P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)

"One of the hardest lessons as a doctor is learning to prioritize. We're trained to do all we can to save life and limb. But if cutting of a limb means saving a life, we learn to do it without hesitation. It's not an easy lesson to learn, and it always comes down to one question. What are the stakes? What do we stand to gain or lose? At the end of the day, we're just gamblers trying not to bet the farm. Surgery is a high-stakes game. And no matter how high it stakes sooner or later you just gonna have to go with your gut. And maybe, just maybe, that will take you right where you were meant to be in the first place."

- Meredith Grey

 is the fourteenth episode of the seventh season and the 140th overall episode of Grey's Anatomy.

Short Summary
Thatcher Grey, Meredith and Lexie's father, returns to Seattle Grace with stomach pains and a new, twenty-something tattooed girlfriend, Danielle. Meanwhile, Alex clashes with the new OB, Dr. Lucy Fields, over a patient and Mark places Jackson on his service in exchange for information on Lexie.

Full Summary
Meredith is working with patients in the Alzheimer's trial, asking them to repeat three words she'd asked them to remember a few minutes earlier. The chief suddenly offers Meredith a spot in a diabetes clinical trial, the basis for which he found in Ellis Grey's journal. He wants Meredith to help finish her mother's work in finding a way to treat the disease with islet cell transplants rather than medication. He calls it Meredith's "birth right," and Derek encourages her to look over the notes and consider it.

Arizona wants Callie to drink a kale and apple juice smoothie instead of a cup of coffee. Arizona turns to Sloan, telling him the benefits of the smoothie and the potential risk of coffee, and he joins Arizona's side. Callie drinks the goo.

Cristina tells Meredith she's facing "Sophie's choice," with the two trials. Bailey comes into the locker room and tells Meredith and Lexie that Thatcher, their father, is in the hospital with stomach pains. Cristina is bummed that she doesn't have groundbreaking clinical trials like Meredith does.

Alex meets Callie's O.B., Dr. Lucy Fields, but thinks she's a nurse. He asks her to pass him a chart on "a turnip" in the nursery. She's upset by this and he tells her he has a baby that needs a heart transplant, and the transplant coordinator suggested, "the turnip," she says, sarcastically. She then tells him she delivered the baby, says she'll be in touch with the transplant coordinator and then tells Alex to leave.

Hunt, Callie and April treat a guy who was slammed into a wall after building a human slingshot and trying to launch himself over a house. It was a stunt he and his friends wanted to put online. He's dislocated both hips.

Thatcher tells Lexie that he's met someone at AA. Before he can fully explain, a young blonde walks in and plants a kiss on him. Lexie is stunned.

Bailey walks in with some questions and Thatcher is worried he's rejecting Meredith's liver. Danni, Thatcher's girlfriend, explains a "pain incident" that happened recently. Lexie says she can handle it, but when Danni starts explaining that they were "being intimate" and she was on top, Lexie leaves the room.

Avery joins Sloan for some work in plastics and is offended when Sloan says Avery has the good looks to be in plastics.

Callie is getting annoyed with April's constant perkiness and asks her to talk differently. She can't explain what she means, but asks April to get her a sugary snack and goes back and forth about whether to get coffee until she reluctantly decides not to have coffee.

Lexie asks the lab tech for her dad's results, but he refuses to give them up. Sloan offers to help and Lexie blows him off.

Alex notices Dr. Fields, Teddy, Arizona and Cristina talking to the parents so he walks in and tries to join. Afterward, he asks Arizona why he wasn't brought in earlier and Fields tells him he's off the case because of the "turnip" comment.

In surgery, Sloan asks Avery how Lexie is doing. Avery says she cries sometimes, and Sloan sends Avery off to find out what's wrong with Lexie in exchange for possibly taking the lead on a nose job.

Arizona catches Callie pouring a cup of coffee and guilt trips her into putting it down. Teddy tells Arizona she's embraced the whole mother's guilt thing, and Arizona says she's going to have a voice in this process.

Alex gets upset when Cristina talks about working on the heart transplant and says he's not just going to sit and take it after working on the baby for a month. Lexie tells Meredith about the tattooed girlfriend. She convinces Meredith to go see him.

Alex again goes to see the baby, but Arizona tells him he's no longer on the case.

Avery gives Sloan the scoop on Thatcher's dad, which might be what's bother her. Sloan dangles some pro-bono clef palette work in front of Avery and convinces him to keep trying to get information. He tells her Lexie is a stress eater and will start to spill everything if offered candy.

Meredith and Lexie watch their dad making out with Danni when he suddenly screams in pain. Lexie comes in to help and Danni tries to stay close to Thatcher until Lexie finally turns and yells at her to "back the hell up!"

Danni pieces together that Thatcher's pains seem to come when he pees, and she gets worried Thatcher might have cancer when Meredith suggests maybe the problem is his prostate. Lexie yells at her again, saying that Danni's overreacting and jumping to conclusions don't help Thatcher. Danni says she's scared, and Lexie reminds her that she and Meredith are his family.

"I'm his family, too," Danni says.

"You're not his family, you're his mid-life crisis!" Lexie yells before leaving the room.

Meredith, keeping a level head, explains to Danni that cancer is just one of many things it could be and they'll test him out. Danni asks Meredith if she's the daughter who gave him the liver.

"I am," Meredith says, and Danni thanks her. Meredith says nothing else and leaves.

