Lay Your Hands On Me
Original air date: January 10, 2008
Directed by: John Terlesky
Written by: Allan Heinberg
Guest Stars: Glenne Headly (Elizabeth), Debra Monk (Louise O'Malley), Cress Williams (Tucker), Lauren Stamile (Rose) and Carol Locatell (Mai)
Title reference: The episode title refers to songs by the Thompson Twins, Peter Gabriel, Bon Jovi and Beth Hart
Notes: This is the last episode to be written and shot before the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike. The episode was narrated by Dr. Bailey.
[edit] Summary
Derek shows Meredith the building plans for their dream house on the mountains, but she does not share his enthusiasm. Derek notices this and changes the topic to the breakfast Meredith is attempting to cook. To his surprise, Meredith reveals that the reason she was cooking breakfast was to do something nice for her half-sister, Lexie. Meanwhile, Lexie wakes up on the sofa downstairs and heads off to eat breakfast. She bumps into Alex in the hallway and confronts him about his girlfriend, Ava. Alex guesses that she returned to her husband, and denies that Ava was his girlfriend. In the kitchen, Lexie learns that Meredith specially prepared breakfast for her, and proceeds to eat the avocado omelette Meredith cooked. Later, George finds her rummaging through the medical cart for epinephrine because of her allergic reaction to the eggs and her inability to decline Meredith’s kind gesture.
Derek walks up to Rose, and tells her that he is with Meredith and has to see it through. Rose replies saying that it is okay, as they only shared a kiss. Derek tries to avoid her, but she tells him not to because they can still be professional about it, and are still friends. However, George overhears their entire conversation.
Derek tries to bring up the issue of his dream house with Meredith, but realizes Meredith is still not ready to further progress their relationship, despite what she says. Meredith tells George about how scared she is that Derek wants a future with her, but he tells her not to worry because all that happened between Derek and Rose was just a kiss. Meredith confronts Derek about Rose, saying that she cannot trust him. He replies saying that she cannot trust anyone, and keeps finding reasons not to trust him. They break up.
Bailey and her husband’s relationship is still strained, after Bailey stood him up for their lunch talk the previous day. Tucker decides to initiate a conversation about their family just as she is about to leave for work, but Bailey brushes him off and leaves mid-conversation.
Meanwhile, Cristina tries to get Izzie to back off from Erica’s cardio-thoracic patient, Elizabeth Archer. However, Izzie tells a disbelieving Cristina that she is no longer interested in cardio-thoracic surgeries. Erica, intent on not picking Cristina, asks Alex to be on Elizabeth’s case. Alex happily accepts as Cristina protests, but is silenced when Erica points out that Cristina did not realize that Elizabeth has disappeared from her room.
Bailey and Cristina find Elizabeth putting her hands over a coding patient’s chest, and stabilizes his ventricular tachycardia. She tells the surprised doctors that she is an holistic healer, before collapsing into Cristina’s arms. Erica warns Elizabeth that her coronary artery dissection could cause her to go into cardiac arrest at any time, and urges her to consent to surgery. Elizabeth wants someone to explain to her in detail what the surgery entails, and refuses to undergo surgery until she exhausts all other non-surgical options.
Alex returns to talk Elizabeth through her surgery, and meets her own team of healers. He is completely sceptical, and tries unsuccessfully to get her to agree to the surgery. Elizabeth tells him that he has a darkness in his throat chakra where his voice should be, because he was hurt so badly in the past that he does not talk about it. He sometimes hurts people because he wants to spread the hurt around. She reveals that Alex was a sweet boy with a beautiful heart, but he is not a good man. Elizabeth tries to ask about his past, but he avoids her question.
Bailey ignores her husband’s multiple calls to her, and goes to attend to a page. She goes to the ER only to find out that the page was from her husband, because their baby, Tuck, was crushed by a falling bookcase. Bailey and her husband bicker as she tries to examine baby Tuck with the other doctors.
Mrs. O’Malley makes a surprise visit to the hospital, and shows a stunned Callie all the baby outfits she knitted for them. Furious, Callie confronts George about not telling his mother about their divorce. But before George can track down his mother, Mrs. O’Malley bumps into Izzie, who unwittingly tells her everything that happened since her last visit. Mrs. O’Malley is appalled to hear Izzie telling her about the breakdown of George’s marriage due to their drunken one-night stand and subsequent affair, as well as George failing his intern exams.
Now extremely upset, Mrs. O’Malley talks to George about what she just learned from Izzie. She tells him that they are Catholic, and do not believe in adultery and divorce because marriage is for life. She insists that he goes to confession and marriage counselling with Callie. However, before she can make him agree, he leaves after getting paged about Bailey’s baby.
Tuck has severe internal injuries with ruptured and displaced organs, making his surgery extremely risky. Bailey barges into the OR to see her baby, but Erica halts the surgery and demands that she leaves. Bailey says that she just wants to hold her son's hand; Cristina volunteers to do so, and Bailey leaves reluctantly. Derek finds a hysterical Bailey trying to recall the chain of events that led to her son’s accident. He pulls her in for a hug and consoles her.
Back in the OR, Erica offers to let Cristina do the final cut, but she declines and continues to hold Tuck’s hand. His surgery is successful, but Tuck is still unable to breathe on his own. Bailey and her husband watch over their baby in the ICU. She reaches out to hold her husband’s hand, but he pulls away.
Alex asks Izzie for updates on Bailey’s baby, as she confesses how she is at a loss of how to help, unlike Cristina, who would always know what to do. Izzie is envious that Cristina knows what she wants and has unwavering faith in her skill.
Bailey decides to bring Elizabeth in to help her son. She gets Bailey to hold hands with her husband and focus on their love for Tuck, because the energy in the room is not healing.
Callie sees Mrs. O’Malley again, and the two talk about God and marriage. Callie tells her that she loved being an O’Malley. At night, George finds his mother knitting for baby Tuck. George is sorry for disappointing his mother, but she tells him that he disappointed himself. She asks whether he is going for counselling, but he declines saying it would just hurt everyone more. She then asks him to move back home, and he refuses her offer because he feels that it is time he starts taking care of himself.
Meanwhile, Tucker panics when baby Tuck starts to choke, but Bailey is overjoyed because it means Tuck is starting to breathe on his own. Alex then brings Izzie to Elizabeth’s room, and gets her to talk Elizabeth through the surgery because she an optimist, unlike him. He leaves her to do her explanation, but not before telling her that “Yang’s got nothing on you”.
Erica goes up to Mark and tells him that he is too pretty, and if they were not working together, they would probably be together. Unfortunately for Mark, they are working together, and Erica tells him that she has to separate her personal and professional life in order to do her job. She heads out to Joe’s bar with Callie, and brushes off Mark’s request to join them.
Derek asks Rose out to dinner, while Meredith goes to look at baby Tuck. She asks Bailey about her husband, and learns that he would be moving out into a hotel.