Because "It's the End of the World," the Superbowl episode, aired late, last week there was a little chunk in the middle I missed (like how the bomb got inside the patient - thanks TWoP recap for filling me in. Some day I'll remember to record the show). Even with the disjointed viewing, I was on the edge of my seat. Sure, it pandered to the male sports fan audience with the a) shower scene and b) potential for things to go boom. But it was a) hilarious and b) exciting but still focused on the characters.
The second half that aired yesterday, "(As We Know It)," fell flat for me, though. It got great ratings, so it's hard to argue with success. I might have cried a little at the end (OK, maybe a lot), so it obviously got to me emotionally. But I felt like it took the easy way out. All the patients lived, Christina Ricci's adorable Hannah gets absolved in the end. OK, Kyle Chandler didn't fare so well, but still.
The episode raised some questions about how we react in crisis, but the answers were kinda boring. It seems authority figures fall apart and interns rise to the occasion. I don't know, it just felt like Bailey's irrationality was forced, Addison's meltdown was too (it's stupid to suggest drugging Bailey but OK to force an emergency C-section?), Dr. Webber's is-it-a-heart-attack was one dramatic moment too much, there were too many forced scenes shoving characters together so we could hear the words the writers wanted us to hear, not enough to challenge our perceptions of the characters. The episode titles promised something they didn't deliver.
But George was, as usual, awesome, Burke was dreamier than McDreamy, and Izzy and Cristina almost make me wish I batted for the other team.
One small thing I love about this show is that the episode writers blog about their episodes, and Shonda Rhimes has already posted about "(As We Know It). She calls the first part, "The End of the World," the more masculine half to the second part's feminine take on the same issues. I get hives at the idea of dividing the world into masculine versus feminine viewpoints, especially since I apparently didn't like the feminine viewpoint, but I love her explanation:
In the first episode, (George) is fantasizing about what it would be like to see three women in the shower. In the second episode, he sees what three women in a shower is like in reality. Because, guys, women don’t just climb in a shower and start soaping each other up for no reason. Hello!? Life isn’t porn. Life is Meredith, bloody and battered, being gently cleaned off (chunks of Dylan) by her best friends.Um, yeah, my life isn't quite like either one of those scenarios. But I still like what she has to say. And I like that they're brave enough to allow viewer comments on their posts (and hope like hell they don't follow all the suggestions ...).
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OK, dammit, this was supposed to be a really short post saying how much I like Grey's Anatomy but the last episode didn't quite do it for me. I kind of want to post some quick, immediate-reaction-to-TV kind of stuff in this blog instead of just the more longwinded stuff I do for Blogcritics, because I find myself thinking - gee, I should have said "yay Hugh Laurie for winning the Golden Globe, boo CBS for pulling Love Monkey off the schedule," etc. I am incapable of writing a really short post. I used to call my House episode analyses "mini-reviews." Ha!
