Kim Raver on 'Grey's Anatomy,' Humanizing of The Chief, All Good Things

*Warning, spoilers ahead from the recent episode of Grey's Anatomy.*

I’m not big on trying to revive an occasionally creatively sagging TV show by haphazardly tossing a bunch of new characters -- particularly of the young and sexy variety -- into the mix just to see if the chemistry changes.

In the "absence" of its lead actress and beating heart of Grey’s Anatomy, Ellen Pompeo (she wasn't a vital part of storylines because Pompeo was pregnant and then on maternity leave) -- as well as the absence of major original cast member Katherine Heigl (who’s going to be taking another leave of absence from the show for a maternity leave) -- Grey’s spent several weeks this season trying the let’s-throw-a-hospital-merger-and-a-whole-mess-o-new-doctors-into-the-show to see if sparks of the dramatic and romantic kind ignited. And I hated it. Hated the Mercy Westers versus the Seattle Gracers. Hated the ER-ish tone. Didn’t – and still don’t – like the crop of new characters because they haven’t been fleshed out. They’re like fresh new moving parts of the scenery, akin to remodeling a kitchen when there’s something not quite right about the house surrounding it.

However last night, both Pompeo and Heigl were back, full-time (at least Pompeo was walking around instead of having to passively lie in a bed) on Grey's, though I thoroughly and vigorously don’t buy that Izzie would just abandon her new husband Alex because he supposedly “got her fired,” not after Izzie recovered from what should’ve been fatal cancer diagnosis, not after her emotional wedding ceremony to Alex as he married a woman whom he wasn’t sure was going to live out the year, not after Izzie died in his arms and was brought back to life by her now former colleagues. Alex even went to live in the woods in Derek’s trailer for her. And Izzie would leave Seattle and cut off all contact with her friends and husband because her job was the “one” thing she had left? What about the mere fact that she had a life to live? And a husband?

Izzie seemed ready to heave her career overboard after Denny died and she spent some quality time in that pink prom gown, but now her job at Seattle Grace is everything to her? She willingly risked her job for Denny with the whole L-VAD wire business, but her marriage to Alex doesn't mean as much? Sorry, I just don’t buy Izzie’s current behavior which seems out of character for someone who’s always valued relationships.

However there were two strong elements going for Grey’s last night: Kim Raver and, at long last, the humanizing of The Chief.

I was not a fan of Kim Raver when she played Audrey Raines in 24. I found her to be a whiny tool. But as a high-powered magazine editor on Lipstick Jungle, who had a philandering college professor of a husband and then she had her own affair with a much-younger, budding photographer, Raver was a perfect fit. I was saddened when the Lipstick Jungle was canceled, in part, because I wanted to see more of Raver’s Nico Reilly.

Last night Raver was introduced on Grey’s as Teddy Altman, a cardiothoracic surgeon extraordinaire who left a promising surgical practice after her best friend was killed in one of the Twin Towers on 9/11 and signed up to be an Army surgeon serving in Iraq, where she met Owen Hunt. Close friend and erstwhile love interest of  Owen's, Raver’s character seemed more fully human in a single episode – admitting to weaknesses, demonstrating strengths and an emotional range – than all of the Mercy Westers combined over the course of recent episodes. When Teddy celebrated the rain (because she’s been in the desert for so long) and then kept her cool while a child coded on the table and she waited for Cristina Yang to make the right choices in surgery, I crossed my fingers that she’ll be in this for the long-term.

Then there was Chief of Surgery Richard Webber (James Pickens Jr.). For weeks and weeks, he’s been an automaton, acting rashly and emotionally closing himself off to everyone, alienating his former friends and his wife. Last night we learned that it 's because he’s started drinking again. The Chief has always been a complex character, particularly with his relationship to Meredith Grey and his lingering guilt over his extramarital affair with Meredith’s mother which was a contributing factor to Meredith’s lousy childhood. But too often, The Chief's stories get pushed aside for newer, younger, sexier characters. But I like characters, multi-dimensional ones with whom you can empathize or at least somewhat understand on a number of levels. I’ll take those kind of characters over McSexy drones any day.

Do you like Kim Raver's character? Any predictions about The Chief? Think Izzie's actions are out of character?


Image credit: Randy Holmes/ABC.

Latest ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Ep Felt a Lot Like ‘ER’

*Warning, spoilers from recent Grey’s Anatomy episode ahead.*


With Ellen Pompeo and Katherine Heigl sidelined for personal reasons (Pompeo just had a baby and Heigl just adopted one), Grey’s Anatomy writers have had to come up with ways to explain their absences. For Meredith Grey, it’s that she felt guilted into donating some of her liver to help save her alcoholic father, and she needs time to recuperate. For Izzie Stevens, she was fired for making a bone-headed decision at work at the same time when the Chief needed reasons to fire people as his hospital merged with another Seattle Hospital. Now she’s taken off. And is . . . somewhere.

Ever since then, Grey’s Anatomy – which I’ve liked because it’s largely been a character-driven, not necessarily action/plot-driven show – has turned into ER. Especially the latest episode. While cleverly written so that you, the viewer, felt as confused as the Seattle Grace administrators about what led to the death of a mother of a young boy who’d been in a hotel fire, there was precious little in the way of character or relationship building on a smaller, individual scale, with the exception of Lexie reacting to a teen burn victim and Arizona telling her to toughen up. The episode was almost all based on chaos in the Emergency Room – as Derek told the Chief at the end – and the hostile relationship between the two groups of competing hospital staffs. Between the groups, not the people. As individuals.
 
