Ellis Grey, Meredith's mother on "Grey's Anatomy," has been a dominant force since the series began. But until this week, Ellis (Kate Burton) was an unwitting catalyst, lost in the fog of Alzheimer's disease.
(Spoiler alert: Stop reading now if you've saved the episode for later viewing.)
In an episode that mixed comedy and drama in sometimes jarring ways, Burton showed viewers another side of Ellis. Yes, she was still harsh, bitter and occasionally shrill. But the brief disappearance of her Alzheimer's symptoms offered a broader window into the character.
Trouble was, she communicated far more easily with Cristina (with whom she has much in common) than with Meredith. She blasted her daughter for talking about love instead of work. "Anyone can fall in love and be blindly happy," she seethed at a speechless Meredith. "You're no more than ordinary."
Later, Meredith shot back at her mom: "You want to know what happened to me? Why I'm so ordinary? You. You happened to me." It was a pitch-perfect scene, the best work done all season by Ellen Pompeo, who plays Meredith.
Amid all this Ellis drama and a subplot about a patient whose toxic blood sickened nearly every doctor at Seattle Grace (or, rather, nearly every one we care about), there were several romantic developments:
- George and Callie announced that they got married in Las Vegas, eliciting shock and snide comments from George's pals, especially Izzie. That prompted the new Mrs. Callie O'Malley to complain that George was again letting his "weird and judgy friends" affect his feelings. This time, George stepped up, warning the group not to alienate his new wife. Push Callie away, he told them, and you'll lose me, too.
- Cristina took a week to answer Burke's marriage proposal. After consulting Ellis (who admitted she didn't try hard enough in her own life to balance career and romance), Cristina said yes. But she laid down ground rules. "I don't do rings," she told Burke. She's determined to remain a surgeon first and a spouse second. "We can hire a wife," she told him.
- Addison couldn't stop staring at Alex, and she finally resorted to hooking up with Mark just to get Alex out of her system.
And the hospital's free clinic opened (thanks to Izzie's millions), but only a motherless 14-year-old girl showed up, afraid she might be pregnant. Bailey offered the girl free medical testing, but also gave something more valuable: the kind of good advice the girl's mother might well have given.
