As You Like It: Grey’s Calamity — just call me McNutsy

There are times in my life when I’m thrilled to get more of anything, but most of the time I, like the architect Mies van der Rohe, believe that less is more. I don’t like things when they are overdone, overblown, overdressed. That being said, there are still too many times when I get caught up in some ridiculous television series where everything is overdone, especially the melodrama.

The worst offenders are the final episodes, both end-of-season and end-of-show. They tend to sink under the weight of their writers’ overwrought imaginations. Last week I was the victim of one such overblown hit-and-run and I was powerless to stop watching. My old curse of having to know how it all turns out did me in.

I’m hooked on the show Grey’s Anatomy, and thanks to cable I have now seen every episode. I know every character’s quirks and every part of their convoluted relationship history. Last Thursday when I read that the finale would run for two hours, warning bells rang in my head. I knew if I was smart I would not watch it. The two hours were sure to be filled with every ridiculous scenario that the writers and their fevered imaginations could come up with.

Unfortunately I finished the book I was reading at about 8:30, and since it was too early to go to sleep I tentatively picked up the dreaded clicker. I assured myself that I would just find something else to watch for an hour and then go to sleep early for a change. Upon grazing the channels — surprise, surprise — I happened upon Grey’s Anatomy, and I was sunk.

For those of you who have never seen this show, I’ll give you a bare-bones summary. It takes place in a hospital and follows the lives of a bunch of surgeons. End of story. But it helps to know that Derek Shepherd (McDreamy) is a brain surgeon and chief of surgery and Meredith Grey (aha now you understand that clever word play that is the show’s title) is a surgeon resident who has had an on-again-off-again relationship with Derek since time began, and her best friend, Christina, is dating Iraq war vet surgeon Owen, who might be in love with fellow Iraq veteran surgeon Teddy, who has dated Mark Sloane (McDreamy) who slept with Derek’s wife Addison and is Derek’s best friend and who still loves Meredith’s half sister Lexie who now loves Alex Kerev who has never really gotten over fellow surgeon Izzie who was dying of cancer but is okay now and starring in movies since George got hit by a bus. Any questions?

The finale threw a crazy shooter into the mix. I began the show thinking maybe this could make sense. The shooter’s wife had been operated on by Dr. Shepherd (see above) and something had gone wrong and they had to cut off her life support, so of course he comes back to massacre everyone. I could kind of accept that. I watched as this looney-tunes guy randomly shot people if they weren’t nice to him, and everyone hid in closets and under beds. And I knew that I was supposed to be sitting on the edge of my bed waiting to see if they were going to kill off anyone really important to the series but I didn’t have it in me.

About 15 minutes into the show, I realized that the reason the show was two hours long was because there were at least a gazillion commercials between each five minutes of actual show. It became a bit surreal watching five minutes of people bleeding profusely interspersed with suggestions for dealing with “regularity.”

I was okay until the writers began throwing everything at the plot that they could think of. Meredith finds out she’s pregnant — someone gets shot — Christina breaks up with Owen — someone shot — Sloane begs Lexie to come back — shot — Bailey desperately tries to stop a guy from bleeding to death — shot. I could barely keep up. But when the only one who can operate on Derek (who has been shot of course) is Christina, and then the shooter holds a gun to her head while she’s operating and then shoots Owen, who can only be operated on by Meredith, I began to get the giggles. Where were the locusts? The tsunamis? At the very least an earthquake?!

When Meredith operates on Owen while having a miscarriage and Bailey drags the bleeding surgeon on a sheet to the elevator where she thinks she can load him up to get him to an operating room so she can operate on him all by herself, I am laughing so hard I can’t stop.

And when Bailey sees that the elevators aren’t working, because of course the swat team has stopped the elevators because they’re making it too easy for the shooter to get around (what, he won’t use the stairs????) and the poor shnook asks her if he’s dying, she says yes — then I chime in — Oh yeah, big time along with your acting career and this show!

Didn’t anyone check this script for lunacy?

Has anyone checked me lately for insanity for watching two hours of commercials interspersed with idiocy?

The only surprise ending here is that the show is coming back next season.

And knowing me I’ll be back next fall watching. Just call me McNutsy.

Short URL: https://www.thecantoncitizen.com/?p=2519

Posted by Joan Florek Schottenfeld on May 27 2010. Filed under As You Like It, Opinion. Both comments and pings are currently closed.