All By Myself

"My mother called it the greatest and most terrifying moment in her life, standing at the head of the surgical table knowing that the patient’s life depends on you and you alone. It's what we all dream about because the first person that gets to fly solo in the OR, kind of a badass. We enter the world alone and we leave it alone. And everything that happens in between, we owe it to our self to find a little company. We need help. We need support. Otherwise we’re in it by our self. Strangers, cut off from each other and we forget just how connect we all are. So instead we choose love. We choose life and for a moment we feel just a little bit less alone."

- Meredith Grey

All By Myself is the tenth episode of the fifth season and the 88th overall episode of Grey's Anatomy.

Short Summary
After a long period of waiting, the solo-surgery winner is finally chosen, Cristina. But as punishment for recent events, she is not allowed to perform it and must choose one of her fellow residents to replace her instead. To make matters worse, the Chief is demanding she continue to woo Dr. Dixon. Mark and Bailey attempt to reconstruct a larynx while Lexie and Mark flirt under Bailey's radar and the ER has two teenage sisters involved in a car crash with devastating consequences for one of them thumb|300px|right

Full Summary
In a meeting involving all the attendings, the interns are trying to figure out who the Chief is talking about, with a number of them running into the resident's lounge shouting random names. Cristina is not amused by this, and in light of recent events, knows she's out of the running. Bailey steps in and, as usual, calls the residents foolish and tells them to go about their day and do what they do, just like when she won her solo surgery, until she is interrupted by Lexie telling them the choice has been made.

The Chief informs the residents that Dr. Yang was indeed the winner of the solo surgery, and for the first time he can remember, the only resident who had every attending vote in her favor. However, as she feared, she is not eligible for the surgery and must choose one of her residents to conduct it instead, and to the surprise of the residents, it's not an appendectomy, it is a below the knee amputation. Yang must post her decision by 4pm and to make her day worse, she must woo Dr. Dixon under the Chief's orders. As they leave, the remaining residents fight and compliment Cristina for the rest of the day.

The interns all talk about how the residents are barely even looking at them in light of recent evens, until Ryan claims sex would help him at a time like this. Spilling over into Lexie's conversation with Mark, Lexie begins flirting with Mark, until he politely tells her to back off and they are interrupted by Bailey, who wants in on Sloan's cutting edge surgery - to make a woman speak again. Unfortunately, the patient is not as receptive and appears a little closed off, with her husband providing all the communication between the two.

Sadie and Meredith are in the pit, and Sadie is trying to get into the mind of Alex, her new resident. Meredith will not share, telling Sadie she needs to learn how not to piss off Alex Karev. The pit has two teenage sisters involved in a car crash, both of which cannot stop shouting at each other, greatly annoying everyone. Sadie tries to talk to Holly, the elder sister, until Alex sees something and thinks she may have a basal skull fracture, rushing her to CT and fast paging Shepherd. Tension is further created when the young sister shouts out that she hopes Holly dies.

Izzie has forgotten about the clinic and the flu season fun, and then forgets again to open up and staff the place. George notices something is wrong with Izzie, and when he asks Alex to look out, Alex tells him not to talk to him about Izzie. Meanwhile, Izzie is having sex with Denny in the on call room.

Cristina eventually finds Dr. Dixon, who is staring at the OR board, wanting to know why there is a blank spot, nobody is assigned to do the amputation, until Cristina explains her situation.

Sadie begins flirting with Callie, but Callie is not sure if she's is flirting.

During the CT, Holly begins leaking brain matter through her nose and is immediately taken into surgery, as her Emma watches on, feeling incredibly guilty. During surgery, Holly dies through a carotid dissection, which neither Shepherd or Dixon could have seen coming. Dr. Dixon explains the situation, then comments that she would be an excellent organ donation candidate, taking most of the staff in the OR aback.

During Sloan's surgery, Mark is feeling fairly tense due to him not flirting with Lexie, and his pioneering surgery. This is not helped by Bailey commenting frequently about the surgery, until Mark, unfairly, snaps at her. Upon realising what he's done, he allows Dr. Bailey to take part in the surgery.

Mrs. Patterson, post surgery refuses to try talking, much to the disappointment of everyone, especially her husband, who is fed up of the lack of communication and her devotion to her blog.

To make matters worse for Cristina, Dr. Dixon talks about organ donation again while she is giving the news to the family, and then becomes incredibly uncomfortable when she is asked to leave. She continues moaning about how people are dying and that emotions should play no part in this - because people are dying and these organs could save them.

