The Lion Sleeps Tonight

"We have a phrase in the operating rooms: don't pet the lion. It means, no matter how nice the tumor looks, how small it is, how perfect its margins may be, it's still a tumor. It's still dangerous, and it can bite. We've all heard the warnings and we've ignored them. We push our luck, we roll the dice, we play with fire. It's human nature, when we're told not to touch something, we usually do even if we know better. Maybe because deep down we're just asking for trouble."

- Meredith Grey

 is the eighteenth episode of the eighth season and the 166th overall episode of Grey's Anatomy.

Short Summary
A lion breaks loose in Seattle, leaving a couple's lives and relationship at risk; Lexie overhears Mark's discussion about moving in with Julia; Teddy begins to take steps towards coming to terms with Henry's death; Callie grills Arizona on her past lovers; and Alex requests to be taken off Morgan's preemie case when she becomes too dependent on him. Meanwhile, Meredith tries to be a support for Cristina as the tension between her and Owen hits a boiling point.

Full Summary
Meredith is convincing Derek she's excited about the house -- and they see a wild lion roaming the streets of Seattle while they're on their way into work.

It's been a week since Owen and Cristina talked. Teddy is in a support group for widows, and she's laughing while another widow tells a story about how her husband died of congestive heart failure.

Cristina doesn't really believe Meredith's story about the lion. Owen isn't paying much attention to her story, either. Meredith says Animal Control shot it with one dart.

Derek can't convince Sloan to pay much attention to the lion story, either. Sloan is considering asking Julia to move in with him. Lexie is in the back of the elevator and overhears this.

Webber and Avery wait for the ambulance to bring in patients from a lion mauling. Avery mocks Webber for trying to get in on it rather than doing a gall bladder operation. A 32-year-old man who was mauled by the lion comes in, and he's worried his girlfriend was eaten by it.

A woman in, also badly injured by the lion, asking about Kirby. Bailey tells her the man is fine, but the injured woman corrects Bailey, saying that Paul is the boyfriend -- Kirby is her lion.

Teddy tells Arizona and Callie about her bad grief group experience. A nurse comes to say goodbye to them, and she asks whether it's OK for her to give Arizona a hug. She holds the hug for a long time.

Alex is taking care of Morgan's baby, Tommy, and he sneaks away to tell Arizona he needs to get off the case because Morgan is "into" him. Arizona lets him off her service.

Bailey explains to Owen and Meredith about the woman keeping the lion as a pet. She wants to save the woman's life, just so she can tell her she's crazy.

Owen asks Meredith to tell Cristina how sorry he is and that "it was just sex" and he'd take it back if he could. Meredith gets upset and tells Owen she wants to pretend their conversation never happened.

Callie tells Sloan about the nurse, Colleen, and the lingering hug and realizes that she and Arizona must have had a thing. She's also wondering if Arizona has had other flings with other nurses.

Cristina and Teddy start working on a stem-cell experiment to grow new hearts. Alex walks in and announces that he's on Teddy's service, and they both get paged to the E.R., leaving Cristina alone.

Derek walks Lexie through an aneurysm clipping procedure. She thinks Derek is worried about her doing it, but he says she has to learn. She asks Derek if he's going to suggest to Mark that he move in with Julia, and after she awkwardly stammers for a bit, she and Derek both agree they "don't talk about stuff like this."

April is treating Morgan's baby, and Morgan wants Alex to be paged. April tells a nurse to page Arizona.

Teddy and Alex are treating an elderly man and Alex gets repeated pages. The man and his wife reveal that what might have triggered the heart pain was the excitement over having seen the lion.

Callie asks Arizona about whether she and Colleen were "a thing," and Arizona says they were "a little bit of a thing a very long time ago." Callie asks if there were other exes in the hospital. Arizona doesn't want to have the conversation. Callie asks for "a number" and Arizona says, "1 or 2."

Bailey operates on the injured woman and talks about how she should have gotten a dog instead of a lion as a pet. Owen and Meredith are awkwardly quiet. Bailey asks if she's offended anyone without realizing it, and she asks Owen if he has any exotic pets.

"Cristina doesn't believe in pets," he says.

Meredith quickly shoots back, "Cristina doesn't believe in a lot of things."

Alex and Teddy tell the wife of the elderly man that he had another heart attack during his surgery. He apologizes to his wife for messing up their Alaskan cruise. They were going to celebrate 50 years together.

Derek tries to prep Lexie for surgery but she's still distracted by the Sloan situation. Derek tells her he needs his resident to focus.

Cristina works in the lab while Alex and Avery come in for lunch. Alex talks about how Morgan won't stop paging him. Lexie shows up and says she understands the woman keeping a lion as a pet. Cristina asks them to leave.

Arizona and April tell Morgan about her baby's condition, but she's focused on where Alex has gone. Arizona opens up the possibility of allowing natural death for her child. Arizona tells her she should consider what kind of life he'll live. Alex comes around and sees Morgan crying. She tells him about Arizona's comments and he walks away.

