Image from The Incision

Time Has Come Today

Air Date: September 21, 2006

Writer: Shonda Rhimes

Director: Daniel Minahan

Episode 3..01   At A Glance:

The first episode of the Season 3 opens a few hours after the last episode of Season 2 ended.  Everyone is devastated in one way or another by the events of the previous night and they are left wishing they could manipulate time—turn it back, slow it down, speed it up, or take back what they wasted.

Addison is at the trailer, sitting on the bed wearing Derek’s suit jacket and holding Meredith’s lost panties in her hands. It seems that she found them in the pocket of his jacket and is now faced with concrete proof that her suspicions about Derek and Meredith sleeping together were right.  She is devastated and it appears that she had been sitting there most of the night.  She finally pulls herself together and carefully washes, dries and folds Meredith’s panties and then seals them in a Ziploc bag, which she drops in her purse as she heads off for work.

At the hospital, Alex is in the ER when a baby is brought in that was left in a trashcan at a high school. When he realizes that the ER is overcrowded with people suffering with severe symptoms of the flu, he doesn’t wait to go through official procedures for admitting the baby to the hospital but instead rushes up to pediatrics and tells Nurse Olivia to page Addison.  The baby has an emerging blood platelet disorder and only the mother’s blood can be used to contain it.  The problem is that the possible suspects are four fourteen-year old girls who were the last to be seen in the bathroom before the baby was found and all of them swear that they are not the mother.  Their distraught parents insist that none of their daughters could be involved.  Addison tries to cut through the defensiveness and denial of the girls and the parents to make it clear that the baby’s life is in danger and that’s what they should focus on instead of on their concerns about propriety and potential shame the girl’s family might have to suffer when the truth is revealed.  In the end the girls will not break their united front and no one confesses.  Finally, when Addison tests the girls’ blood, she is able to narrow the focus to two girls. Addison who had earlier flashed back to the heart wrenching scene when Derek found out about she and Mark and threw her out in the rain, tells them that they are lying to themselves if they feel that they did nothing wrong and that they need to understand that with time the truth always comes out.  Finally, Shannon confesses that she is the mother.  Addison hugs her and thanks her for being honest. Later, Addison bemoans the fact that the baby is not likely to have a good life because once he is healthier he will have to be turned over to a mother who is on her way to juvenile hall and to grandparents who were so clueless that they had no idea their daughter was pregnant.  Alex, though, tells her that it is possible to overcome all sorts of bad stuff from childhood.  All you have to do is survive, he says.

Izzie is completely devastated by Denny’s death.  She collapsed on the floor of the bathroom at Meredith’s house once they got home and has not moved since then.  Alex, George, Cristina and Meredith stand outside of the bathroom and discuss what should be done.  They all agree that someone must go in and talk to Izzie. Alex, Cristina and George all agree that it should be Meredith because she is “dark and twisty” and therefore understands what Izzie is going through.  Meredith balks and denies being "dark and twisty."  In the meanwhile, Izzie flashes back to the first day at the hospital where they were told that everyone would not make it through the program. She also remembers that Alex told her that she wouldn’t last a year in the surgery internship program. In the end, George is the first to go in and talk to Izzie. He lies next to her on the floor and tries to comfort her and encourages her to get up and change her clothes but Izzie will have none of it.  Later, Cristina goes in and tells Izzie about sitting Shiva.  She tells her what is involved and once Izzie hears that she would not be allowed to wear clean clothes for seven days, she agrees that they should sit Shiva for Denny, but she still does not move.  Even later, Meredith goes in and talks to her.  Izzie tells her she feels as if she is moving in slow motion, while everyone around her is going so fast and all she wants is for things to go back to normal when she wasn’t lying on the floor of the bathroom grieving Denny. She plaintively wonders how they had ended up here and wants to know why she is alone.  Meredith takes her hand and tells her that she is not alone.

