The Becoming/Grey Matter

Joan Rater On "The Becoming"...

Original Airdate: 5-8-08

Hi everyone, this is Joan. Tony and I wrote this episode, "The Becoming" and I'd like to share some of my thoughts about it with you, but first I'd like to say ... OH MY GOD!!!! I just saw some stuff that was shot for the Season Four Finale (that Shonda wrote) and it's soooooo good. I don't mean to torment you and I really wish I could tell you all the cool things that are going to happen, and you should know the great restraint it's taking me not to give you even the tiniest little hint of what's to come (keep an eye on that champagne bottle from tonight's episode) because I have a big mouth and am really bad at keeping secrets so I can really relate to Izzie in this episode.

But enough about me and the Finale because first we have to get there and getting there is really what "The Becoming" is about. Becoming who you want to be, who you know you could be if you weren't quite so screwed up or preoccupied with kissing when you need to be thinking about surgery. All of our doctors are trying, really trying, to become these people they see in their head, the versions of themselves who are strong and successful and happy, their best selves. Izzie wants to be a good doctor and keep the news of Ava confidential. But how does she do that and be a good friend to Alex who is changing his life for this baby that doesn't exist? Alex wants to be a good parent, but he himself didn't have very good role models so he's scared that he won't be able to do it. George is trying to be okay with the fact that he has to repeat his intern year, and Cristina is really trying to make the best of a bad situation with Hahn. And then there's Meredith.

Meredith wants to be a great surgeon. She wants to succeed at this clinical trial. But she keeps thinking about Derek. Particularly his tongue. Thoughts of kissing him keep interfering with the surgeries she loves. So can Dr. Wyatt please give her some tools to make the thoughts stop? Because Meredith feels like she has to choose. Career or love. She can't have both.

I went to see my first therapist in my twenties. She was this nice woman on the Upper East Side of Manhattan who told me, when I started whining about my lack of career, that most people she sees in their twenties are either good at career or good at love. Not both. And it makes sense, both things compete for your attention. You want to spend time with your boyfriend but your boss asks if you can do some overtime. How to negotiate both successfully is hard. And I think when my therapist said it, she was trying to make me feel better, sort of like, "Yeah, you have no career but at least your boyfriend sounds very nice." But it didn't make me feel better. It made me feel competitive. Because when I said, "Really? You never see people with a good career AND a good relationship?", she said, "only a few." Only a few. That's all I could think about after the session. Who were these FEW and how could I become one of THEM? It was a subtle shift in my thinking, but I began to think less about my problems and more about how to fix them. I started to imagine the new me in my head - she was a woman of action! She didn't sit around all day waiting for things to happen! She made them happen! I'm making it all sound very purposeful and dramatic when actually it was ten more years of therapy that included much whining and many more hours of inaction before I had what could even be called a career .... but .... I think that Dr. Wyatt knows that Meredith needs to be pushed into action. So Dr. Wyatt basically tells Meredith she's being a coward. Derek's with Rose and it's not heroic to let the love of your life go. It's cowardly. How's she gonna handle it? Because no one can fix this for Meredith but Meredith. What's she gonna do? I wish I could tell you --

And what about Mark? When Bailey defends him to the assembly of nurses by saying, "You knew he was a whore when you slept with him, now you can't act all shocked when he behaves like a whore." As everyone walks away, did you see the look on Mark's face? It's like he's realizing what a whore he is for the first time and he's so sad. A sad, sad whore. What's he gonna do about that? I soooo wish I could tell you --

I will tell you though that the Mark Sloan story was originally much smaller and much more a comedic runner until we had the read thru and Eric Dane brought such vulnerability and depth to his scenes. We just had to expand that storyline.

And Cristina. Singing "Like a Virgin" while carving corpses. She just found out that Burke won the Harper Avery and she needs to not think. About how he's thriving while she's barely getting to do any cardio. And fo course, the girl who told depressed Meredith to 'dance it out' would sing in the morgue. And it works, she manages to get through the day without thinking about Burke until Richard calls her in front of the sexual harassment committee. She can't seem to escape Burke. And she lets loose. She's been so controlled, managed to stuff all her feelings about the Burke thing for so long but she can't anymore. She lets loose with her feelings and goes home and crawls into bed. This is a sadness that can't be danced off and I'd love to tell you what happens...

Also... for a while we had "American Pie" be the song Cristina sang, but it was weird, it's already sort of a mournful sad song we wanted something that really played against the corpses in the morgue thing...

So ... "The Becoming."

Season Four is about change. Letting go of the old and embracing the new. Redefining who you are and struggling like crazy to be that better version of yourself that you see in your head. Becoming is hard -- it hurts like hell and can cost you friends and lovers and career advancement. And some of our characters will succeed, and others will fail. But all of them will try. Because the alternative -- standing still -- just isn't an option.

Like I said at the beginning of the blog, there's such good stuff coming in the next three episodes, and I'd love to tell you what's gonna happen, but I've taken an oath and must observe doctor/patient confidentiality, so I gotta go all Izzie on you. You're just gonna have to WATCH!!!!