Grey's Anatomy: Puttin' On the Ritz (10x04)

I think I was expecting a little bit more from the 200th episode. I don't know what, exactly, but in all I was a little let down. There were a lot of different things going on here, as always with this show, and I'll attempt to briefly touch on them all.

Jackson is hosting a huge gala to raise money for the hospital. It is very elaborate and has trapeze artists and all manner of fancy spectacles. Jackson, Owen, Christina, Callie, Derek, Meredith and other members of the hospital all attempt to flatter the rich guests into donating money.

It becomes a bit of a flirting contest between Owen and Christina. Christina flirts with a young attractive man who later gives a lot of money to the hospital (Christina rejects his romantic advances once she has the check in hand). Owen, on the other hand, hits it off with a beautiful doctor from a competing hospital and as the episode ends, Christina leaves the two of them alone, seemingly unsure what to think of this newest development.

Callie is busy telling people at the gala that Arizona is dead, but then she feels guilty about it. However, it does bring in more money to the hospital.

Jackson is constantly running around trying to host the party, completely oblivious to the fact that Stephanie, back at the hospital, is upset about not getting an invitation. After Stephanie and Shane kick ass in the ER together, Shane spontaneously kisses her just in time for Jackson to walk in. She rushes after him so the two can talk, and they decide to continue their relationship, with the understanding that Stephanie has to start being more honest about her feelings.

Derek and Meredith had a really cute story line, probably the funniest and most entertaining to watch. They are both bored out of their minds on maternity and paternity leave, since they agreed that as long as Meredith isn't working, neither will Derek. They compete over who can shmooze the most money out of the rich folks, and Derek is clearly winning. It was cute to see them flirtatiously compete with one another.

At the hospital, work must still go on despite the glitzy party. I already mentioned that Stephanie and Shane had a good time working on their own. One of their patients was a druggie who came in with some friends after crashing their car. Alex seems to take a special interest in this man, even going so far as to abandon Jo at the party to check up on him. When Jo tracks down Alex attempting to draw blood, Alex admits that he thinks the man might be his father, and he wants to get tested. In the end, Jo tells him that the man is his father, just as Alex says that he doesn't want to know.

Arizona, unable to face Callie and everyone else at the party, spends the event hiding in a closet at the hospital. April finds her and the two proceed to drink champagne and talk, which ends up being very cathartic to the both of them. Leah Murphy is sent on errands to get them more booze and food from the party, which she does not find very amusing.

Richard Webber is being stubborn and refusing to work to get better. Bailey is juggling that problem with another one. An old terminal patient keeps on trying to find a way to stay alive (an ironic contrast to Webber's attitude), but Bailey simply cannot do anything for him. There's another problem - the old man is extremely racist and insensitive. I find the way this show deals with racism to be very fascinating. The man says some awful stuff, but he's not made out to be Satan. Bailey has to treat him like she would any other patient, although she does call him out on his behavior. In the end, though, he's a dying man, and he's afraid. Bailey puts him in the same room with Webber since they are both apparently terminal patients. Talking about death gets Richard to realize that he's not ready to give up.

At the gala, the trapeze artist falls and gets badly injured. She is rushed to the hospital, which looks like the end of the fundraising opportunity. Jackson, however, has a plan. He takes a lot of the rich guests to look in on the surgery, showing them exactly what their money goes towards. He ends up getting a lot of last minute donations. I love how good Jackson is at all this board member stuff. It works really well when juxtaposed with everyone's initial reaction when he was given the power by his mother.

So, that's the episode. It was good. I'm a little concerned about the plot line concerning Alex's father. I think it might come across as a bit too melodramatic, and that's obviously saying quite a lot for this show. I also think the relationship between Jackson and Stephanie is a bit hard to buy into, and I'm ultimately uncertain about where they're planning to take the Jackson/April relationship. I did, however, love Meredith and Derek's lighthearted return to the world of surgery, and I loved the odd bonding moment between April and Arizona in the supply closet. While not my favorite episode of Grey's Anatomy, and perhaps not worthy of such a milestone, it still kept my interest and advanced some new stories in interesting ways.

7.5/10