Cristina and Meredith talk while Meredith makes sandwiches in the kitchen. Cristina says that they should order out for food because making sandwiches is not cooking, then suddenly becomes suspicious of Meredith trying to cook at all.  She knows that something is up, so Meredith tells her about her tryst with Derek. Cristina is shocked and wonders right along with Meredith what it means. She wonders if it means that Derek will leave Addison.  Meredith flashes back to a scene at the park when she was five and riding a carousel.  She overheard Richard and Ellis arguing.  Ellis was begging him to leave Adele, but Richard stated emphatically that he couldn’t hurt her like that.

Callie shows up with two large bags of groceries.  Meredith is wary until Callie reassures her that she has no intentions of spilling the beans about what happened between Derek and Meredith the night before. While Cristina goes up to talk to Izzie, Callie cooks and Meredith tries to drum up sympathy from Callie about her predicament (having to deal with Derek and Finn).  As if on cue, Finn arrives.  Meredith responds by running away and telling Finn she just has to check on Izzie at that exact moment.  Callie and Finn talk.  Callie tells Finn that doctors are all cases of arrested emotional development because of the extended time in school and apprenticeship needed to prepare for their careers. She says that Meredith is seventeen years old—they are all seventeen years old and the internship was like high school with scalpels. She uses herself as an example and explains she is in love with a man who can’t say he loves her back and still she is in his kitchen cooking hoping that he will come home and notice her.  Eventually Meredith returns and Finn tells her that he doesn’t want to know what happened between she and Derek the night before but he does want to make it clear that if there is a competition going on for her heart he is definitely in the game.

Giselle and Omar Toussaint are brought into the ER after a car accident.  They were both sick with what they assumed was the flu and it got so bad they rush to the hospital.  Giselle is not as bad off as Omar, so he agrees to let her drive.  While driving there, however, she passes out, runs off of the road and sustains head injuries. The Toussaints’ accident and its aftermath serves as a catalyst for Richard, Derek, George and Bailey to confront issues about time. In the end, it turns out that the Toussaints do not have the flu; they have instead been exposed to the bubonic plague.

Derek and Richard both spent the night in the hospital—Richard to see Denny’s autopsy and Derek because of emergency surgery.  Derek wants to know if Richard has seen Meredith… “Dr. Grey” and a suspicious Richard wants to know why. Derek is momentarily embarrassed. Later, Richard has an appointment and it turns out to be Adele.  She indicates that since she never gets a chance to see him, she made an appointment.  He is offended by her implication but when Bailey comes to tell Richard about the plague, he rushes off to take care of his hospital and leaves Adele in the dust. When things are under control and he could return to talk to Adele, he chooses to go off to check on something else instead.  When he finally returns, Adele tells him that she made the appointment because she had something important to tell him.  Essentially she tells him that she is tired of waiting for him and it is time for him to retire. He has a choice to make—he can choose her or the hospital.

Derek and George successfully operate on Giselle, but when it is discovered that she and her husband had been exposed to the plague, Derek and George are quarantined in the intern locker room at the hospital. Derek and George talk about their respective relationships with Meredith and Callie.  Derek encourages George not to waste time and to tell Callie he loves her before someone else comes along and claims her, even though George admits that he is not yet in love with her.  Derek admits that he never told Meredith he loved her.  Once they are released, they both run to Meredith’s house.  Callie is ecstatic that George is safe and once again blurts out that she really loves him.  George, however, just kisses her in response. Derek watches and raises his eyebrow at George in disapproval.  Derek finds Meredith in the kitchen and tells her he loves her and she has a choice to make now and he doesn’t want to rush her but when he had a choice to make he chose wrong. He glances at her with puppy dog eyes and then leaves.

Bailey started her day by taking on the sad task of identifying Denny’s body for the funeral home.  As they take the body away, she stops the attendants and then tells Denny that she is so sorry about what happened.  Later, it is her sad duty to tell Omar Toussaint that even though the surgery on Giselle was successful, she had not been able to recover because the plague had complicated things.  Omar, who has been quarantined as well, is devastated and blames himself for letting her drive.  Bailey tearfully confesses that she understands and admits that she failed Denny because she in effect let Izzie drive when she shouldn't have. Bailey and Omar both break down in tears.

