'Grey's Anatomy': Denny's not a ghost

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This week's Grey's Anatomy is part 3 of an arc -- the Return of the Jedi, if you will -- of a couple of very compelling storylines and the continuation (start?) of the one that's been driving many of us nuts for weeks now. There's also some interesting character development and a genuinely stupid injury (not that I'm unsympathetic to those who've suffered it -- ow). So let's get rolling.

Think like a scientist; figure out the spoilers...

First, you have to know something's up when it's Denny doing the opening voiceover and not Meredith. "I believe in a heaven," he intones. "I also believe in a hell. Because without a heaven, without a hell, we're all just headed for limbo." That's ominous, even for those who didn't attend Catholic school. Denny's still following Izzie around, to her annoyance. She can't figure out why he's still here after she broke up with him. "I'm here for you, Izzie Stevens," Denny repeats for something like the 40th time since he started turning up. But for the first time something clicks in my head -- maybe it's the distancing language and patterns of liars I learned about the other night on Lie to Me -- but him using her full name suddenly makes me suspicious.

Bailey's patient, 10-year-old Jackson, is getting worse. He's at the top of the UNOS donor list for a liver and an intestine, but things don't look promising. Meredith pages Bailey to the room of their serial killer/death row patient, William Dunn, who's been bashing the part of his head where his brain is exposed against his bedframe until blood pours out of his skull, and he's seizing. Bailey doesn't understand why Meredith paged her and not Derek until Meredith tells her that Dunn's a match for Jackson. But Bailey's Bailey, and ever the teacher, conscience and heart of the place, she tells Meredith that she has to keep Dunn alive, just as Bailey's trying to keep Jackson alive.

To that end, Bailey assigns Izzie and Alex to Jackson's case, but Izzie's distracted by Denny practically yelling in her ear. She can't be thinking about anyone else today, he says. I'm going to refrain from making a snarky comment about Izzie's relative self-involvement here and just move on. Bailey, exhausted, starts to waver, telling Dr. Robbins that she wants off the case because she just can't watch Jackson die. But she refuses to take a break, pulls it together and soldiers on.

Separately, Hunt approaches Cristina in the supply closet to apologize for his performance last night. She doesn't want to talk about it, but the appraising look she gives him hints at greater empathy than I would've given her credit for. And she pulls that empathy out again when Hunt approaches her later and asks for another chance. The guy had the whole evening planned out, and it sounded very nice. He just... fell apart. "You've got some problems -- you've got some big problems," Cristina responds. Yeah, but will you go out with me anyway? Yes, she says. I'm considering getting a T-shirt that reads "I love Dr. Owen Hunt," just so I can stop repeating it all the time.

On to the stupid storyline, which even I have to admit turns out to be not that stupid. Lexie and Mark decide to follow the long Seattle Grace tradition of, ah, initimacy in the on-call room. The other interns, listening at the door (ew, guys -- really?), scatter when they hear a blood-curdling scream from Sloan. He's... hurt. And after Lexie gets Callie and then Hunt to examine him, we learn that Mark has a penile fracture. Yeah. You read right. Don't make me say it again. Hunt does the surgery, but throughout the episode Mark rebuffs Lexie, telling "Little Grey" to go away. He's in pain, he's humiliated, he's a great big baby. In the midst of massive speculation among the interns about the identity of the mystery woman who caused this mayhem, Sadie steps up and tells them it was her, just as they're beginning to suspect it's Lexie. It's a bonding moment for the two of them, and in the end Sadie stands guard while Lexie visits Mark in his room -- I'm not going anywhere, she says -- and then gets into bed with him to stroke his hair, because that's what she likes people to do for her when she's hurt. Aw. Alright, fine -- they're kind of good together, and what Mrs. Shepherd said last week makes sense. But I have to protest the storyline, if only because it seems as though it's fine for Sloan to become a person, but only for a little bit, and then he has to revert to being a joke. This is at least two giant steps back for Sloan's character. And I'm repeating my call: Please give Eric Dane something more to do on this show.

Speaking of having nothing to do, I'd like someone to let me know if they can count more than 50 words that George uttered in tonight's episode. Wowza. Way to not let the door hit him on the way out -- or at the very least to keep the speculation going.

