Grey’s Anatomy: Movin’ On Or Movin’ Out?

As we head closer to season's end on Grey's, my mind naturally turns to the big Elephant on the Grey's landscape - contract renewals.  This post will take a minute to share my thoughts about recent episodes like the last one, "One Step Too Far," which was a bombshell.  It will also look to see where Shonda Sunshine is heading the characters -- which are movin' on  and which are movin' out.

That last new epi - "One Step Too Far" - aired March 15th and the next isn't due until April 5th, so there is time aplenty for the crazy duck lady to ponder where the show is headed and which characters will get off the Grey's train before it pulls into the stations next season.  This one let a couple of big shoes drop - surgical trauma caused trouble for Mer/Der and relationship trauma led to a big confession by Owen to Cristina.

Mer/Der had been rocking along very nicely until Shonda Sunshine suddenly made it rain.  After choosing to "punish" Mer for helping Adele by switching packets in the clinical trial, last epi Derek decided to switch gears with no warning.   Der had banned Mer from his service and essentially from all of neuro and forced her to watch from the sidelines as he brought in Lexie as his new protege.  Mer's been floundering - trying to find a new surgical specialty and Lexie's been shining in the McDreamy spotlight, gaining a bit too much confidence in her surgical skills.  But it's been a while since Mer's banishment and Lexie's induction, and both ladies were getting used to things.  Naturally, Derek had to change that.

Der brought Mer back in for brain surgery on a patient who had a cyst in her temporal lobe that was causing problems.  The patient also had a brain tumor which wasn't causing problems so wouldn't be removed in this surgery.  While assuring the patient that they'd get the tumor soon,  Der made the huge, immense, ginormous mistake of telling the patient that this little ole tumor was gonna be so easy to remove that an intern could handle the procedure.  Why was it such a mistake?  The intern, Lexie, was listening and she takes every word out of Derek's mouth as gospel so why should she doubt this pronouncement?

So off they go to surgery where Der pushes Lexie out of first chair position and moves Mer back in, leaving Lexie to assist.  They get the cyst exposed and Der is called for an emergency on intern Morgan's infant son.  Mer and Lexie get the cyst drained only after a little trouble occurs and Mer tells Lexie to open the incision wider.  After the cyst drains, both girls see that in the wider surgical field, the tumor they'd been discussing earlier was exposed.  And Lexie sees her chance - she can prove to her mentor that she's the best protege and show big sister that little sis has some surgical chops too.  But Mer's the senior in the room with Der gone and Lexie can't have her big tumor removing moment unless Mer gives the go ahead.  Mer protests and wants to wait but Der doesn't return as quickly as he'd said he would. Eventually Lexie wears her down and Mer consents.  She stands by while Lexie slices the tumor out - without either physician consulting any of the brain scans taken earlier.

When the patient awakes, she can't speak normally and she never, ever will.  Mer doesn't want to tell Lexie but Der insists and Mer tells Lexie how to handle her hubby.  But hubby is still pissed with his wife and he's still grumpy at the scenes at the end of the epi.  He's grumpy, but he turns down Mer's offer to leave, which is a good thing.  However, we're left with the tension circling their bedroom and we still see trouble ahead.  Neuro superstar Derek has been mixing family with business way too much and everyone knows that's never a good thing.  Now, the patient will pay the price for Der's idiotic assertion that Lexie could remove the tumor.  Der always stews and mopes and lets things build and build to the point where they can only explode, so that's likely what he'll do again.  He's also terrible at taking the blame when he sees another candidate handy, and he's decided this one is his wife's fault.  Okay, Mer should have said no but she'd been out of the neuro game for a long while and Derek left her in an impossible position.  In my field, what Der did would be akin to a Judge leaving a courtroom in the middle of a death penalty trial so that his law clerk was left to finish the trial and pass sentence.  Whose fault would that be? The Judge's of course.  And whose fault is it that the young patient will never talk normally again?  That's right, it's Derek's fault.

Der might be the God of Neuro, but there are other neurosurgeons in the hospital.  He shouldn't walk out and leave a resident and an intern alone to finish any brain surgery-- cyst or not.  And his tendency to stew and stew before he finally blows up might get him in real trouble this time because Mer might finally be getting tired of playing emotional punching bag for Derek.

Then there's Otina.  Cristina's nose for trouble has been sniffing out the suspicion of Owen's having strayed for a few episodes.  Things came to a head in this one. Emily, the nurse she's seen Owen flirting with is tasked to help Cristina convince a man to pull the plug on his husband who'd been left brain-dead after a car crash.  The nurse is kind and caring but it's Cristina who eventually convinces the man that his soul mate has already gone.  After they finish the case, Emily asks Cristina something like - is there anything else I can do - and Cristina says yes, you can stop sleeping with my husband.  The nurse says she may have flirted a little with Owen because she flirts with everyone but she's madly in love and has never, ever been unfaithful with Owen or anyone else.