In the final sequence, Richard tells Adele that he needs more time to make a decision but she tells him she has no more time to give, Izzie finally frees herself from her emotional paralysis and lets Meredith help her change her clothes, Cristina goes to see Burke and breaks down crying when she tells him she had spent the day  sitting Shiva for Denny then asks him not to ever die, and finally Addison tacks Meredith’s panties to the bulletin board in the corridor of the hospital under the Lost and Found sign.

And that was it until next week’s visit to Seattle Grace. ~~ Tessarae

Starring: James Pickens Jr. (Richard Webber); Isaiah Washington (Preston Burke); Patrick Dempsey (Derek Shepherd); Kate Walsh (Addison Shepherd); Chandra Wilson (Miranda Bailey); Ellen Pompeo (Meredith Grey); Justin Chambers (Alex Karev); T. R. Knight (George O’Malley); Katherine Heigl (Isobel “Izzie” Stevens); Sandra Oh (Christina Yang); and Sara Ramirez (Callie Torres).

Guest Stars: Chris O'Donnell (Finn Dandridge); Kate Burton (Ellis Grey); Loretta Devine (Adele Webber); Steven W. Bailey (Joe); Sarah Utterback (Nurse Olivia); Robin Pearson Rose (Patricia); Jessica Tuck (Shannon's Mom); Joanie Fox (Sara's Mom); Mis Qesley (Karen's Mom); Pepper Sweeney (Lisa's Dad); Elizabeth Goldstein (Grace); Pauline Olsyznski (Lisa); Kelli King (Sara); Haley Ramm (Shannon); Alexander Brandi (Karen); and Jeremy Rabb (ER Doctor)..

Music: Tegan & Sara, "Take Me Anywhere;" Emiliana Torrini's " Nothing Brings Me Down;" Gnarls Barkley's "Gone Daddy Done;" The Dixie Chicks' "Lullaby;" Nat Kearney's "All I Need;" and Grant Lee Phillips' "Under The Milky Way."

Chart 3.02

A new day dawns in Seattle and Seattle Grace Hospital.  Izzie is channeling her grief into baking muffins, Meredith is giddy with excitement over having two hunks vying for her attention, Cristina decides that what Burke needs more than anything else is a little sexual healing, Addison is having a meltdown but is determined to be responsible about it, Bailey is still battling the guilt she feels over Denny’s death, and Derek is having a hard time keeping a smirk off of his face.

Cristina rushes into Burke’s hospital room and strips down to her panties and bra, jumps on the bed and straddles him.  She is determined to lift his spirits so to speak.  Just as she is getting the party started, the door opens and a couple appears.  It’s Burke’s parents and there is enough embarrassment to fill the room and the entire west wing of the hospital. Cristina dresses quickly and rushes out of the room, but not before Burke’s mother wonders if she is witnessing some new service provided by the hospital. In the hallway, Cristina has a hissy fit because Nurse Tyler was supposed to be guarding the door, after all he accepted twenty dollars for the job.  Nurse Tyler explains that he was called away to help save a life and her twenty dollars was put to good use to help pay for the celebrating afterwards. Later, Cristina is worried that she made a bad impression on Burke’s parents and her fears are somewhat realized when Burke’s mother catches her in the hallway and announces that they are going for coffee.  Cristina tries to get Burke to get her out of it but he claims that things will go just fine.  Over coffee in the cafeteria, Burke’s mother expresses her concerns about Cristina’s relationship with Burke. She advises Cristina to switch to a less demanding specialty and then confesses that she believes considering Cristina’s selfishness and Burke’s tendency to be a giver, their marriage has no chance in hell. Cristina is shaken by Burke’s mother assessment but later in a quiet moment Burke’s father encourages her to hang in there.

