Christina Yang...Episode Redeemer

It's another Grey's Anatomy post. I do have the intention of writing about different shows but somehow it's Grey's that inspires me to write. Or, lately, complain.

You see, I think they want me to feel sorry for Izzie. Poor Izzie Stevens, Izzie who's dying, Izzie who has some horrible form of cancer that's in her brain. I tried. It lasted about one minute.

The rest of the episode, I seriously had this feeling that if I had to work at Seattle Grace with Izzie Stevens, I would have pushed her down the infamous staircase that is the scene of so many dramas that don't happen in the elevator. No, seriously.

On the other hand, if I worked with her and if she actually liked to be hugged, I would hug Christina Yang for being herself.

Tonight's episode was...interesting. It had one of the most disgusting surgical procedures that they've ever simulated on the show. Seriously, a face transplant? I'm not that squeamish but....ugh! I think it was the peeling skin sound effects. I could have lived without that.

I did like that patient though. He had a horrific face as a result of a horrible accident and, yet, by the end of the show, I was used to it. It wasn't hideous anymore. I loved that his online friends could see past the horrific face and see the person within but I think that was the point. It worked well.

What didn't work well was Izzie seeing it as a parallel to her own condition. I know, I know, I seem heartless. I should feel bad for this beautiful woman who just found out she's potentially dying.

Yet...it's Izzie. Everything is about her. In her world, it's always been about her. This poor man, hideously deformed because of a car accident, who has been waiting 12 years to be able to look something close to normal again is suddenly in the hospital in order to teach Izzie a lesson. What he has to live with on the outside of his body, she's living with on the inside of her body. If she shares that with her friends, she's afraid they'll run away, afraid to get close.

To be honest, I was afraid that Izzie was going to drag this out, to make it such a secret that we'd spend the next couple of episodes wanting her to tell someone, just to move the plot along. Fortunately, there is Christina Yang who likes to deal with facts, figures and surgical truth and doesn't like to mess with emotion. She has emotion for Izzie because as much as she'd hate to admit it, Izzie is part of Christina's world; a flesh and blood representation of a habit. Christina doesn't like that Izzie is willing to wilt away quietly or, as Izzie would probably perceive it, nobly. Yet it's not noble, it's almost pathetic. Again, it makes me sound cruel but she's always been so self-righteous that it's hard to seperate that. Even when faced with a life-threatening disease, Izzie can't just do the right thing, she has to internalize everything, make herself a victim and wait until someone stronger comes along to push her forward, as Christina did tonight.

I'm glad everyone knows now. It's about time. No more will we have to live with Izzie being Patient X. Hopefully that means no more Dead-Denny (note to Jeffrey Dean Morgan: You were GREAT as The Comedian in "Watchmen", do NOT let the Grey's folks persuade you to come back to their show. Do NOT allow yourself to step backwards and become annoying again).

This is going to sound really cruel but I hope Izzie dies. If she doesn't, Grey's will truly be resorting to the soap-opera-y plots that it's been accused of all along. Yes, there are soap-opera tendencies of the show but because of the strong acting and writing, they're forgiveable. If Derek Shepherd manages to save Izzie and thus complete his own journey through darkness to light, I will be furious, and I mean that. I get that Derek is lost and needs something to put him back on track. I get that a successful surgery would help that. Yet Izzie has a less than 5% survival rate. If she makes it, it'll be so unrealistic that it exceeds even the ferryboat disaster that happened in Season 3.

The truth is, in my opinion, Izzie needs to die. Katherine Heigl needs to get off the show. I find myself despising Izzie more every week even though I'm supposed to feel sympathy for her. I don' t know if that's Izzie or Katherine Heigl that's doing that to me anymore. I used to know. I used to be able to seperate fact from fiction. Lately, though, I just want Grey's to get back on track and I think without that character/actress, things might settle down a little. I know George might also leave. I don't really want that because I like George but if it's his time, so be it.

All I ask is that we get some of the old tone/theme/feel of the show back. There are parts of this season I like: Meredith and Derek, for example. Meredith has grown up. She's not running scared but running towards the danger of commitment. I like Christina; she's grown up but let some humanity colour her personality a little, no longer a full robot. I like that Alex, also, has become more human; he's no longer a cocky frat-boy but a doctor who actually lets himself care. I just hate that he finally lets himself fall in love and it's with Izzie. He deserves better.

I think you've probably figured out that I don't like Izzie. I've tried, believe me, I've tried. Yet even when she's dying, I find myself having this urge to shake her, to make her wake-up and realize that not everything in the universe is about her. That she's not some wounded soul, seperated from those around her. That isolation is her own doing; she's condemned Meredith and Christina multiple times for their choice of romantic partners, for their friendship, for their choices. She's fallen in love with a patient, stolen another patient's heart (literally, not figueratively), seduced her best friend, caused him to divorce his wife, only to discover that they're not a match made in heaven, after all. She's condemned Alex, used him as a sex toy, condemned him again and then, finally, decide he's worthwhile and used his crush on her to make him her own. She's had sex with a ghost. She's lied, a lot. She's killed a couple of patients. She's betrayed her friends. I could keep going but you get the idea. When it comes down to it, Izzie doesn't do much good. She's a bad doctor, friend, lover and girlfriend.

So, now that she might be dying, I find myself watching Grey's with new hope. The hope is that they won't be wimps and let Izzie live. I know that it depends on the behind-the-scenes stuff, whether Katherine Heigl can wiggle out of her contract and, thus, leave the show. I hope she does. I think the show will be better for it. I've said that before and I'm saying it again. I just hope that if, Izzie does leave, it's a realistic leave-taking, not some Meredith-having-a-fatal-drowning-accident-in-which-she-ends-up-talking-to-Dead-Denny,-Pink-Mist-That-Girl-Who-Was-Impaled-in-the-Train-Episode-and-her-mother-and-realizing-that-life-is-worth-living-after-all episode. That was NOT good Grey's. Good Grey's are the moments like yucky-face-transplant-man getting to look at his new face and realizing that even if he hadn't have had the surgery, his friends don't care how he looks. It sounds trite but that was a good storyline because it makes me care.

It's not too late to make me care about Izzie. Trust me, I'll care if she knows she's dying. I'll root for her to keep going with that and I might even promise to be sad. As long as she doesn't come back as a ghost to have sex with Alex.

Because that would be a ridiculous storyline...right?