Back in Grey’s first season, the focus was on a group of interns, but it took the time to take each character and really examine him or her. We saw what their lives were like, personally and at work and how those affected one another. We learned their backstories and why they interacted the way they did. They felt like fully fleshed out characters, not cardboard characters about whom I don't care what happens. (I simply didn't care about the Mercy Wester getting fired last night.) The medical cases on Grey's were used as dramatic tools by and through which you could get to know the characters better. (Yes, the ferry boat accident a few years ago was over the top, but it led to the heart-breaking exploration of whether Meredith Grey was suicidal and depressed.)


Last night’s theme of “chaos” was well executed and snappy, I'll give it that. The actors were convincing. But that “I Saw What I Saw” episode, along with the one that preceded it called “Invasion,” felt much more like ER, than Grey’s. And I wanted to watch Grey’s.

Image credit: ABC.

Grey's, Grey's, Grey's

*Warning: Spoilers for the next season of Grey's Anatomy ahead*

Let's dissect some of the recent news with regard to Grey's Anatomy, shall we?

T.R. Knight spoke out to Entertainment Weekly magazine, saying that, given how little screen time his character George O'Malley got last season as compared to Sandra Oh's Cristina Yang (48 minutes versus 114 minutes), he figured there was little point in discussing with the show's creator/producer Shonda Rhimes about getting George more time.

"His surprising decision came after George's screen time was greatly diminished last fall," EW reported. "But what's even more surprising is that when it happened, Knight chose not to ask exec producer Shonda Rhimes what was going on with his character. Instead, he simply asked to leave. 'My five-year experience proved to me that I could not trust any answer that was given [about George],' he explains."

While EW speculated that bad blood had been brewing between Knight and Rhimes over the handling of the incident with former Grey's colleague Isaiah Washington (who reportedly twice invoked a homophobic slur in reference to Knight), Knight said, "The danger of going back is you're trying to pin blame on somebody, and to still be rehashing that three years later would be the ultimate craziness. I have nothing to gain by vilifying anyone."

The magazine portrayed some of his colleagues, in middle of filming the aftermath of George's death-by-bus scenes, as melancholy. E! (with the exclamation point!) reported that the cast was spotted shooting George's funeral scene.

Rhimes told EW that she'd originally planned on having Knight appear briefly in the new season, in the form of flashbacks, in order to show what actually happened to him on the day he died, including depicting him as heroically saving the woman from the bus, but that he declined saying he liked his departure next to the hospital elevator next to the gowned Izzie as is.

In other Grey's developments, EW quoted Rhimes as saying that the character Meredith Grey will not be pregnant in the show, as actress Ellen Pompeo is in real life. Pompeo will be taking a maternity leave in the fall, hence Meredith Grey will disappear from the show for a while.

This news had TV Squad's Michael Pascua speculating on what that would mean for Grey's. "Season six Grey's Anatomy is is going to be odd," he said. ". . . I understand that the title to Grey's Anatomy is a pun on the medical book, but if there isn't any actual Grey on the show then it should be spun into Yang's Anatomy or any of the other characters' last names. Would you still watch Grey's Anatomy if Meredith was gone and Lexie took her place?"

What do you think about the confirmed George death? About Meredith disappearing for a while? Think it'll be, as Pascua said, an "odd" season?

Image credit: Entertainment Weekly.

'Grey's Anatomy' Hits 100 Episodes with Big Wedding (?) & Sick Izzie

I've been with Grey's Anatomy since day one. I've hung in there through a series of obnoxiously preposterous storylines, like dead Denny having sex with Izzie, George/Meredith, George/Izzie, Callie living in Seattle Grace's basement even though we later learned that she has a giant tru$t fund (was that ever explained, by the way, why she was living in the basement because she was rich?).

I stuck with the show because I have a soft spot for the dark and twisty Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo). And not because we share the same first name. Unlike those who despise her character, dismiss it as whiny, indecisive and narcissistic, I've seen her as an emotionally embattled survivor who doesn't see the world quite the way others do. And that's what I like that about her, particularly given her circumstances.

Meredith had an absent and borderline emotionally abusive workaholic mother who never seemed to believe in her daughter. Meredith's father also abandoned her after he divorced Meredith's mother, and instead chose to love and raise his second family and blow off his only child from his first marriage. When her mother got sick with Alzheimers, Meredith had to care for her until she death. The man with whom she fell in love conveniently forgot to tell her he was married, until his unfaithful wife confronted the two of them. Then the love of Meredith's life chose to try to patch things up with his wife, all the while giving longing looks to the heart-broken Meredith who was working in the hospital. Meredith then had a bomb squad guy -- Coach Eric Taylor! -- blow up in front of and all over her. Her father, who lapsed into alcoholism, blamed Meredith for the accidental death of her step-mother. Meredith then attempted suicide and nearly died.

From the ashes of all of that, Meredith Grey emerged as a semi-sane, fiercely loyal, talented physician who still adores Derek "McDreamy" Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey), the man who jerked her around, became impatient with her emotional distress and toyed with her emotions. I respect Meredith's character and find her interesting. I've always felt that McDreamy was just a sideshow with hair gel. Meredith is the real deal, hence the show being called GREY'S Anatomy, not Seattle Grace.

However as we approach the show's 100th episode Thursday night -- which is supposed to feature Meredith and Derek's wedding -- I do so with great trepidation, fearful of more melodramatic dead Denny scenes, Izzie dying right after/before the ceremony (so Katherine Heigl will get some Emmy-worthy material) or some weird medical crisis I can't even imagine . . . yet one more thing or incident that will detract from Meredith's desire to lead a low-keyed life with her friends beside her. I'm hoping, sincerely, really hoping that the episode is not over-the-top.