Meredith is thrilled because Derek has resumed his hair sniffing in the elevator.  Life is good.  Her McDreamy is once again focusing on her and her alone.  Of course Finn is also still asserting his claim in the game.  She declares that by the end of the day she is going to choose between the two.  After she meets with Derek in the stairwell and he assures her that his marriage is over and that she is not a home wrecker, she is obviously leaning towards him. But then she goes home and runs into Finn who has brought Izzie lunch as an excuse to check on her and Meredith is so touched by his sensitivity that she is swayed to Finn’s side. Later at Joe’s, Meredith decides to reach a decision by flipping a coin. She flips the coin but the results are not shown.  Finally, Meredith comes to a decision of sorts.  She is not going to make a decision.  She informs Derek and Finn that she plans to date both of them.

During rounds Bailey notices Meredith’s panties on the bulletin board and immediately zeros in on Cristina and Meredith as the possible culprits.  Just as the tension is reaching a fever pitch, Callie steps forward and says they are her panties.  Meredith is off the hook, but George is thrown for a loop. George gets so upset that at Joe’s he tries flirting with a nurse, but eventually realizes that he is reacting to his fears about Callie.  He rushes over to the hospital and arrives just in time to walk in on Callie and Webber conversation about why he can't let an intern live in the basement of the hospital. They are sitting on her bed, having tea and Callie is dressed only in a t-shirt and panties.  George sees this, gasps and then flees. Callie and Webber notice him, but neither go after him. Webber suggests that Callie clear up the misconception with George and then continues his discussion with Callie, which in a nutshell concludes with the simple fact that Callie can no longer live in the basement of his hospital. Later, George is lying on a bench in front of the hospital when Callie finds him. She is carrying a suitcase.  She explains that Webber tossed her out of the hospital and that the panties on the bulletin board were not hers. She is going to stay with George for a few days while she finds a place to live.

Bailey works on a case in which a boy was impaled on a tree trunk after being thrown into a pile of yard debris while skateboarding.  At first his father shows his anxiety by spewing anger at the boy, but Alex physically pushes him into a wall. Bailey admonishes Alex and tells him to never get physical with a patient or a patient’s family again. Alex agrees but later at Joe’s he gets physical with another patient when he meets her for a brief sexual encounter in the bathroom. When Bailey tries to apologize if she was a little too harsh with him that morning, Alex assures she was right with her concerns and he would never get physical with a patient again. Of course as Alex rushes past Bailey on his way out of Joe’s, he is grinning.  Luckily, Bailey doesn’t catch on. Alex was already on thin ice with Bailey because he kept pushing her to encourage Izzie to return to the surgical intern program. At Joe’s it is obvious that Bailey is ruminating on what happened to Denny.  The father of patient who was impaled on the tree trunk approaches her and they talk.  She reassures him that his son will be okay, but the father is berating himself for not being strict enough when his son needed him the most.  At first Bailey tries to protest but then stops.  She sees that he is right and immediately draws a connection to Izzie. She goes to see Izzie and encourages her to return to SGH. Bailey tells Izzie that she failed her as a teacher when Izzie needed her the most.

Addison goes to see Webber the first thing in the morning and asks for the day off so she can go and get drunk. She spends the day at Joe’s lamenting the destruction of her marriage, trying to dull her pain with alcohol, talking to Izzie who dropped by with a couple of baskets of muffins, and chatting Bailey’s ear off while stuffing muffins in her mouth and vowing to get fat.  Ever responsible, she has Joe call her a cab and at ten o’clock when it arrives, she leaves.  In the meanwhile, Derek supposedly has been looking for Addison all day in order for him to finally tell her what he’d told Meredith and everyone else who would listen—the marriage is over.  He finally tracks her down that night at her hotel room.  They share a brief moment when Derek admits that he left Meredith’s panties in his suit pocket on purpose for her to find, but realized that was a pretty cheap thing to do.  Addison agrees and they both admit their marriage is over.  At that moment, Derek finds out that Addison is not alone.  Mark steps out of the bathroom, draped in a towel with steam wafting all around him. Derek grabs the flute of champagne Addison is holding, drains it and then walks out after declaring that all of his guilt has been absolved.

