Dark Was the Night

"I had a terrible day, we say it all the time. A fight with the boss, the stomach flu, traffic. That's what we describe as terrible, when nothing terrible is happening. These are the things we beg for, a root canal, an IRS audit, coffee spilled on our clothes. When the really terrible things happen, We start begging a god we don't believe in to bring back the little horrors and take away this. It seems quaint now, doesn't it. The flood in the kitchen, the poison oak, the fight that leaves you shaking with rage.Would it have helped, if we could see what else was coming. Would we have known that those were the best moments of our lives."

- Meredith Grey

Dark Was the Night is the ninth episode of the eighth season and the 157th overall episode of Grey's Anatomy.

Short Summary
Teddy puts her husband's life in the hands of her peers when Henry is sent to the OR for surgery and she's called away on another case; Meredith and Derek receive the long-awaited news about Zola; Callie and Jackson come under fire when their patient experiences post-surgery complications; and Meredith and Alex are involved in a life-threatening situation when they travel to a neighboring hospital to tend to a sick newborn.

Full Summary
Owen is heading to an exam room in the ER, where Henry is coughing up blood into a large dish, by now he's getting a thorough workup by both Owen and Bailey. Teddy wants to help her husband as she is very worried for him.

At the bar, Cristina and Meredith make fun of Alex for being told off by a woman he tried to pick up having forgotten that he'd already slept with her. Meredith gets a call from Janet.

Callie sends a patient home, telling her she'll have to take it easy for a few weeks. Callie would like the woman to stay for another day, but she wants to go home to be with her kid. Callie seems to think the woman is struggling a little more than she's letting on.

Cristina finds Meredith at the hospital. Janet said Derek and Meredith are not getting Zola back. The court date is canceled and Janet said she thought it would be best of Meredith and Derek start thinking about moving on.

Webber checks on Henry. Teddy wants to stay with Henry while they do a CT scan. Webber is OK with it.

Derek is on eBay looking at scalpels from the 1860s. He wants to buy one for Meredith. Cristina tells him Janet called.

Arizona explains to Alex that a small hospital nearby has a newborn baby with serious breathing complications. He has to go get the baby, start treatment in the ambulance and bring it back to Seattle Grace. Arizona asks him to take Meredith with him, but Meredith needs to talk to Derek.

A 10-year-old boy with a dog bite to the face comes into the E.R. Meanwhile, Avery sees the mother leaving the hospital—he helped Callie treat her—and wishes her well. As she's being wheeled out, though, she suffers some kind of pain and nearly falls out of the wheelchair.

Meredith and Derek talk briefly as she leaves the hospital. Derek gives her a supportive hug, but Meredith is inconsolable. She tells Derek she does not want another baby.

Hunt starts treating the woman and wants Callie to get there immediately.

Teddy and Henry have a sweet chat about how she'll support him going to medical school if he wants to go. Teddy gets a page to go to the E.R. After she's gone, Webber looks at Henry's scan and doesn't like what he sees.

Callie shows up and Hunt wants to know what's wrong with her patient. They're going to have to crack her chest open.

In the ambulance, Alex tries to talk to Meredith about how the court must have made some kind of mistake, but she just wants him to stop talking. She says everyone wants to say it'll be better, but it won't.

Callie is left all alone after her patient is whisked away by Hunt and Teddy. In the elevator, Webber shows Teddy the scan from Henry's CT and it shows a tumor in his lung. Webber wants to take out the lung, remove the tumor, then put the lung back in. Teddy wants him to use a laser, but Webber hasn't done that before. Teddy says they should get another surgeon.

Teddy thinks Cristina should do the surgery on Henry. She thinks they shouldn't even tell Cristina who the patient is, just give her a verbal history and hand her the tools.

Alex and Meredith get to the small hospital to start treating the newborn and find that the hospital is woefully underprepared for a neonatal case.

Hunt gives Lexie directions on how to prep Henry for surgery without telling Cristina who the patient is. Lexie is nervous, but glad that Webber will be in the room.

Sloan talks to Derek about how Meredith doesn't want another baby. He says that if things don't work out, Derek and Meredith can work into the multi-parent rotation Sophie has going on.

Alex calls Arizona and reports that the newborn has pneumonia. She walks him through what to do.

Henry tells Lexie about how he wants to go to med school and that Teddy wasn't too happy with the idea. After a little conversation about how Lexie seems to be handling her love life as a doctor well (this ends awkwardly when she tells Henry that she's no longer with Avery or Sloan), Henry asks who'll be doing his surgery. Lexie says she doesn't know. Meanwhile, Hunt tells Crisina that Teddy wants her to handle this surgery, and Cristina is a little annoyed because she thinks Teddy is just dumping off a case she doesn't want to do herself.

Cristina sees Derek in the hallway and tells him that Meredith "always comes back."

While operating on Callie's former patient, April gets her finger caught on something inside the woman's chest and finds a hole in her glove. Teddy digs around and finds something.

Cristina comes into Henry's O.R. and is not told his name. Lexie gives her the verbal history, just as planned, and Webber makes some general, pre-surgery chit-chat. Cristina wants to time herself on this one, thinking the last one took her too long.

Alex and Meredith are leaving with the new baby and her mother wants to come with them. Meredith sees her doctor try to talk her out of making the trip. She steps forward and assures the mother that she'll take good care of the baby.

Callie comes into her patient's O.R. and Teddy shows her a metal screw that was inside her patient's chest cavity, stabbing her heart. Callie is speechless.

In the ambulance, Alex tells Meredith he thinks it's his fault that she and Derek aren't getting Zola back. The ambulance comes to a sudden stop.

