Grey’s Anatomy – Alex and his big mouth

Alex Karev is no Boy Scout. He’s certainly not the male version of April Kepner with her check-off sheets and protocol.

And while Alex has historically been a big, selfish jerk for most of Grey’s Anatomy’s run, he has never struck me as a rat. Even when Izzie cut that LVAD wire at the end of season two and he was deeply jealous of her affections for Denny, he didn’t channel his anger and disappointment into telling the Chief that Izzie was responsible, even though he wanted to, even though he was ticked off and even though his silence meant he couldn’t do surgery in order to protect Izzie’s job.

Let’s say you were drafted to a [football] team that wasn’t your first pick. You don’t like the players. You hate the way they play the game. You even think the quarterback is full of crap … But it’s your team. You don’t quit. You don’t talk to the press. You don’t bitch to the coach. You just, you just go out there every Sunday and you make the blocks and you take the hits and you play to win. You show up and you suit up and you play because it’s your freakin’ team.

That’s what Alex told the Chief in season two when he was afforded the opportunity to throw Izzie under the bus and start doing surgeries again. Does that sound like a guy who’d blurt out to the person deciding who’s going to be the next chief resident that “Meredith messed with” the Alzheimer’s clinical trial? Sure Alex was in a bar and had been drinking, another pretty blond doctor told him she was essentially leaving him to go to Africa to take a job that had been offered to him, and he’d just been told by an equally bitter Cristina that it was likely that Meredith would be tapped to be chief resident.

Yes, the Alex we’ve seen for seven seasons would indeed be snarky to Meredith, but since her actions with the trial didn’t directly affect him, it seems very much out of character for him to knowingly torpedo Meredith’s career. She is, after all, the person who stood by him and let him live in her house in the wake of Izzie divorcing him. She was his friend.

I did expect that Meredith’s manipulation of the study to make sure Adele received the real medication was going to come to light. Meredith and Derek suddenly being able to adopt Zola seemed to be proceeding too smoothly. Something bad was bound to happen to them. This is Grey’s Anatomy after all. A bomb exploded in hallway after having been inside a patient. People nearly drowned in a huge ferry accident. A mass murderer rampaged through the hospital killing and shooting people. But having Alex dime Meredith out like that … not cool. Not very Grey’s Anatomy.

The way in which Cristina learned that she wouldn’t be chief resident — from an aggressive Owen during what was supposed to be a job interview — did seem like typical Grey’s Anatomy. “You never had the qualifications,” Owen told her. “You’re not built for this job.” He was right. She’s much better suited to be a rock star surgeon than supervising staff, that is if Teddy can stop treating Cristina like a misbehaving child (which makes her act like one, including trying to covertly steal the surgery with the guy with a tree in his lung).

When it came to the Zola storyline, I thought the writers did a wonderful job of demonstrating how comfortable Derek is with the baby, how utterly natural, and, by contrast, how awkward Meredith was, particularly during the interview with the social worker where she only lit up when discussing surgery and medical treatments. Noting that her mother didn’t role model loving, maternal behavior, Meredith seemed to be working through her discomfort, thought it seems like it’ll take a while. That scene with McDreamy looking at his daughter in her hospital crib and McSteamy holding his daughter in a baby carrier was flat out adorable, specifically when McSteamy said that Sofia and Zola will be best friends, just like their daddies.

Now the previews that ABC whips together for upcoming Grey’s episodes are notoriously misleading, so I’m choosing not to read anything into the scene in the promo for the season finale of Meredith walking into a bedroom while holding Zola, only to find it empty. (I’m guessing it’s Alex’s room.) Sure, I expect Derek to be livid about what she’s done with the Alzheimer’s trial, but not to the point where he leaves her. They’ve gone through too much for that to come between them permanently.

Clacked by Meredith O'Brien
on May 13, 2011 @ 15:08 EST5EDT