 And that was it until the next week at Seattle Grace. ~~ Tessarae

Chart 3.03

Yet another morning dawns in Seattle. Meredith is asleep and having an erotic dream that involves a threesome with Derek and Finn.  She is rudely awakened by a commotion in the hallway outside of her bedroom door. It is Callie rummaging through boxes of her stuff that line the hallway.  Meredith peeks out of her room and George approaches her and begs her (whispering) to throw Callie out, because she’s been there for a week and it’s disrupting his life. Meredith shrugs and seems to have no intention of getting involved. George looks on mournfully as Callie continues creating a commotion and then right on cue Callie raises the stakes. When George complains that she wrapped herself in his towel after her shower, Callie loosens the towel, hands it to George and stands naked in front of he and Meredith, once again proving that she marches to a different drummer. In response, George looks off into the distance and Meredith puts on her best WTH facial expression. Then to add the surreal cherry on top of the sundae, a seemingly dazed Izzie approaches the group in the hallway and asks if she can ride to the hospital with them. In the meanwhile at Burke’s, Cristina is disturbed that Burke is sprawled on the couch seemingly aimlessly tossing a ball with his strong hand.  When she suggests that he use his weaker hand, he does. He throws the ball at a coffee cup on the coffee table, hits it perfectly and knocks it over, spilling coffee all over the floor, then demands that Cristina leave the mess. Cristina realizes she isn’t in Kansas anymore. At the hotel, Addison tells Mark that she enjoyed their “transatlantic booty call” but it’s time for him to go home now.  Mark seems to have no interest in hearing that.

 Alex is once again assigned to work with Addison in her continuing campaign to make his life miserable but before Addison can get to her first patient of the day, Mark calls and asks her to meet him at Joe’s. Alex therefore is released to go work in the pit and Addison meets Mark.  They have coffee. Addison tries to convince Mark to go back to New York.  He wants her to come with him but she tells him that she is not leaving Seattle and implies that what was between them was just sex. Mark indicates that it was more than that.

 Burke goes to see Webber at the hospital and asks for a leave of absence.  Cristina is shaken when she realizes that Burke is not only taking a leave but he is accepting the idea that the recovery may take months or years. In fact, it appears to Cristina that Burke is not at all convinced that he will recover at all. The ground under Cristina's feet seems to shift. Later she works with Derek on the split brain case.  The patient is having epileptic seizures five times a day and fears being a danger to his infant son.  The surgical solution is to cut the pathway that connects the two hemispheres of the brain.  The patient is convinced that the surgery is the best solution, but his wife is less than supportive.  She is clearly overwhelmed by her husband’s illness and is not at all convinced the surgery won’t simply make the situation worse. Cristina is actually sensitive to her concerns and commiserates with her by saying it tends to be harder on the caregiver than on the patient. After the surgery the wife’s worst fears seem to be realized.  Her husband cannot remember her name or the baby’s name nor can he label a simple object like a cup.  Derek explains to her that his recovery will take time and patience but new connections will grow.  He emphasizes that the patient can’t recover without his wife’s support.  Cristina realizes that the message also applies to her relationship with Burke. Cristina’s version of being supportive is to buy several whole chickens and take them home. With Burke watching, she takes a cleaver and splits one chicken in half then tosses a suture kit at Burke and tells him to put it back together.

 Meredith is enjoying dating Finn and Derek. That morning Derek shows up with coffee for Meredith and a few minutes later Finn shows up with coffee cake. Meredith tells Cristina that she’s dating and it comes with snacks. She agrees to have dinner with Derek and to have lunch at the hospital with Finn.  Derek though refuses to let Meredith have lunch in peace with Finn.  He interrupts and dangles participation in a split brain surgery to lure her away from her lunch date.  She rushes off with Derek, who is grinning smugly, only to find out that the surgery is later that afternoon.  That night when she comes home with Derek after their date, Finn jumps out from behind the bushes and offers her homemade ice cream…strawberry, her favorite. Derek and Finn verbally spar for a moment, but Meredith stops them in their tracks by declaring that neither of them is doing the dating thing right.  She wants them to focus on her and not each other—she wants to be wooed, felt up and made to feel like a lady. She then takes the ice cream from Finn and bids them both good night.

