So much has changed since Series One, when in the very same episode that Derek told Meredith he loved ferryboats they shared that moment in the Seattle Grace lift. By the start of the third episode, ‘Let It Be’, it seems clear that taking a boat ride to work is no longer fun; nor, come to mention it, is taking the lift… unless, that is, you like painful silences and an atmosphere you could cut with a knife – or, seeing as this is Grey’s Anatomy we’re talking about, scalpel. But times are changing, and there’s just enough in these two episodes to keep any devoted Mer/Der fan happy. They may not be back together yet, but there are still some great moments between them; and, as we’ve come to expect, one of them is in the now infamous Seattle Grace lift when Meredith finally admits to Derek that she misses him. You almost think things are going to go back to the way they were… until, drawing on the experiences of close friends, Savannah and Weiss, Derek decides that ‘it’s all about the vows’, even if unconvincingly. There’s also that moment in ‘Thanks for the Memories’ where Meredith tells Derek that it’s good that he’s trying to repair his relationship with Addison, telling him, ‘You wouldn’t be you if you weren’t the kind of person who was trying to make it work.’ Tellingly, when she asks if Derek loves Addison, he says, ‘I don’t know.’ So not only is it great to see some kind of resolve between them, but also to feel that while there’s life, there’s hope – or, perhaps that should be while there’s love, there’s hope. Even if by the end of the episode, Derek’s back with Addison and Meredith’s at a bar looking to fill the McDreamy-shaped hole in her life… but it’s only a matter of time, surely?
When Thanksgiving arrives, we finally get a glimpse into life outside of the hospital for some of the doctors and witness them attempting to cope with different social situations with varying degrees of success.
It’s fun to see Burke, with all the finesse of a surgeon, scrubbing in and rescuing Izzie, who’s looking to snatch George’s ‘007: License to Kill’ title for her fatally-flawed cooking skills, from a potentially disastrous Thanksgiving, even if Cristina does find the heat in the kitchen all too much and leaves them to it.
But old habits die hard and, Cristina being Cristina, how long can you really expect her to stay away from the hospital when she could be there eagerly awaiting the next grisly case? Especially when most of the patients coming through the doors have been involved in holiday-related incidents.
And you have to love the way Cristina’s idea of sharing her life with Burke is still centred around what she did at work that day, rather than what her home or family are like; just like her idea of ‘the best date ever’ is scrubbing in for surgery. Seriously.
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