Search

thepopculturelife

Live life, one screen at a time

Open Search
Category

Television

Grey’s Anatomy Season 12 Episode 2 “Walking Tall” Recap

There was a time, long ago in the history of Grey’s where Miranda Bailey incited fear in the hearts of those who knew her. She was the Nazi, the no-fucks-given, no-shit taken captain of the ship and we loved her for it. In the second episode of what looks set to be Grey’s Anatomy 2.0 we were reminded of where our fearless leader came from, and surprisingly to no one more than myself, it actually might have paid off.

Since her days of reigning terror upon the interns, Bailey has gone through a strange transformation wherein she’s become a better surgeon, a stronger mother, a much healthier spouse but has unfortunately lost much of her self-confidence and respect within the show. Much of her gravitas is still derived from our memories of her yelling at her underlings and laying down the law and not from anything she’s done since (probably) 2011. This week, we finally got to see her return to that no-fucks-given, no-shit-taken Führer we fell in love with. But after so many years away, it was just as hard for Bailey to get back in the swing of things as it was for us to watch.

Last week I complained about the show moving too hard, too fast; Trying to make me forget the bad and trust in the show all over again in under an hour (And seriously, ain’t no oven pre-heat that quickly). Which is why I thoroughly enjoyed Bailey reaping consequences from trying to attempt the exact same thing. If this was completely unintentional from the writers, then I apologise for giving them that much credit. Because the decision to have a staple character overstep, overreach and overcompensate in much the same way that the show is – AND THEN NAIL HER TO THE WALL FOR IT- really made me smile in a way that Grey’s hasn’t made me do in  a while.

This all happened thanks to the B.U.G. (The Big Unfriendly Giant) whose tumour on her pituitary gland has caused her to grow exponentially, meaning that her spine might (but-almost-definitely will) snap. The B.U.G. is pissed because she’s bringing the internet to Africa or something and so can’t stay in the hospital for longer than 4 hours (which sounds like a process that might’ve necessitated an assistant showing up or something. I mean repeatedly saying “I’m needed, I have to go” doesn’t make you necessarily “needed” sweet rude giant lady, I got the feeling like they were probably doing ok without you). So Bailey thinks that weeks of hardwork can be crammed into 4 hours by our loyal docs. At best this seems ridiculous and at worst is just ridiculous… which, what do you know? just comes across as ridiculous either way.

Much in the same way as Jurassic Park, life does find a way and the job gets done but it’s not with Miranda’s help – it’s despite it. The Nazi might be on her way back, but it seems like faking it ’till you make it just isn’t going to cut it – She’s going to have to put in the time and earn the position she thinks she’s earned just from making it this far (*cough* Shonda Rhimes *cough* ).

Some fun on the side worth mentioning is the further introduction of new lambs for the slaughter: McCutey and McHottie interns. Grey’s is at it’s funniest when it commits to being a moshpit of #drahmaa and in earlier years hit home when we were leaked bits and pieces of stories that we never really saw, a.k.a. the interns of seasons 4 and 5. There’s moments of this kind of humour coming from this years batch of newbies, as we’re starting to see trickles of inside jokes and inside banter shine through. I don’t know anything about McCutey or McHottie other than McCutey is letting me vicariously creep on Jo and McHottie is well, just so darn fun to look at. But what’s great is, this episode at least really seemed to realise that with so much heavy #drahmaa coming from Bailey and ‘Japril’, all we really needed them to do is make us giggle. I’m sure their time will come (pretty sure McHottie is living with Arizona now but apparently it’s a cool roommate thing not to share a single scene together) but for now at least, if we can keep seeing McBanter fly without it having to be weighed down by me caring for more people that might die, then this might just work.