Cristina picks up on emotions not playing into this, and makes her choice: Karev; to Meredith's disappointment, to Alex's joy and to the Chief's surprise. Alex goes to Izzie and tells her he wants her in the surgery with him, telling her he loves her.

Meredith comforts Emma, telling her that no matter what happened, Holly loved her, and she loved Holly. She finds Derek staring at the OR board, and he comments about how he's now becoming sick of death. The board shows that Holly is scheduled for an 'organ harvest' to be performed by Dr. Dixon.

Lexie tries to get Mrs. Patterson to talk on her own, just them there, and if it doesn't work, then it doesn't matter, as Lexie is a nobody. Mrs Patterson eventually whispers out a "Hi" to both their excitement and joy, and her husband's.

The Chief meets with Dr. Dixon, who questions the Chief's torture of Cristina, and tells Richard to get the board to make her a better offer if he wants her at Seattle Grace.

Meredith, in her own way, tries to apologise to Cristina over their fight, but Cristina is having none of it and storms out. George tries again with Meredith, telling her he thinks something is wrong with Izzie, but falls on deaf ears, and Alex pages Meredith.

Alex is freaking out about Izzie as she is not there, panicking over opening up to her, for Meredith to give a pep talk, and Izzie eventually turns up, to his relief.

Owen takes Cristina to the boiler room to make her feel better and they kiss.

Lexie turns up to Mark's hotel room, saying "Teach me" as she undresses. Mark tries to resist, but eventually gives in.

Holly is back in the O.R as Dr Dixon concludes the organ harvest by removing her heart.

All second year residents and the Chief watch intently as Alex begins his the first solo surgery of their class.

Main Cast

 * Ellen Pompeo as Dr. Meredith Grey
 * Sandra Oh as Dr. Cristina Yang
 * Katherine Heigl as Dr. Izzie Stevens
 * Justin Chambers as Dr. Alex Karev
 * T.R. Knight as Dr. George O'Malley
 * 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
 * Patrick Dempsey as Dr. Derek Shepherd

Special Guest Star

 * Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Denny Duquette

Guest Stars

 * Kevin McKidd as Dr. Owen Hunt
 * Tzi Ma as Mr. Patterson
 * Kay Panabaker as Emma Anderson
 * Rosalind Chao as Kathleen Patterson
 * Christa B. Allen as Holly Anderson
 * Brandon Scott as Dr. Ryan Spalding
 * Melissa George as Dr. Sadie Harris
 * Mary McDonnell as Dr. Virginia Dixon

Co-Starring

 * Larkin Campbell as Mr. Anderson
 * Perry Smith as Mrs. Anderson
 * Gloria Garayua as Intern Graciella
 * Mark Saul as Intern Steve
 * Zibby Allen as Nurse Zibby
 * Kerry Carney as ND Resident
 * Keeshan Giles as ND Resident #3
 * Vince Cefalu as ND Patient

Notes and Trivia

 * This episode's title originated from the song All By Myself, originally sung by Eric Carmen.
 * This episode scored 15.15 million viewers.
 * While Alex prepped for surgery, the residents took bets on whether he would fail or not, Meredith defended him saying it was one of them down there, the dialogue is extremely similar to when George performs the first surgery of all the interns in A Hard Day's Night.
 * Cristina was unanimously voted for as the recipient of the solo surgery by the attendings.
 * This marks the start of Lexie and Mark's first relationship.

Quotes

 * Alex: Iz, I won!
 * Izzie: Hey, what time is it?
 * Alex: Yang, she picked me for the solo surgery!
 * Izzie: She did? That's amazing.
 * Alex: I love you.
 * Izzie: What?
 * Alex: I love you. I freaking love you. I just got the solo surgery and the first thing I did was look for you, and you weren't there. You're never there anymore. And I've been thinking about it, and I think it might be because you love me too. And you're scared of that. And cause I screwed it up last time, and cause Denny died, and...
 * Izzie: Alex...
 * Alex: Just listen, you had that heart patient and it reminded you of Denny and how bad you felt when you were laying there on that bathroom floor. I get that, I get that you're scared but you're not going to have to feel like that again. Cause I'm not gonna die Iz, and I'm not gonna cheat on you, and I'm not gonna go anywhere. Cause I think you're my best shot at.... I think with you, you make me better. You make me wanna be better, you make me wanna be good. And I think I can. With you, I think I can. So I'm not going anywhere, and you can stop hiding. And if you wanna be scared, that's okay. Just be scared with me. Be scared while you scrub in with me for my first solo surgery. Okay?
 * Izzie: You love me?
 * Alex: Shut up!
 * (They kiss.)
 * Alex: Solo surgery! (leaves)
 * Denny: I'm really starting to not like that guy.