Cristina is still mulling things over when Owen comes home - late again, as has been his slippery pattern of late.  She's decided she made too much of nothing and confesses her suspicions to Owen who first tells her that he loves her so much it hurts.  That sounds good until Owen corrects himself  and says that it hurts to love her.  Pow - a punch in the gut - but it gets worse.  Owen says he has been unfaithful - but not with Emily.

So who did the dirty deed with Owen?  Teddy would be the first guess.  She went to war with Owen over the terrible way she found out about her husband's death but she and Owen have a lot of history.  And we all remember that there was a time when Owen had to choose between Cristina and Teddy.  Could he have decided he made the wrong choice?  Don't forget, there was a time when Derek had to choose between Mer and Addison and he chose Addison but he decided that he made the wrong choice.  Yet, in a preview for the 4.5 epi, we hear Owen claiming that it was "just sex."  It's hard to think he'd feel that way about sex with Teddy, but then again, Owen is a man.  So he could think that if comforting Teddy went too far it was "just sex."  But we'd know better, right?

If it wasn't Teddy, then who might it have been?  Morgan's been crushing on Alex but Owen may have been trying to help her past that or over the problems with her child.  Then there's April - the lady Owen gave Chief Resident too, after all.  But April's supposedly a virgin so it'd be a little hard-nosed for Owen to call that "just sex" but a man who could backslap his wife the way Owen did on the last epi might be capable of deflowering April and then calling it just sex. Of course, it could be just a random nurse or a stranger he met in a bar - those things happen on Grey's, don't they?  Worse - it could've been Lexie.  Now wouldn't that be a nice pickle?  Yeah, it'd be more like "just sex" because we all know that Lexie loves Mark but at the same time, it'd be much more of a knife in the back. And what if if was Lexie and she gets back together with Mark only to find out that she's pregnant from Owen?

Either way, it appears that Cristina's gonna confide in Mer in the next epi and Mer's going to tell Derek that he'd be in real trouble if he ever cheats on her.  And in the clip, Der looks worried.  What could that mean?  It's possible that Owen has confided in Derek.  He may know who Owen did the nasty with - and if so, that would really put Derek in the middle.   Of course, Derek deserves to be put in his place a little.  His whiny, it's not my fault attitude and his grandiose bragging have earned him some pay back.

But - looking past this epi and the next - where are we with the future of Grey's?  If the network doesn't re-sign Mer, Der and Cristina - where does that leave the show?  I can see Crinstina possibly leaving.  It would be a tough, tough loss -- but I think the show could go on without her.  I can even see recent events ultimately making Cristina question whether Owen is her soul mate.  If she thinks back on the man and his husband and the trauma she just helped them through, it'd be natural for her to ask that question in the wake of Owen's confession.  You know what? I've never thought Owen was Cristina's soul mate.  I think that was Burke.  So maybe she'd leave the show to go off and explore what future might be open for her with the man who got away.

That would even leave Cardio as a a specialty for Mer, which might turn out to be a nice fit.  It'd force her to work with Teddy which could be especially interesting if Teddy turns out to be the one Owen slept with.  That would mean that Mer's mentor would be the person who ultimately cost Mer her person.  Lot's of interesting possibilities in that, right?

But you know what I find to be the "no future possibilities" scenario?  If the produces are stupid enough to let either Mer or Der go -- there goes the show.  That's the last call folks - at least it is for the crazy duck lady.

For this romance writer, Grey's without Mer or Der would be like a romance novel that tried continuing after the hero or heroine died.   There's no HEA for Grey's if Mer/Der aren't on the show next season.  Yes, there's a great ensemble at Grey's - but they're ALL secondary characters.  Grey's is the show that Mer/Der built and it can't go on without them.

If the producers don't re-sign Patrick Dempsey and Ellen Pompeo, in my opinion, they're signing Grey's death warrant.  Yes, they're killing the goose that laid their very own golden egg.  Grey's without Mer/Der is like a romance novel without the hero and the heroine - it'd be a mighty sad place.

The last episode for Mer or Der would be the last episode of Grey's Anatomy most of America would watch -- and that includes a certain over-the-top duck lady.

UPDATE: Welcome Twitter, Facebook, and FanForum visitors! Take a look at my tribute to Grey's, Dangerous Relations: Griffin's Law! The synopsis and purchase buttons are at the preceding link, and Amazon has graciously provided a "read the first paragraphs" link; check it out!