Grey's Anatomy 7.15 – "Golden Hour"

I had started writing this review last night, but then I stopped because I was too tired to keep typing. This morning I couldn’t find the file anymore *headdesk*. I have either deleted it accidently or overwritten it with another file or.. whatever. It was gone, which kind of is symptomatic for this week where so many things have gone wrong. But, the Grey’s episode itself didn’t go wrong, it was surprisingly entertaining to watch. At least I had a great time and I don’t think it’s because I might have lowered my standards :-). A lot of the episode felt like the “good old Grey’s” and it was wonderful to see that this is still possible. It most probably was the exception from the rule, when I think about what I already know will happen later this season… Baby Torres this and Baby Torres that. I might have to get back to this episode over and over again in the next few weeks to balance it :-)

There are two main reasons why this episode worked so well for me. The story focused on the original main characters, or better said, this one original character, Meredith Grey. And it focused on the medicine with these five different medical storylines from a wide range of medical conditions and every case provoked a different emotion from the viewer. We haven’t had that for a while, or at least I haven’t. I also really liked this “60 minutes in real-time” format of this episode and the focus on the hectic ER for once. There was so much going on and so many things can happen in 60 minutes and it was seldom boring. Except when the camera followed Teddy or Bailey (outside of the ER).

I have to admit I was a bit bothered by something of the fertility drugs storyline. First of all I have to make amends, because I did expect the fertility drugs issue to be ignored in 7.15. and just thrown our way off-handedly in 7.16, when according to the press release, Mer will suffer from some sideffects. But for once the storyline at least was built up continiously. Of course I would have loved to actually see Meredith and Derek make the decision to take the next step on their journey to a family, but the lack of it wasn’t a deal breaker. But I still don’t completely understand what exactly this next step is. Meredith is pumped up with hormones now, so her body will produced more eggs [LJauss, please overlook my amateur way of describing this *g*]. And then what? How is this helping with the “hostile uterus” which seemed to have been the problem with the first pregnancy. At least that was the diagnosis in episode 7.03. Or are these hormones supposed to “cure” her uterus? Will they be doing IVF? Which could lead to some highly entertaining moments about Derek making his contribution to this process *g* But right now I’m still a bit confused. I know I’m giving this issue too much thought. I just can’t help it…

Callie, Arizona and Mark had only one small scene each and none of it was about their baby, but it all was just interacting with Meredith. Yay! For me there still was too much to see of Teddy’s lovelife and of Bailey’s lovelife (definitely too much of Bailey’s), but I wasn’t bothered too much by it. The awesomeness of the other storylines outweight it. But flirty Bailey is really freaking me out. It’s kind of creepy, isn’t it? Just like Derek I really hope I will never have to see that again :-)

Chief Webber is an ass. There clearly was something wrong with Adele, and it might not even be Alzheimers, but she was confused and Meredith was right in wanting to check that out. Stupid chief… he probably would be the last person to notice if there was something wrong with his wife. I know I’m being unfair, but I just don’t like him and he acted like an ass towards Meredith in the end.

I was glad that the stroke guy broke up with his “girlfriend from hell” in end, she was a bitch. The little guy Nathan with his broken femur was really cute. And his dad was great as well, caring and clearly wanting the best for his son. The two drunken sport fans were highly entertaining and for a while I always expected knife-guy to suffer from some serious brain injury after all, but he really was lucky. To see Lexie, Cristina and the others interact with them in their own special kind of way, was a lot of fun to watch.

Somehow the writers managed from the start to make me care about Oliver, the guy who died in the end. I probably cared, because he was so nice and just wanted to take his son Max to the game. For a while I thought that Max would show up at the ER and Alex would offer to take him to the game, because Alex has a soft spot for kids. I was really shocked when Oliver died on the table.
Alex rocked in this episode, when he gave up his tickets to do Nathan’s surgery. I even liked the new OB again. I still think we don’t need any more new doctors and I still haven’t figured out if she really has her own personality, but she was nice at least.

I’ve always been a huge fan of Meredith. I know she has her flaws, but we all have those and I just really, really like her. So I was very happy to finally have an episode that focused on her and almost her alone. She always has been a great doctor in regards to caring for her patients, being able to calm them and to explain matters in a way they would understand. She has great people skills. And obviously also great medical skills by now, but we knew that already. I felt so bad for her, when she had to inform Oliver’s family and I almost shed a tear as well, when she talked to the son Max on the phone. Ellen Pompeo did a great job in this episode overall.

I enjoyed Meredith interaction with Alex and Cristina, because it felt so much like the good old times. Mer and Alex alwaxys had this special bond and so did Cristina and Meredith. These two never have been typical “girl”friends, but they are each others’ person in their own twisted but still so adorable way. Their elevator scene about who would need to die before Cristina could raise her godchild would have been morbid and distasteful with any other characters, but it was so typical for them and it worked for me and so did their talk at the nursery. It took Meredith a while to really open up about her innermost feelings, but I’m glad she did and my heart broke a little bit for her.
Can I just say how much my inner Grey’s geek squeed when she went to the nursery? Awww! I just recently started to rewatch Grey’s from the start (on my netbook, while I’m cooking or cleaning dishes) and so it hasn’t been too long ago since I saw Meredith and George hang out together in front of that nursery window, whenever they had a bad day. This was such a wonderful bow to these good old days of seaons 1 and 2.

There was an almost unforgivable lack of Derek in this episode, but the “one minute in the elevator” more than made up for the lack of Derek in this and previous episodes. In my opinion this scene was all kinds of awesomeness. Meredith and Derek were adorable and funny and I honestly fell into this trap (or wanted to fall into it) of thinking that it was a “sex-date”. It would have made sense in a way, with a narrow timeframe of ovulation and all. And Ellen and Patrick did an amazing job keeping up this facade. The way Derek seemed to drop his pants as well, when he obviously just pulled out the syringe was hilarious! And so were all the moments when he dropped his gaze to Meredith pants and Meredith getting all flustered. I’m grinning again, just remembering it, while I’m typing this. It’s been a while since I have watched a scene over and over again, but I think I’m on a good way to store this scene foremost in the Grey’s section of my brain ;-)

To me this definitely was the best episode in a long time!

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One Response to Grey's Anatomy 7.15 – "Golden Hour"

  1. Lili says:

    You are right. Very old school Grey’s it’s fantastic. I really enjoyed this epi and the nursery scene was a nice tribute to the amazing Season 1.they really should focus back on Meredith and more exploring Alex, Cris, Derek, Webber an Bailey. Calzone and Mark SL is annoying and really dies not feel like the shoe I fell in love to

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