pegged with a piece of a chocolate by Bailey. She’ll be giving out chocolate for a right answer or hit you with one if you doze off. Callie is super nervous and can barely speak. Chief speaks with grace, as usual.

Bailey’s Flashback: Bailey flashes back to 2003 when she was 3 days into her internship. She’s sort of the Cristina of the case, knows every answer but yet is really quiet. She has pink glasses and long, braided her and goes by Mandy. Mandy is in surgery overseeing a gallbladder surgery and gives a patient history when they assume she was sick because of eating fatty foods. Mandy points out the patient is a vegan and gives a thorough history and the Chief is impressed. After the surgery, she gets ripped a new one by her resident. The patient comes back a month later with signs of appendicitis, which would be Mandy’s first surgery. However, when she goes in, her appendix is perfectly fine. During the surgery, the Chief tells her she needs to be a shark not a minnow (in other words, don’t be quiet). Her resident is in the observation room laughing at her. This was the third surgery for the patient and Mandy was pushing to help her but her resident (Dr. Bailo, HA) releases her with a note for depression. The Chief disagrees with that and Bailo takes Mandy’s ideas and the Chief says they are good ones. Mandy goes to the bar (OH! Joe with a long-haired wig!!!) and cries because she’s quiet and respectful. A few months later the patient is back and Mandy sees her. Alicia (the patient) tells her she can’t take any more surgeries or pain. Mandy sees something in the urine and cancels the surgery that was scheduled. When Bailo goes after Mandy she goes right back at her and becomes the Bailey we know while yelling at her about listening to the patient. “How could you not learn in three years what I learned in three months?” LOVE BAILEY. Chief overhears and calls her to his office. As the residents look on, the Chief tells Bailey she’s gonna make a hell of a surgeon. Wahoo! I love that part.

Callie’s Flashback: In her third year as a resident, she was presented with a 28-year-old grad student, paged by Alex (as an intern). Alex claims to be the “elevator guy” so Callie agrees to it, thinking he is the one who saved him (remember Alex and George in the elevator during the blackout…Alex freaks out and George does the surgery, saving the guy?). Their case is a guy with legs facing the wrong way (clubbed feet), which turns her on more than Alex does. Callie promised him he could walk and the Chief yells at her and calls her arrogant. She tells him she CAN do this. Callie has been in surgery for nearly 8 hours and the patient starts to crash because he’s been under for so long. Callie closes up her patient and tells the patient about how difficult the surgery was. They were only able to fix part of one foot. He wants more surgery and Callie says they can’t do any more because his body can’t handle the surgery. In front of her and Alex, he wiggles his toes – essentially, a miracle. He asks her to try. Alex gives Callie a pep talk about not quitting (giving the talk about being in the elevator with the heart). After planning, they go into surgery and the patient crashes again. Callie tells Alex he needs to do what he did in the elevator. While the patient is dying on the table, Alex admits it wasn’t him. DOH. Callie tells him he WILL do it. Just because he hasn’t done it doesn’t mean he can’t. He walks himself through it. The patient makes it through and they figure out to do shorter surgeries so the patient wouldn’t crash again and after the last surgery, Callie and Alex hook up. WTH?? Okay, did NOT see that coming! They swear to keep it a secret (which they obviously did…).

Chief’s Flashback: He begins by saying you learn the most from each other, not the people above you. He flashes back to his residency, where they have a patient who was in for a surgery but crashes while having his blood drawn. Ellis Grey is there and the other doctors call her a nurse and she fights them back and brings the guy back (during his speech, Cristina says “this is gonna get more interesting…” OH YAH…). Dr. Grey (the original) was known as a “ground-breaker,” but back then they called her nurse, sugar or nothing at all. The team of residents assigned to the man who crashed are supposed to figure out what’s wrong with him. Ellis and Richard go over what the patient could have while getting it on in the call room. The more they talk about it, the hotter it gets. Richard figures it out and leaves. Ellis and Richard start asking all kinds of questions to their patient, thinking he has GRID (AIDS). He gets angry, refuses to answer the question and leaves. By the way, in the present, Lexie kicks butt by being the only one to know the answer! It was early 1982, so there had never been a case of it before. The attending didn’t know what to do and rips into Ellis and Richard after the patient threatens to sue them for slander. Ellis and Richard figured they were done with their patient (but we know he’ll come back…). Then we see young Thatcher and young (SUPER YOUNG) Meredith. Ellis obviously has no interest in her daughter at all, especially when Richard and Ellis get paged. Meredith is begging Ellis to not go. The patient is back and says they were right about everything and begs them to help him. The scans show things they have never dealt with before and the doctors all agree he has AIDS but he can’t be helped now. Ellis and Richard say they had more to prove than anyone else, so they agree to do the surgery since no one else will go near the patient. He talks about living a lie and being scared and Richard begins to reflect on his own life (you can see it in his face). The patient says there’s no point in having the surgery since no one recovers from it but Richard says he should since who knows when the cure can come. Richard and Ellis prepare for the surgery while Richard tells Ellis they are living a lie and should stop their affair. Ellis says their marriages are lies, not their affair. Since they don’t know the risks of operating on someone with AIDS, he tells her maybe she shouldn’t do it since she has Meredith to worry about, which angers her because she’s a doctor above anything else and knows what she’s doing. The surgery was successful but eight months later he came back with pneumonia and died. After that, Richard felt less like a hero.

Richard tells the doctors, what happens in this hospital to remember why they’re here. They took the physician’s oath and not to lose their way. Then he raises his hand and give the oath, overlapping with the last moments of the flashbacks: I solemnly pledge myself to consecrate my life to the service of humanity; I will give to my teachers the respect and gratitude which is their due; I will practice my profession with conscience and dignity; the health of my patient will be my first consideration; I will maintain by all the means in my power, the honor and the noble traditions of the medical profession; my colleagues will be my brothers; I will not permit considerations of religion, nationality, race, party politics or social standing to intervene between my duty and my patient; I will maintain the utmost respect for human life from the time of conception, even under threat, I will not use my medical knowledge contrary to the laws of humanity; I make these promises solemnly, freely and upon my honor. He gets a standing ovation, some people are even crying (Bailey??). As Derek and Meredith go to leave, Derek reminds him the job offer still stands. He has one last flashback to being at Joe’s with Ellis, toasting to Phillip (the man who died). He’s toasting with soda and Ellis tells him he can’t toast with soda and to have vodka and to grow up (grown ups don’t drink soda apparently). He tells her he can’t leave Adelle and she says “we’ll see.” Then he drinks the vodka over the soda, choosing Ellis over Adelle.

So what did we learn from this episode? Lecture Day should definitely happen once a year! No, seriously … I think we learned that Richard has a lot of regrets and they all go back to Ellis. When Ellis was alive (remember those episodes?) and had all that anger and rage, it really went back to her entire life and what she felt she had to prove as a woman doctor/surgeon. Meredith is the exact opposite and thank goodness for that. I also noticed a strong resemblance in the guy that played Young Richard to Avery…not sure if that was just weird casting or on purpose. Rumors were flying on the Internet that Avery was going to be a lost love child of the Chief but haven’t heard about it in a while. Or I could just be hoping for something fun like that. It was nice to see Callie be vulnerable in giving her speech but I was not happy to see her and Alex having hooked up in the past. I think there’s need to be another flashback episode…like Derek and Addison in NY with Mark and young Meredith’s view of her mom’s life and Cristina in college. The possibilities are endless!! What did you think? Leave your two cents below!

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