Finally, just some words on ‘Japril’ developments: April is a highly accomplished trauma surgeon being told by other well-regarded surgeons that she has a rash that could be dangerous and her immediate response is “No, I’m fine, please let me go so I can treat sick people”. She then complains to her hot hot husband about wanting to fight for their marriage after her immediate response to these problems last year was “No, I’m leaving because I want to leave”. All I’ve learned here is that April’s first instincts always suck and she is literally regret incarnate. This week she just suffered from dermatitis, but next week she could be suffering from divorce… and the cream for that is a hell of a lot more expensive.

0

Grey’s Anatomy Season 12 Premiere “Sledgehammer” Review

The fans of “Grey’s Anatomy” have been through a lot. We’ve loved, we’ve lost, we’ve loved again and then we’ve lost again. But after seeing so many things that once made this show great get cancer, shot, hit by busses, crushed by planes, electrocuted, hit by trucks or just get boring (that’d be you Jackson), many of us are still tuning in to see if there’s any steam left in this ferry boat. I say ‘things’ and not people, because as hard as I try, I can’t help but feel that as much as Grey’s wants us to keep smiling at the new interns and new cases, my heart to care isn’t as full as it used to be – and it’s simply because the pieces we’re left with just don’t fit. It’s become obvious that the pillars of this series aren’t the freak-of-the-week cases or the interchangeable acts of sex in an on-call room, but the core cast of characters that built the show: Characters that are now all but gone.

None of this is a surprise: excitement for the show has steadily declined as the death tolls have gone up. But at least the show is aware of the up hill battle it’s facing to try and recapture it’s spark. At the close of this week’s premiere,  Meredith tells us to “forget everything we know about Anatomy” as she takes a sledgehammer to her childhood home. But with so much riding on this season after the loss of Derek you just know that this isn’t really Mer talking about a dead cadaver, but Shonda Rhimes talking about the stagnant linchpin of TGIT.

A lot of effort was made this week to help us forget how dreary the show became last season: Arizona is bubbly again; Maggie is bursting out of her shell; Callie is laying down the law basically showing us that she’s got her “oh no you didn’t” groove back; Bailey made a speech that didn’t end with me being depressed (!); Jo and Alex are being sexy and sweet living in their loft… which is cool… I guess? And Meredith is pissed at her new living situation (girls apparently don’t just want to have fun).

But ultimately is a few goofy meltdowns, some impromptu violence against a bigot (nice swing Mags) and a new focus on ‘roommate drama’ a la season one, enough to revive what’s been lost? With just this episode to go on, the answer is no. It’s no secret that Grey’s has strayed in the last decade from what made it excellent to begin with, but it hasn’t strayed in a vacuum. I can’t imagine anyone watching is as happy to move on as quickly as the show wants us to, and unfortunately this weeks hammerhead approach to shoving what it thinks is good-old-fashioned fun down our throats is borderline offensive.

This premiere and the places are Grey/Sloan Docs are in now, owes everything to what has come before. And in it’s attempt to reboot so hastily, the show is now in danger of feeling like “Grey’s Anatomy” lite: Fat free and soul free. No one mentioned Derek and aside from a ferry boat scrub cap and an obligatory family photo on the fridge, it’s almost as if McDreamy could’ve been a McDream all along. Arizona’s re-discovered pixie-esque buzziness is nice but are any of us fooled  by a bit of hot banter with a hot intern to forget how loathsome she’s become in recent years? Umm… No. Jackson and April are (not surprisingly) headed for a season of McBrooding which only bodes well for viewers who enjoy watching attractive people avoid eye contact with each other. But we should just let this one ride out seeing as it’s  pretty much the only thing the writers have yet to check off on their list of “how do we make this relationship interesting?”.

But it’s still Grey’s: Meredith has been through everything we have and she’s still chugging along, so I’m not ready to let her go on by herself just yet. I like to think we’re heading in a better direction by trying to establish super-good-fun-times as a new starting point, but moving forward I’d like it to be a little less heavy-handed and ‘excited’ to forget where we’ve come from.

That’ll do Grey’s, that’ll do.

