Let the Angels Commit

"To make it - really make it - as a surgeon - it takes major commitment. We have to be willing to pick up that scalpel and make a cut that may or may not do more damage than good. It's all about being committed, because if we're not we have no business picking up that scalpel in the first place. There are times when even the best of us have trouble with commitment, and we may be surprised at the commitments we're willing to let slip out of our grasp. Commitments are complicated. We may surprise ourselves by the commitments we're willing to make. True commitment, takes effort, and sacrifice. Which is why sometimes, we have to learn the hard way, to choose our commitments very carefully."

- Meredith Grey

 is the sixth episode of the third season and the 42nd overall episode of Grey's Anatomy.

Short Summary
Derek's sister Nancy comes to visit. Izzie gets used to life as a surgeon again except with restrictions. Cristina goes to more extreme measures to hide Burke's secret.

Full Summary
Meredith visits Derek at his trailer when he does not call her for a week after she tells him about breaking up with Finn. She finds him only clad in a towel, with a tall beautiful woman on his bed. Shocked, Meredith flees the trailer while Derek tries in vain to chase her. It turns out the woman is his sister, Nancy, who does not seem to approve of him dating Meredith and proceeds to label her a slutty intern.

In the elevator, George decides to channel Cristina for Meredith if she channels Izzie for him, as their respective confidants had been very preoccupied lately. Meredith spills on Derek's infidelity, prompting George while channelling Cristina to say "McDreamy was doing the McNasty with McHottie? That McBastard." They then both decide to swear off relationships.

She later finds out that McHottie is actually Derek's sister. Nancy deliberately picks on Meredith, leading Izzie to call her McBitchy. Derek is unhappy that Nancy gets along very well with Addison and Mark. She later advises him that maybe he needs a little time alone, to sort things out. He subsequently tells Meredith that he does need a little time to himself and she agrees.

Izzie returns to the hospital and is once again assigned to Bailey. Bailey feels that Izzie should start afresh under another resident, but the Chief tells her that the other doctors doubt her judgments and abilities as a doctor and she should prove them wrong through Izzie. Izzie is ordered by Bailey to shadow Meredith, but not before telling her that she should not have any contact with any patients whatsoever and basically, be seen and not heard.

Izzie has difficulties re-integrating into hospital life as she realizes that many things have changed. When tending to a woman who severely burnt her hand a few days before taking her Bar exam, she brings Meredith the wrong gauze, not knowing that hospital protocols have changed. During lunch, she is stood up in the cafeteria, not knowing that the other interns have taken to having lunch in a sedated patient's room. There, she realizes that her friends have changed too. Cristina has become more distant and she is left out of Meredith and George's conversation.

Against Bailey's and Meredith's instructions, she confronts the burn patient, who she suspects deliberately burnt her hand to get out of taking her exam. Her hunch is right and she manages to convince the patient to undergo psychiatric evaluation by relating her own experience with failure. While leaving the hospital, she meets the Chief who tells her that Meredith gave her a good evaluation. He also welcomes her back to the hospital.

Addison and George have a patient with two uteruses, Noelle, and pregnant with twins, one baby in each uterus. They are concerned as one baby is larger than the other. Meanwhile, Alex is sent to run an errand for Mark but is distracted by Addison's unique patient. while talking to them finds out that Greg, Noelle's fiancé, likes to talk sports to the babies.

Addison unwittingly exposes Noelle's infidelity to Greg when she reveals the babies' different sizes are due to different conception dates, causing Greg to leave Noelle. Noelle goes into premature labor and requires an emergency C-section to deliver the larger baby, a boy. George is unable to hold the second baby, a girl, still while Addison delivers the first, putting mother and child in danger. Alex coaxes the baby to stop moving by commentating a boxing match to her. Later, Mark tells him that his future in plastics is over because he did not run Mark's errand for him.

Greg eventually reconciles with Noelle. George becomes motivated by Greg's commitment to Noelle and decides that he wants to commit to Callie. She tells him that she is tired of him chasing her unless he is ready to catch her.

Cristina takes it upon herself to protect Burke's secret by writing all his operations on the OR board. She deliberately schedules his operations in theaters without galleries and prevents other residents from scrubbing in. George and Alex feel that she is abusing her power.

Cristina schedules Burke to do a rare and highly complicated 'humpty dumpty' surgery, where the patient's heart is removed and the cardiac tumor is scraped out before putting it back in. Burke is unhappy that Cristina scheduled the operation that very day before telling him, but she allays his fears of not being able to pull it off. Bailey wants in on the surgery and writes her name on the OR board. Fearful that Bailey might expose Burke, Cristina erases Bailey's name off. This causes a hurt Bailey to think that Burke, like some of the doctors in the hospital, doubt her abilities as well. However, she later chances upon Cristina writing Burke's surgeries on the board and realises that Cristina was the one who erased her name.

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
 * Kate Walsh as Dr. Addison Montgomery
 * Sara Ramírez as Dr. Callie Torres
 * Eric Dane as Dr. Mark Sloan
 * Isaiah Washington as Dr. Preston Burke
 * Patrick Dempsey as Dr. Derek Shepherd

Guest Starring

 * Jillian Bach as Gretchen
 * Edwin Hodge as Greg Stanton
 * Liza Lapira as Noelle Lavatte
 * Francesca P. Roberts as Mrs. Bird
 * Embeth Davidtz as Dr. Nancy Shepherd

Co-Starring

 * Patricia Bethune as Nurse Ginger
 * Moe Irvin as Nurse Tyler Christian
 * Jeremy Rabb as ER Resident
 * Yvette Cruise as Scrub Nurse
 * Martin Yu as Resident #2
 * Paula Weston Solano as OB Nurse
 * Jack Axelrod as Really Old Guy

Notes and Trivia

 * This episode's title originated from the song Let the Angels Commit, originally sung by Danielle Howle and the Tantrums.
 * This episode scored 21.02 million viewers.

Quotes

 * George: Okay, I'll be Cristina for you, if you'll be Izzie for me.
 * Meredith: Deal.
 * (George stops the elevator)
 * Meredith: Derek had a woman in his trailer last night. She was ugly, very ugly, except she was tall and beautiful. And he was naked.
 * George: Oh. Uh, McDreamy was doing the McNasty with McHottie? That McBastard. Uh, how was that?
 * Meredith: That was good.
 * George: Cristina enough? (Meredith nods) Really?
 * Meredith: Yeah.
 * George: Yeah?
 * Meredith: Yeah.
 * George: Excellent.
 * Meredith: Channeling Izzie. Go.
 * George: Okay, uh, Callie... she won't forgive me. Uh, she won't talk to me. She dumped me. Which is uh, I don't care about, you know, at all...
 * Meredith: Good, because you deserve better. You do. You are George. I mean seriously. Seriously. Seriously. Was that Izzie optimistic?
 * George:  (a little stunned) Yes, it's very Izzie. (both of them sigh)
 * Meredith: What the hell has happened to us?
 * George: We are now the people that the people we want to be with avoid.
 * Meredith: We have careers to think about. We don't need attention from men with perfect hair.
 * George: You know, we should make a pact. There's no more dating.
 * Meredith: (nodding) No more Derek. No more Callie.
 * George: Just a hundred percent focused on our work.
 * Meredith: They're dead to us.
 * George: They're freakin' corpses to us. (knocks fists with Meredith)


 * Nancy: What are you doing here, Mark? Are you trying to torture him?
 * Mark: He's my family, Nancy. Plus I needed a change of pace. (Nancy gives him an unconvinced look) Plus I slept with my tennis partner's wife and he went out and bought a gun.
 * Nancy: There it is.