Randy, the kid whose hips are dislocated, has a friend filming all of Randy's treatment. He wants to have his friend record the process of popping his hips back into place. Callie tells Randy he's underestimating how much it's going to hurt. Callie resists, but Hunt says they should do it. Callie plays along and as they brace to do the procedure, Randy screams and tells his friend to turn the camera off. Callie tells Hunt it cheered her up.

Alex and Fields watch the heart transplant from the gallery. He explains that he's sorry for what he said, but feels he deserved to be in the surgery. Fields then goes into a dramatic explanation of what she had to tell her patient, the mother of the baby that didn't make it, to keep pushing because she'd see her little baby when it was over. She tells Alex it makes her not care what he thinks he deserves.

Lexie worried that Thatcher will leave and forget about her, but Meredith tells her to let him be happy. Meredith tells Lexie to grow up.

In the heart transplant surgery, something goes wrong and Teddy has to fix it in 30 minutes or less. Alex watches and gets worried.

Minutes later, Alex and Fields both pump their fists in celebration when Teddy fixes the problem.

Meredith goes to the chief and tells him the diabetes research is an amazing offer. The chief tells Meredith that Ellis owes this to her because this gift could change the course of her career. He then tells Meredith the study might change the way she thinks about Ellis.

Callie works to pop Randy's hips back into place while Hunt talks about how people shouldn't do stupid things. She makes it about her by saying Randy shouldn't be told what he and can can't do with his body. She tells Hunt and April about the coffee thing and they didn't realize she was pregnant.

Avery brings Lexie candy and she starts to spill about how everyone around her is making big decisions that impact her life and she has no say in them. She then says Mark is having a baby and leaving her behind "again." She gets emotional when she says they're done, but she misses him.

Fields watches Alex standing over the heart transplant baby and smiling with the baby's parents. Arizona comes up and says she can teach Alex not to be an ass, but she doesn't have to teach him to care.

Avery comes and tells Sloan he wasn't able to get any information with the peanut butter cups. Sloan tells him to scrub in anyway. Avery, surprised, accepts the invitation.

Meredith is working with another Alzheimer's patient who cries when she can't remember the third word she was asked to remember. The woman then says she doesn't know why they are there. She asks to go home.

Bailey gives Thatcher some instruction for how to care for Thatcher and Lexie walks in. She stands next to Danni and asks her to just make sure Thatcher calls her. Danni says, "Yes, of course." Lexie thanks her. Bailey leaves and Danni tells her that they're both working on sobriety and they support each other.

Randy's friend films Randy's post-op check in when Hunt walks in and explains everything that happened to him, the various dislocations and fractures he suffered. Randy's friend laughs and asks if it's a record or the worst thing Hunt has ever seen. Hunt explains that he saw much worse from someone who needed 11 surgeries to reconstruct his abdomen, which had a massive hole in it. Hunt then tells Randy that the guy didn't survive, but that Randy's situation is worse because the man Hunt was talking about jumped on a grenade to save six other soldiers; "he didn't launch himself into a brick wall so that the Internet could laugh at him."

Randy tells his friend to turn the camera off.

The chief is poring over Ellis' notes when Meredith comes into his office. He tells her that Ellis wrote everything down. She hands him back Ellis' notes, and says she realizes her mother must have been so scared of forgetting everything and that was why she wrote everything down. She gives the chief her blessing to finish Ellis' work, but that she wants to focus on curing "her disease," Alzheimer's.

Avery invites Lexie out for a drink, but she says she just needs to go home and sleep. She says, "Maybe tomorrow" as she leaves, and Avery smiles after she leaves.

Alex and Fields are in the elevator together, not speaking. Alex finally tells her he's sorry about her patient. She says, "Thanks, I'm happy for yours." As they walk out, he starts to ask if she wants "to get a --," but she cuts him off and says no.

Callie gets home holding a cup of coffee, and she says the voting system is going to have to change. She says the baby gets a vote, and she get another "vagina vote" because she'll be pushing the baby through a small hole in her body.

Meredith gets home and tells Derek she chose him. He's glad and says her notes from the trial are showing that the trial is "not not working."

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

 * Jeff Perry as Thatcher Grey
 * Rachael Taylor as Dr. Lucy Fields
 * Alexa Havins as Danielle

Co-Starring

 * Tracey A. Leigh as Sarah Cooke
 * Desean Terry as Colin Cooke
 * Shelli Boone as Paula Glass
 * Patricia Forte as Mrs. Glass
 * Michael Esparza as Marcus
 * Noah Schuffman as Randy Shouse
 * John O'Brien as Lab Tech
 * Ken Takemoto as Trial Patient #1
 * Karen Tarleton as Trial Patient #2
 * Darius Dudley as Trial Patient #3
 * Roberta Bassin as Trial Patient #4
 * Duane Shepard Sr. as Trial Patient #5
 * Catherine Grace as Trial Patient #6
 * Cici Lau as Trial Partner #1
 * Aixa Clemente as Trial Partner #3
 * Steven Anders as Trial Partner #4
 * Edythe Davis as Trial Partner #5

Notes and Trivia
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 * This episode's title originated from the song P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing), originally sung by Michael Jackson.
 * This episode scored 10.47 million viewers.

Quotes

 * Callie: Does anyone want to argue with my extra special vagina vote?
 * Mark: No, thank you.
 * Arizona: No.
 * Callie: Good. We also vote that Mark gives me foot rub.
 * Mark: I'll go get the lotion.


 * Cristina: Meredith has two ground-breaking medical projects and I don't have any.
 * Owen: You have a husband that loves you.
 * Cristina: So does she.
 * Owen: Well, then I guess you're screwed.