 That morning as they walk into the hospital, Callie asks George for a key to the house so that she can come and go at will.  George dodges the request by saying that he likes them coming and going together. Callie seems somewhat satisfied with his answer but it is obvious that George is trying to establish some boundaries between he and Callie. On the other hand, Callie, if anything, wants the boundaries to be blurred even more and for them to spend more time together. She puts in a request to Bailey that George be allowed to work with her on a ankle replacement surgery.  She is thrilled to be able to include him in what she sees as a neat case, but George is put off by what he sees as her attempt to further intrude into his life and by the nature of the case.  The patient is a middle-aged triathlon athlete who has had three orthopedic surgeries in a year.  Callie sees her role as to just patch him up so he can continue to live his dream, but George is concerned about the excessive surgeries. George gives that man a reality check about his age and physical condition and the patient cancels the surgery.  Callie is livid at George for his interference and in the course of their confrontation about the case, George blurts out that he does not what to live with her.  Callie is shocked because she says that she had no intention of living with him and if he didn’t want her staying with him while she looked for an apartment that he should have told her one of the four times she asked him previously if it was okay if she stayed with him.  She tells him she will move out of Meredith’s immediately.

Alex works with a little girl who it turns out cannot experience pain.  She is a foster child and afraid that her foster parents will send her back if they find out the truth, which she has wrapped in the embellishment of being a superhero. Because she feels no pain, the little girl was constantly challenging other children to fights.  When it turns out her last battle involved daring other children to hit her in the stomach with a baseball bat, Alex orders a CT scan for her.  The child has massive bleeding in her stomach and is rushed into surgery. Alex, Addison, and Bailey all note the value of pain as a signal of potential damage to the body.

 The first thing in the morning, Bailey goes to see Webber and all but orders him to meet with Izzie. She also demands that he give Izzie a favorable response to her request to be reinstated into the surgery program.  Webber tries to assert his authority but Bailey essentially bulldozes him and demands that he remember all of the other people who have made mistakes and killed people at SGH. What Webber realizes is that letting Izzie return is important to Bailey and that seems to soften his stance.  In the meanwhile, Izzie can’t seem to move beyond the entrance to the hospital.  She stands in front of the hospital looking up at it but is unable to make herself go in. During the day Meredith, Cristina, George and Alex check on her.  Finally at the end of the day, Alex takes her home. Izzie comes into Meredith’s bedroom and climbs on the bed with her.  They share Finn’s strawberry ice cream and Meredith reassures Izzie that it was important that she tried and that tomorrow would probably be a better day. George joins them.  He is obviously depressed that he got what he wanted—Callie moved out. Izzie passes the ice cream to him and the three of them share a moment.

At the hotel, Addison stops at the desk to ask the concierge to hold her calls, Callie checks in. A few minutes later Webber checks his messages at the desk and Mark arrives to check in.  Webber wants to know what Mark is doing in town.  Mark says he is there because he likes ferryboats.

Chart 3.04

Chart 3.05

Chart 3.06

In A Nutshell: Derek's sister, Nancy, visits to check out what is going on with Derek. She is also a pediatric surgeon and obviously close to Addison. She is somewhat suspicious of the extent of Derek's true feelings for Meredith. When she challenges Derek to acknowledge his feelings, he comes across as confused and indecisive as ever. Cristina gets to participate in a rare "Humpty Dumpty" surgery with Burke. The other interns are envious but no one suspects the real reason why she is scrubbing in with Burke. Mark treats Alex like his personal assistant instead of a surgeon in training, which causes Alex to wonder if plastics is indeed the way for him to go. Addison has a patient who has two uteruses and is pregnant with twins. It turns out that the twins have different due dates and because of the off again/on again relationship with her fiancé this indicates that the twins have different fathers. This discovery sends the patients fiancé into a tailspin because not only does he now know the patient slept with someone else, he also realizes his is not the father of both babies, who has come to love. ~~ Tessarae