‘Grey’s Anatomy’ ended a phenomenal season with a two-hour finale that managed hold its momentum right to the end. If Sunday night’s part-1 of the season finale had you tearing up at times, it’s a safe bet you were wiping your eyes by the end of part-2.
So here’s the recap. Excuse me if I mush the timelines a bit but it’s sometimes easier to stick with one plotline at a time.
Burke was shot and though the bullet went through his shoulder, there was enough nerve damage to call in Dr. Shepherd. From the minute Cristina learns of Burke’s condition, you could tell she was trying desperately to emotionally detach herself from it. She clearly couldn’t deal with what was happening to him and how it was affecting her. Burke asks Cristina to check on Denny. At that point, George had already paged Meredith. Izzie, Meredith and George were desperately trying to keep Denny alive. When Cristina arrives, she immediately wants to leave, wanting no part of this not-fun-game. They convince her to stay, telling her that if it were Burke, she’d be doing the same thing Izzie was. So Cristina stays. They keep Denny afloat. Denny drifts in and out of consciousness and at one point, asks Izzie to marry him before promptly passing out again.
Bailey eventually notices the missing interns and finds out where they are from Burke. Her head nearly explodes when she finds out what they’re up to. She sees that Izzie has gone over the deep end. She reprimands the interns briefly but then orders them to get Denny’s lab results. The results are sent to Alex just in time for him to stop the other doctor from taking the heart to the other patient. The “other doctor” flies in with Alex and she performs the surgery on Denny. All the while, Burke is having his surgery. Shepherd has some trouble getting Burke’s hand to respond. He calls Cristina in to help revive Burke mid-surgery so they can check his reflexes. Cristina gets Burke to wake up but when he starts freaking out (he has tubes down his throat and his head is cut open after all) she leaves the operating room while Shepherd gets Burke to calm down.
After some intense moments through both surgeries, both Denny and Burke come through. This ends hour 1.
Another subplot in this episode involves the chief’s niece, Camille. She was admitted by Webber’s wife after she attempted to “cash in her V-Card” with her prom-date/boyfriend and it went badly because of excessive bleeding (every girl’s nightmare, right?). It is revealed that Camille, though only 17, had ovarian cancer. She had an ovary removed but the other was left in the hopes that she would some day be able to have children. The cancer has returned and the diagnosis is pretty much that she’s dying.
So Hour 2 begins with Burke demanding the interns tell him who cut Denny’s life support. Izzie admits to it. So does Grey, George and reluctantly, Cristina. Alex claims innocence. It is explained by Grey that even though Webber knows who did it, until he has a confession from someone he doesn’t “know”. Webber doesn’t disagree. He tells the interns that until someone comes forward with the story they’re all assigned to Camille. They don’t understand the assignment until they learn that she is Webber’s dying niece. Camille’s friends tell the interns that they want to plan an in-hospital prom for Camille. Webber makes an announcement later that everyone has to go to the prom.
Callie is grumpy at George for not calling her the night before after she told him he loved her. George tries to explain that he was busy doing something (helping Izzie with Denny) but she she asks for specifics he wont say. He mentions something about “what happens in Vegas”. This just annoys her. He asks her to the prom but she says no and leaves.
Denny re-proposes to Izzie. He makes it clear to her that doctors have been choosing what’s best for him for years and now its his turn to choose and he chooses her. She is overwhelmed and leaves.
Webber tries to interrogate each of the interns separately. Instead he ends up getting all of their dirty laundry unloaded on them. Alex talks about a football metaphor, essentially saying that even if you don’t like the team you’re playing for, its still your team and you stick with them. George goes on about loving people you don’t want to love and wanting to love people you don’t love yet and all of his love drama (he didn’t mention names). Cristina asks the chief how he keeps his edge. She tells him she used to be the kind of girl with the answers and that before she came to Seattle Grace she would’ve been the kind of person who would’ve told him everything about the Denny situation but now she’s different. She is clearly messed up over the Burke situation. She asks him again for the answers on how he keeps his edge. She says if he tells her the answers she’ll tell him who did it. The chief dismisses her. He tells her he doesn’t want to be the one who makes her less human.
Then comes Meredith. Webber attempts to get some kind of answer from her but she dives into a conversation about how her mother left her father for him (the chief) and how he did the right thing by staying with his wife. Last comes Izzie. She goes on about how she is pretty. It’s the blonde hair and the big boobs, she says. She basically says that other guys just see her looks but that Denny sees her. He loves her for who she is etc etc. After this interrogation, Izzie goes to Denny’s room and accepts his proposal.