Back to Jackson. Things are starting to look desperate. They've got him on a liver dialysis machine, and the Chief asks George to find out from the nurses if any of their patients on life support are a blood type match for Jackson or are brain dead. This part of the show got pretty hairy, since I cannot not cry at any storyline involving a kid. Samantha Mathis finally got a chance to do something other than look worried, and was fantastic as the boy's brave mother, telling him he has to stay with mommy and it's not time to go yet. It turns out there is a patient on life support who's a match, and the Chief goes to talk to his wife about donating his organs. But she's broken-hearted, and having none of it.

Meredith's trying to stall with Dunn, refusing to page Derek in hopes that he'll die and be able to give Jackson his organs. But Cristina smells something and goes into his room, and ends up paging a furious Derek. After insisting that he wanted to die and help the boy, Dunn finally says he doesn't want to die. Derek lays into Meredith for not telling him Dunn was worse, telling her that Dunn's been playing her. But Meredith stands her ground.As much as you believe you're right, I think I'm just as right, she says. I made a decision as his doctor to follow his wishes. It was the wrong decision, and now you have to scrub in and watch me undo the damage, he spits back. Yeah, but good for Meredith -- she doesn't flinch and she doesn't back down, and she does it without getting strident or annoying.

Bailey walks into the OR during Dunn's surgery, desperate for Jackson, asking Derek not to do anything more for him so they can do the transplant. Am I an executioner or a surgeon, he asks, sounding much less obnoxious than it seemed in the preview. Then he lays it in Bailey's hands. You make the call, he tells her. And after struggling with her emotions and her need to take care of her patient, Bailey ultimately sides with saving Dunn. And Bailey's not the only one dancing all over the line. The Chief goes back to the wife of the man who's about to die, and lays it on -- he can't take his organs with him, he says.

In the midst of this, Izzie's trying to figure out what Denny's trying to say to her as he keeps turning up, and as she talks to him in front of everyone else. Not a great impression. Finally she takes him aside. You're real, she says. I can feel you, I can smell you. Maybe you're not dead. That's not it, he tells her. Are you a ghost, or a dream, she asks. Izzie, you're a scientist, he tells her -- think like a scientist.

As Jackson takes a turn for the worse, Izzie takes his mom, Melinda, out of the room so the doctors can work. Miracles happen, Izzie cautions her. I need to be with him, Melinda says -- he can't go alone. "You are here with him," Izzie says. "You are here for him." And this is what we call an a-ha moment. While Melinda goes in to comfort her son and help him let go, Izzie struggles to grasp what she's just realized. Then just as Jackson's going down, the Chief runs in -- they have organs. But the surgery is touch and go, and they don't know what kind of brain damage the kid may have suffered. In the end, he wakes up, and he seems OK.

Izzie runs outside, and talks through with Denny what "I'm here for you" really means. When he got to come back for her, he thought she was his heaven -- but maybe he's her hell, he says. She's sick. And now that he's told her, now that she knows how serious it is, he can go. But she has to choose. "I choose heaven -- I choose life," she says, screaming at him to go. One last kiss, and he's gone. Which sets us up nicely for sweeps.

And then there's Dunn. He wakes up to see Meredith in his room, and tells her that Derek was right -- he was playing her the whole time. He wanted to destroy her career, and he wanted to be here to see the fallout. "You were scared," she says. "Death is scary. I would've been scared too." And again I give big props to Ellen Pompeo for the way she plays this. She never flinches, she never acts shocked, and she never lets him throw her -- but it never feels heavy or overwrought. Then Dunn asks her to witness his execution. In the end, she's there -- she's the last person he lays eyes on before she dies. Then the tears come. Derek meets her outside the prison, and she's a mess. I know you don't understand me, she tells him with tears streaming down her face. I don't understand it either. I wanted to show compassion by coming, and it was horrible.

Then Derek does a fabulously stand-up guy thing that makes up for the kind of awkward conversation he had earlier with Cristina about the engagement ring he plans to give Meredith. He turns up at Cristina's door and explains that Meredith's downstairs and won't stop crying. And finally, it seems as though Meredith and Cristina are back together again.