Grey's Anatomy - Start Me Up recap/review

For everyone who already knew about the “bombshell” Callie dropped at the end of the episode (and that should include nearly everyone who reads this blog), this episode was probably a little dull. There were a few humorous moments, but it was nothing to last week’s premiere.

This episode started with Meredith lamenting to Derek that she wasn’t pregnant. Throughout the episode, Meredith took ten pregnancy tests, and they all said the same thing. Is this woman really a doctor?

Chief Weber brought in a bunch of medical students to shadow his surgeons, because he is looking to make one of the surgeons Chief Resident, a position previously held by both Callie and Bailey. Cristina and her med student (Warren, from Buffy), who she chose to ignore, were working with the Chief on Henry’s case. If you’ll remember, Henry is the guy that Teddy randomly married. The Chief found out about the marriage and thought it was highly unprofessional. No poop, Sherlock. Henry needed to have a kidney removed and, during the surgery, Teddy had to make an important call regarding Henry’s medical care. She went with the Chief’s recommendation. Teddy was angry that Henry put her in charge of important decisions. This marriage was just supposed to be for insurance, dangit. Henry told Teddy that all of his family and friends either died or left him to weather his own storm, so he put her as his emergency contact because he considers her to be a friend. They had a cutesy moment of forgiveness and newfound friendship while we retched into our popcorn bowls.

Bailey is still dating that nurse, and he is leaving her dirty notes in patient charts and being inappropriate. We wonder how it’s possible that someone who looks like Bailey gets a shot with that nurse. Shonda Rhimes fantasy, as usual. Chief Weber had the medical students write evaluations for their residents. Cristina got a bad review because she was “heartless,” Meredith got a bad review because she was too caught up in personal issues, April didn’t teach, and Jackson got a bad review because he is useless and pretty much the worse resident there (we made that last one up, but it's true). Alex got a good review mostly because he had a hot, female medical student to teach, so he was nice to her. In this way, he was also able to get the med student home and in his bed.

We saw Arizona trying to move back into the Callie/Mark living area. Callie gave her a particularly mean-sounding speech about how she doesn’t want Arizona in her life. But Arizona can’t take a hint (such as getting a door shut in her face), so we guess it was necessary. According to Callie, Callie was just cranky for a week about the move to Africa, so Arizona dumped her. We seem to remember that Callie was a lot more than a little cranky. She was unsupportive up to the moment they hit the airport for Africa. Arizona worked on a case with Mark, and Arizona tried to get Mark to give her hints on how to get Callie to give her another chance. Mark advised Arizona to take a good look at her faults, admit them to Callie, and apologize. Arizona is not as introspective as most intelligent people, so she needed Mark to tell her what her faults were. He told her, “When things get tough, you bail.” Arizona tracked Callie down to tell her this and apologize. Callie replied with, “I’m pregnant. With Mark’s baby.” Ohh snap. Not really, we knew about it already. This is an opportunity for Arizona to prove that she doesn’t bail. Don’t blow it, girl. The episode ended before we saw her reaction. Typical. This show won’t be back until February 3rd too. Typical.

Worst moment of the night: Callie being pregnant with Mark’s baby. How can this be anything but a stupid plotline? And possibly an opportunity for a cringe-inducing Private Practice crossover when Addison delivers the child?

Other worse moment of the night: The first glimpse we had of Meredith's flat, dull, new old-woman hair. It looks like straw. Can they just get the woman a good hair color and fluff it out to give it some body? We are sick at what seasons 6 and 7 have done to the character of Meredith. She has really taken a backseat and become less interesting. Do we REALLY need to see another TV couple struggle with infertility? We were sick of it back when Monica and Chandler were struggling with it. And now we have Marshall and Lily on HIMYM. It's been done to death. Can't someone on TV ever get pregnant when they want to?

Best moment of the night: Alex Karev’s evil laugh when he found out that he got a good evaluation.

Episode grade: B- or C+