0

go away, i’m talking to Buffy

Ever since i was a little girl… did I say girl? thats weird… I was a boy. Anyway, ever since I was wearing fairy dresses and waving a wand around (this time i was playing the fairy godmother in a pantomime, don’t worry though I did it ironically), I’ve pretty much been brought up on television. I learnt my ABCs by the NBCs, BBCs, ITVs, CBSs, WBs, UPNs and well ok ABCs of prime-time and i have to say, mum what the hell were you thinking?

Don’t get me wrong, I am a big fan of me and the person that television has made me, but Friends had me thinking that there was a constant sexual tension between me and my classmates when I was 7. Buffy had me patrolling the garden for vampires with a wooden stake i’d made from a broken picture frame when I was 9. Lois and Clark made me think that it was ok to lie and that Lex Luthor had hair. Dawsons Creek had me expecting sex as soon as my best friend grew boobs and don’t even get me started on Oz. With a bit of hindsight under my belt, I can clearly see how this has affected the way I live my life. First-off I live life like its a sitcom, it is my ultimate fantasy to walk into a room and say something like “Is it me or is it really hot outside” and have everyone in the room turn around and say “It’s you” at the same time, and then of course have a studio audience justify it with howling laughter. I have a lot of fun with this but its ultimately disappointing when no one catches on and i don’t get the banter that Will & Grace promised me I would have. And I also live life extremely naive of the kind of life every one else is living when i compare it with the life I lead and have expected from tv. Coming to the end of my teens which I pretty much spent locked away watching tv, I can tell you that I didn’t get the voice-over that the Wonder Years promised me, the sex that the O.C. promised me, the drugs of Skins,  the family of Gilmore Girls, the adventure of Buffy or the even the lack of work-pressure that Moonlighting told me i could have (I mean come on, no one breaks the fourth wall as much as Cybill Shepard does if you’re not pretty laid back). So with this in mind, this is what i’d been expecting from life and my teens, but the joke is that when I heard of kids doing drugs and having sex, I was just shocked and appalled. We were all in the same race and no had told me that we’d started, so they must be cheating right? These kids were ignorantly doing things and having experiences that i’d been learning about and dreaming about for years, they didn’t understand the romance, the montage, or the arc that came with these milestones. But I was ready, so why wasn’t it happening? It turns out that while I was fantasising about life experiences as a montage and an epic three season arc, my fellow teens were just living life.

I’m not shy by any means, but what I am is extremely romantic thanks to late-night prime-time. And the burden of this mindset means that i’m not going to make a move unless I know it can draw ratings. Watching the Sean show for the past 19 and a half years, i’m kind’ve of invested in my character’s journey and I don’t want him to have a mindless fling, I want him to have a house-collapsing, cubicle-bashing, self-sacrificing love affair with a co-lead. And it needs to be perfect. I appreciate that no one can really get this, and to be honest no one should really have to, but I can tell you right now that someone’s going to take this show of the air if it doesn’t get exciting pretty damn soon.

This is starting to sound like I blame TV for all my problems, which I most certainly don’t. It’s just that when the most emotional memories in your own life are Buffy killing Angel to save the world, Ross cheating on Rachel, Marissa dying, Walter White running over a couple of drug dealers looking at you and saying “Run”, then there has to be something wrong. I have lived the most exciting lives from soaking up these worlds and these characters and hot damn if it hasn’t turned me into a pretty cool guy, but unfortunately I’ve been sheltered from the real world so much that I don’t even know what it looks like anymore. I don’t know how to live in a world that doesn’t know who’s in its main cast. Who do I end up with? Who are my friends? What do I end up doing? What will my life turn out to be? Have I been dead all along?

There’s honestly no turning back now so all I can really do is sit back and hope that by the time i’m 30 i’ll be experienced enough to play an attractive 16 year old on prime time. And If nothing else, I can almost definitely say that I am the product of some of the smartest and most creative writing on TV from over the past two decades… fart.

2

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