re: stairway to heaven

i'll admit that i strayed a few times with where the izzie/denny storyline was going. my first instinct was that she was going to die...then i thought she'd kill herself, then i thought denny would just leave...but now i think i'm back to my first instinct. or maybe she won't actually die and she'll get the miracle that denny talked about. yeesh, who knows.

by the way, i love it when they get someone else to do the voice-overs...whenever i hear someone other than meredith at the beginning, i know it's going to be a crazy episode. i also liked how izzie found herself telling melinda that she needed to be there for jackson to help him die...then she realized she was echoing denny's words and the flashbacks started...

the acting was incredible this week:

1. bailey's insomniac-tic haze of confusion and despair. how she chose the oath in the end, even though she almost didn't, and even though in this circumstance it went against everything she stood for, she still stayed true to her promise...she looked so small in the OR while she grappled with her emotions. then how she broke down once the transplant was complete when she realized what she had almost done, and that she still wasn't sure she had done the right thing. i love how bailey's lines can just be one line repeated twice, and chandra wilson delivers it with such raw emotion that makes it hard to believe she's actually acting.

2. how the chief coached george to give choice to the families, and not to pressure them...then he couldn't help but ignore his own advice.

3. meredith's hysteria...it was like she was cheating on derek - from when she told william how to die and not paging derek...also the flickers of tenderness that william would show meredith, like saying how derek was lucky to have her - there's something so revolting about a serial killer saying that to you, but also it didn't turn meredith off...then of course, her going to william's execution...these were moments where emotionally she felt she was betraying derek but couldn't help herself. she's learning more and more that she can be herself, have her own thoughts/feelings and derek will still love her. swoon. side note: when she came out of the prison and was a tearful mess, i also was a tearful mess...then kris patted me and said "it's okay," and DEREK said the same thing to MER seconds later! yeah yeah, i know that "it's okay" is not a ground-breaking response to someone's grief, but i still felt a small moment of closeness to derek at that point. almost as close as photoshopping my face onto meredith's...almost. :)

i remember a simpsons hallowe'en episode where snake dies, so homer gets his hair transplanted onto his head, and then he inherits snake's murderous and violent tendencies...yes, it's just a cartoon, but there are also cases where a person who has had a transplant will have memory traces from the donor (but it appears it's most common in heart patients). this was always in the back of my mind whenever it seemed like william was going to get his wish to donate his organs to jackson. so i think it's best he got his organs from someone else, who was a good person. a good person who is not on death row.

funniest line ever on this show? "i broke his bone" - HAHA! how adorable was it, when sloan begged lexie to leave because he didn't want her to see him like that? that's when i realized that this for certain that this is actually going to go somewhere (that, and i don't think the show needs another meaningless-romp-in-the-bedsheets kind of relationship and i am certain shonda feels the same way. don't you, shonda?). and how adorable was it, when lexie came back anyway, and told him she was going to climb into bed with him and stroke his hair. and the wonderful moment when he succumbed and leaned his head in...tough guy is not-so-tough anymore!

i saved the best for the end. the ring. i love how derek showed cristina the ring. and how he tried to get her to start mending the friendship. and that he realizes mer will freak out when he proposes, and that he needs cristina to support her so she makes the right decision. and how he went to cristina at the end when meredith wouldn't stop crying (props to cristina...as mad as she is at meredith, she still comes through for her "person" in said person's greatest time of need). i love how vulnerable derek is right now, and most of all, how he is totally fine with it. and how he knows he can't replace cristina in meredith's life but that they can be a great team.

by the way, i'm dying to know what mer said to cristina in the car. i thought it was started with something like "i know you won't understand"...but not sure. thoughts? maybe we'll get the inside-the-car perspective at a later episode? or maybe we'll never know. i'll add it to my list of questions that i plan on asking shonda if i ever get a chance to meet her...