Back at the hospital, Callie pulls Avery out of surgery and tells him that one of the screws he used to stabilize her vertebrae during their surgery on Laura Lewis is stabbing her in the heart and she's half-dead. "And we're about to go tell her husband," Callie says.

Something goes wrong with Cristina's operation on Henry. Her vision is being obscured by something while probing with the laser. Hunt, who's been watching from the gallery, looks worried.

The ambulance driver says the rig has broken down. He's putting cones out and they're in the middle of a huge storm, complete with lightning. The driver says he's called a backup ambulance but it could take a while to arrive. He tells Alex and Meredith to get out of the rig because it's full of oxygen will "go up like a Roman candle" if it gets hit by lightning.

Cristina has fixed the situation with Henry. She casually tells Hunt that she has it under control and that she's timing herself and he's wasting her time. He tells her to focus on the patient on the table and she says she could if he'd leave her alone. Webber assures him they've got it under control. Hunt leaves.

Callie and Avery tell their patient's husband about the screw and that Teddy is trying to repair his wife's heart.

Cristina runs into more trouble with Henry and they now have to abandon the laser and cut him open.

Callie tells Avery to go through every piece of film on the surgery to see what went wrong, but he gets a page about his dog bite patient and says he has to leave. Callie is frustrated, but she also blames herself. She admits to Bailey that she was reading a magazine while Avery was inserting the screws on their patient.

After cutting Henry open, Cristina feels around and discovers that Henry's tumor has eroded through the pulmonary artery. Webber confirms this and starts doing more work. Cristina isn't sure what to do next.

Alex calls and explains the situation with the ambulance, and Derek wants a helicopter sent out.

Webber is pumping Henry's chest, but Cristina—who still doesn't know who the patient is—says it's been 20 minutes and the heart isn't coming back. Webber stops pumping, Lexie's eyes fill with tears and she leaves. Cristina calls the time of death, then tries to assure Webber they did everything they could. She asks Webber to make a note in the file because she doesn't want to "take the heat" for a bad outcome in her fifth year. Cristina tells Hunt through the glass window that they were done before they started and the tumor wasn't going to make it out. Hunt says nothing and waves her over. We don't hear Owen telling Cristina, but we see her hysterical reaction when she learns the patient was Henry. She cries in Owen's arms.

Alex and Meredith are arguing over which of them should get out of the ambulance to safety when the whole thing shakes and they're both sent flying and Meredith takes a hard hit on the head.

Hunt goes to talk to Teddy, who starts chatting about how Henry wants to go to med school. Hunt doesn't say anything.

Derek and Arizona hear nothing but a dial tone on the cell phone they'd been using to communicate with Meredith and Avery. Sloan asks Avery to step in on the surgery for Derek. The "fancy part" is done and Derek can talk him through the rest.

Webber tells Hunt that he has to wait to tell Teddy what happened with Henry because she's in the middle of an extremely complicated surgery. Hunt thinks Teddy will never forgive him when she finds out he waited an hour to tell her the truth about Henry. Webber tells him that her husband just died in their O.R. "She'll never forgive any of us," he says.

Hunt goes back to talk to Teddy again, and she again starts talking casually about Henry and his plans for med school. Hunt says the surgery is all done and Teddy says that Cristina's penchant for leaving the human emotions out of surgery can be a good thing.

Back in the ambulance, Alex and Meredith are both generally fine. Meredith has a cut on her forehead, but is otherwise OK. They decide to take the baby out of the ambulance, wrap her up and open the door. Outside, they see an overturned car that's gone up in flames and there are three bodies on the road.

Main Cast

 * Ellen Pompeo as Dr. Meredith Grey
 * Sandra Oh as Dr. Cristina Yang
 * Justin Chambers as Dr. Alex Karev
 * Chandra Wilson as Dr. Miranda Bailey
 * James Pickens, Jr. as Dr. Richard Webber
 * Sara Ramírez as Dr. Callie Torres
 * Eric Dane as Dr. Mark Sloan
 * Chyler Leigh as Dr. Lexie Grey
 * Kevin McKidd as Dr. Owen Hunt
 * Jessica Capshaw as Dr. Arizona Robbins
 * Kim Raver as Dr. Teddy Altman
 * Sarah Drew as Dr. April Kepner
 * Jesse Williams as Dr. Jackson Avery
 * Patrick Dempsey as Dr. Derek Shepherd

Guest Stars

 * Scott Foley as Henry Burton
 * Dylan Bruno as Griffith Lewis
 * Scott Klace as Dr. Jordan Wagner

Co-Starring

 * Amber Bela Muse as Laura Lewis
 * Justin Benson as Drew Lewis
 * Caroline Macey as Dana
 * Frank Maharajh as Paramedic Driver
 * Nicole Cummins as Paramedic
 * Gordon James as ER Nurse
 * Catheryn Brockett as Bentley Nurse
 * Carissa Kosta as OR Nurse
 * Dan Conroy as Robert
 * Evelyn Reese as Grandma

Notes and Trivia
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 * This episode's title originated from the song Dark Was the Night, originally sung by Blind Willie Johnson.
 * This episode scored 11.29 million viewers.
 * At the end when Meredith is talking about how quaint the flood in the kitchen, the poision oak and the fight that leaves you shaking with rage are all things that have actually been mentioned or happened on the show. Bailey's kitchen flooded, Addison got poision oak, and Derek's fights leave him enraged.

Quotes

 * Owen: If she finds out I waited, she'll never forgive me.
 * Richard: Her husband just died on our table. She's never going to forgive any of us.


 * Meredith: Zola was our baby and she's gone. And I don't want another baby.