Sloan, Callie, Avery, and Webber are operating on the man who was mauled by the lion and talking about Arizona's "1 or 2" exes. Webber clears his throat and reminds Callie that when patients say they have "1 or 2" drinks each week, they round that number up because they're likely having many more. Just then, Avery finds a lion tooth and pulls it out of the man's body. Webber wants a nurse to keep it safe.

The elderly man's wife talks with Teddy in the waiting room and asks Teddy to do whatever she can to save her husband. Teddy assures her she's "very good" at her job.

Derek and Lexie operate on their patient and Derek takes over. Lexie steps aside. Derek then says he's not going to tell Sloan what to do. He says Sloan might change his mind to move in with Julia if he thinks there's still a chance with Lexie. But he tells Lexie to make sure she really wants to be with him, not that she just wants him because he's with someone else.

Alex and Teddy are in surgery when a nurse reads Alex a string of texts from Morgan. Teddy tells Alex he's doing the right thing by ignoring her. Alex asks the nurse to turn his pager off.

Hunt tracks down Meredith and she again gets upset with him. She tells him that Cristina didn't want her to know about Hunt's affair, and now she does.

Teddy gets through a particularly tricky part of the surgery on her patient, and Alex is impressed she did it.

Sloan warns Arizona that Callie is on a mission to learn more about Arizona's exes. Callie asks Arizona for names. Arizona points out a few women in the cafeteria, and then lists a few more names.

The man who was mauled by the lion talks about how he was trying to live up to the man he hoped he could be by facing his girlfriend's lion. Webber tells the man he's a hero for jumping in front of the lion when its real target was the man's girlfriend.

Teddy and Alex are on their way to tell the elderly woman that her husband is OK when Morgan stops Alex. Morgan wants to know what Alex thinks. He gives her his medical opinion, but she doesn't want that. He gets harsh with her, telling her she has to deal with her own situation without involving him.

Meredith finds Cristina in the lab and Cristina explains the process of making new hearts from scratch.

Teddy finds the elderly woman in the waiting room unconscious.

Alex sees Morgan sitting next to her baby through a window. Arizona tells Alex they're doing the surgery but Morgan doesn't want Alex involved. Arizona says Tommy is going need "a really tough mom," and if hating Alex helps make her tough that's all right.

Paul, the lion victim, gets moved in next to his girlfriend Naomi and she blames him for the fact that her lion is now gone.

Sloan finds Callie looking at a board of doctors in dermatology, saying she's trying to figure out how many other people Arizona's likely hooked up with. Sloan reminds Callie that Arizona wakes up every morning and sees Sloan holding the baby that he and Callie made together. Callie realizes that "can't be easy" for Arizona, and Sloan insists it must be killing Arizona to know that Callie was "with the golden boy of this hospital."

Teddy's patient thanks her for the successful surgery, and that he has the heart of a 50-year-old. He asks for his wife, and Teddy tells him that she went to find his wife in the waiting room and she was unconscious. She was pronounced dead just minutes earlier. He cries and holds Teddy's hand.

Bailey gives Owen a little pep talk, telling him that while he did a terrible thing, he's not a terrible person.

Teddy cries as she looks at herself in the mirror and declares, "I am a widow" repeatedly.

Lexie and Sloan end up in the same elevator that night. They nearly walk together to the parking lot, but Lexie decides to stay late to do more work.

Webber shows Avery his massive collection of the items that have been removed from patients. He's stored them all in jars. He tells Avery they sometimes get geniuses on their surgical tables and they sometimes get idiots.

"I, for one, am partial to the idiots," Webber says as he drops the lion's tooth into a new jar. "You don't get a lion's tooth from a genius."

Callie gets home that night and proceeds to use her "fight" with Arizona as a primer for sex.

Meredith gets home and tells Derek that if he ever cheats on her, she'll kill him. She makes him promise he'll never cheat on her, and he does. He asks if she wants to talk about it and she says no.

Owen gets home and he and Cristina sit in silence at their dinner table. Suddenly, she splashes her bowl of cereal in his face.

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

 * Elizabeth Franz as Emma Carroll
 * Rance Howard as Martin Carroll
 * Amanda Fuller as Dr. Morgan Peterson
 * Danny Strong as Paul

Co-Starring

 * Kiersten Lyons as Naomi
 * Karole Foreman as Olivia
 * Stacy Marnhisel as Gretchen
 * Nicole Cummins as Paramedic Nicole
 * Michael Lesly as Paramedic #2
 * Kate Mines as Nurse Gloria
 * Ina Barron as Nurse Colleen
 * Jela K. Moore as Zola

Notes and Trivia

 * This episode's title originated from the song The Lion Sleeps Tonight, originally sung by The Tokens.
 * This episode scored 8.19 million viewers.

Quotes

 * Miranda: She has a lion for a pet is what happened. It tried to eat her and then it got away and probably tried to eat other people because it is a lion. Who has a lion living in their house? I'll tell you who has a lion living in their house, a crazy person does. Now because she's crazy doesn't mean she doesn't deserve excellent care. In fact, we're going to save that crazy lady's life, just so I can tell her she's crazy. Got it?


 * Meredith: Told ya' I saw a lion.