Poor Little Meredith Grey

Alright, so I've had a complaint from one of my readers (his name rhymes with "tricky") that my Blogs are too long. Can't say I didn't warn you - I've always been long-winded when I write. How many times did Mrs. Halligan lecture me on that in high school English? Too many to count. So I'm going to make a strong effort to keep them more brief from now on...but I somehow doubt that's going to happen.

Now, the one thing on my mind this morning is: Poor little Meredith Grey. My favourite TV show (that doesn't involve manipulative houseguests or wannabe rockstars) is GREY'S ANATOMY. Most of the world got to see the season finale of the show last spring; however, due to my own stupidity, I somehow manage to miss it, and I've been waiting several long, excruciating months for it to come out on DVD. This past week it finally did, and last night I was finally able to watch the much-anticipated episode.

For those of you who don't watch it (you should start) - here's the premise: Each week, we get a glimpse into the life of Dr. Meredith Grey and her fellow interns at Seattle Grace Hospital - Dr. Izzie Stevens, Dr. George O'Malley, Dr. Cristina Yang, and Dr. Alex Carref. As surgical interns, these five doctors become good friends while struggling as the bottom-feeders in one of the best hospitals in the U.S. Each week, they manage to get themselves into crazy situations, both at the hospital and after hours with their personal lives. The main focus, of course, is Meredith, but through the first two seasons, viewers have also become very familiar with the rest of the doctors.

In the finale episode (and I got to see the super-long un-cut version that lasted almost an hour and a half), Izzie finds herself fighting to keep the patient she's fallen in love with alive. Denny is waiting for a heart transplant, and after a botched plan to get him a new heart quicker, Izzie and the rest of the interns have to keep Denny alive until they can come up with a back-up plan. Alex, Izzie's former boyfriend, is an unwilling accomplice, but he has no choice but to help.
In the meantime, Cristina's boyfriend, attending heart surgeon Dr. Burke, is unexpectedly shot by a crazed patient, and she can't seem to come to grips with it. After finding out there's a chance of paralysis in his hands, she falters, and can't bring herself to deal with it, so she immerses herself in the situation with Izzie and Denny.

After some smooth talking by Alex, he convinces another surgeon from another hospital to perform the transplant surgery on Denny, and miraculously, it works. Izzie is on cloud nine when a newly-repaired Denny proposes to her, and then the two of them make plans to attend the prom being thrown at the hospital for the chief of surgery's niece who is dying of ovarian cancer. All sounds rather traumatic and ridiculous up to this point, right? Well, even I wasn't prepared for the next curveball they threw at me...

Izzie goes home to change for the prom, and upon returning to the hospital looking like a fairy princess, she finds that Denny has very unexpectedly passed away. He had a stroke and died, all alone in his room. After learning the news of Denny's death, Izzie curls up on his hospital bed with him and simply lies there, hanging on to the man she loved. That image will probably stick with me forever - perhaps the most striking image I've ever seen on television: A man, not handsome in a conventional way, but rugged and charming nonetheless, frozen in death, his skin already turned a greyish-blue; and the woman curled up next to him, all blond and beautiful in a puffy pink party dress, her face conveying no emotion as she very matter-of-factly explains to her friends exactly how her fiancé died.

It's not until they each take turns trying to tell Izzie that she must let Denny go, that she finally breaks down and begins to sob uncontrollably. Perhaps my favourite moment of the whole show was when Alex steps forward and soothingly convinces his former girlfriend to let go of her dead fiancé, pries her fingers free of him, and then scoops her up and lets her cry on his shoulder. He was the only one of the whole group who knew exactly how to deal with the situation, and while Alex is usually portrayed as the selfish, crass (but oh-so-yummy) one in the group, in this episode, viewers got to see the softer, sweeter side of Dr. Alex. I absolutely loved it.

So now I've gone into detail about the main plotlines of the show, and you're probably wondering how this all relates to poor little Meredith Grey. Well, that's just the point - the whole episode revolved around Izzie and Denny, and Cristina and Burke, and the prom plans for the chief of surgeon's dying niece...But know how the episode ends? Know what I was supposed to be thinking about all summer (but I couldn't, because I didn't see it til last night)?? It ends, not with a closing shot of Alex holding a traumatized Izzie, or Cristina squeezing Burke's perfectly healed hands, or the chief of surgery dancing with his niece, but rather the whole season ended with Meredith finding herself caught between her fling, Dr. McDreamy (or Sheppard), and her current beau, Finn the vet, trying to decide what she should do. All of the trauma, all of the tragedy, all of the despair - and we end with poor little Meredith, whose biggest problem is that she's in love with a married man, dating a vet who's perfect for her but she doesn't love him...oh, and her dog died. Whoop-di-doo.

It all kind of pissed me off. I'm still very excited for the new season to begin next week, but I sort of wish the whole show didn't have to be about Meredith. I know, it's just TV, chill out, Jill. But that's just what I had to vent about today. Thank your lucky stars Lukas won Rockstar, or I'd still be whining about that....haha!

So the weekend officially begins in a few hours, and I'm very much looking forward to it - going to see "Invincible" tonight, and tomorrow the whole family will be packing up to head to Luke's ball tournament in Williamsburg. Should be fun! I'll be back with more blogging on Monday - I hope some interesting things happen this weekend to tell you all about. Hey, maybe I'll find a boyfriend in Williamsburg. Ya never know...