So Webber gets no answers from anyone but that doesn’t matter because its almost prom time. Meredith asks Dr. McVet to go with her. He says yes but delivers bad news that the dog’s cancer spread and he should probably be put down. Meredith, Derek and Addison (who seem to have made up) and Finn stand around the dog. They are sad and the dog gets put down. /end dog subplot.
The prom happens. Webber is dancing with his niece and that’s sweet. Finn runs into Derek and asks if he’s seen Meredith. Derek says no but looks up in time to see Meredith in a black dress. He stares. Finn walks over to meet Meredith and Addison walks up to Derek. She asks him to dance and they go dance. Somehow Addison didn’t notice Derek staring at Meredith which seemed crazy to me because less than 24 hours ago she was screaming at Derek about his obsession with Meredith.
Finn asks Meredith to dance. He explains to her that after his wife died he stopped making plans for things and now that he’s met her he’s making plans again. There’s banter back and forth about tonight possibly being “the night”. Then Meredith hugs Finn and looks up to see Derek dancing with Addison and staring over her shoulder, right at Meredith. Meredith gets all choked up over this and leaves. Derek also gets choked up (if that’s what you’d call it) and leaves. He follows Meredith into an empty room and they argue about him staring at her. Derek yells at her about how he doesn’t want to stare at her but he cant help it and he wishes he could care about his wife the way he does her (blah blah blah) and then they’re making out and doing it on an examining table.
In the meantime, George sees Callie all decked out in her prom dress. He tries to talk to her but she yells at him about not calling her and making her feel like an idiot for saying she loved him. George tells her that she wouldn’t want him to tell her he loves her because she’d know he was just saying it to say it and that she needs to let him want to say it to her. They make out ferociously against the wall outside the room where the prom is being held.
Izzie comes down the stairs of the hospital looking like an angel or a princess or a Hollywood starlet from the 40’s or just anything indescribably beautiful. Alex sees her and politely compliments her. She thanks him and says she’s on her way to visit Denny before heading to the prom. We see Denny reading a magazine, smiling when all of a sudden, something is wrong. He sort of sighs and falls back against the bed. Then it goes back Izzie getting off the elevator.
Cut back to Meredith and Derek in the empty examining room. Meredith cant find her underwear and Derek is trying to talk about what just happened. Callie walks in and is temporarily surprised to see Meredith and Derek in what is obviously a moment of post-coital awkwardness. She doesn’t comment, just tells Meredith that Izzie needs her. Meredith goes to leave and Callie holds her back for a second so she can fix her dress. Callie then gives a nasty look at Derek (it was a great nasty look too) and then they leave.
Meredith, Cristine, Alex and George are standing half-inside, half-outside Denny’s room as Izzie is curled up on Denny’s bed, holding his clearly lifeless body. She’s crying. She talks about how Denny was prone to blood clots and she should’ve checked on him. That she tried on 3 different dresses and if she hadn’t taken so much time getting ready she could’ve been there for him. The interns try to convince Izzie that she couldn’t have done anything and to leave the room so they can take his body away. She says they’ll take him to the morgue and that an hour ago he was proposing and now he’s going to the morgue and she sort of laughs bitterly. Alex ends up coming into the room and telling her that she loved Denny and Denny loved her and he wouldn’t want her to be like this. He ends up picking her up and then just sitting with her holding her and rocking her.
It’s a bit later. Cristina goes to Burke’s room and holds his hand (which has been shaky since the operation and we’re now made to wonder if Burke will ever be able to perform surgery again). Finally she is able to be there for him.
Derek walks up to Addison and I can’t be sure but it looked like she sensed something happened (and I’m not talking about the Denny stuff either). The interns come up to Webber and Bailey. Izzie looks defeated. They all look defeated. Izzie tells Webber it was her who cut Denny’s life support. She says she thought she was a surgeon but she was wrong and she quits. Bailey seems stunned by this and attempts to stop Izzie but Izzie just walks out. George and Alex follow behind Izzie. Addison walks away and Finn comes up to Meredith and says he’ll take her home. Derek says “Meredith” and Finn says her name too and she’s looking from one to the other like she cant decide and that’s how it ends.
So here’s where you pipe in. Were you happy with how things ended? Did you think Izzie was going to quit or did you assume she’d just be fired? Did you cry when Denny eventually died and Izzie broke down? And of course, were you happy or angry about the Grey/McDreamy lovin’?
