Support System

"Every little kid knows the words to the song: the foot bone is connected to the leg bone, the leg bone is connected to the knee bone. In med school, you learn it's a little more complicated than that. But still, the song is not wrong. Everything is connected.The human body is made up from systems that keep it alive. There's the one that keeps you breathing, and the one that keeps you standing, the one that makes you hungry, and the one that makes you happy. They're all connected. Take a piece out, and everything else falls apart. And it's only when our support systems look like they might fail us, that we realize how much we depended on the all along."

- Meredith Grey

 is the nineteenth episode of the eighth season and the 167th overall episode of Grey's Anatomy.

Short Summary
A devastated Cristina presses Owen to confess the intimate details of his affair; Mark takes his new authority very seriously when he steps in as chief for the day and butts heads with Richard over a patient's liver transplant; and Callie deems Meredith ready for the boards, while the rest of the residents continue to stress about the exam. Meanwhile, Callie, Arizona and Bailey plan a much needed ladies night for Teddy.

Full Summary
We open with a montage of Owen and Cristina's relationship -- from the romantic beginning to the cereal-to-Owen's-face moment last week. It's gotten complicated.

We next see Owen and a woman drinking at the bar. He's about to leave and she tries to talk him into another. We next see that Owen is actually recounting the story to Cristina, who wants details. He doesn't understand how it's helping, but says he wants to "fix this." He doesn't want to "torture" her with the details of him having sex with another woman. She insists on knowing every detail.

Callie is grilling Meredith with more scenarios for her boards. Callie thinks Meredith is ready.

Meredith is making out with Derek during what's normally her griping time with Cristina. He wants to know what's wrong, and Meredith says nothing is wrong. They get paged.

Sloan walks in "as chief," having improved the pastry quality already. He says he's filling in while Owen and Cristina are "down with the flu." Bailey questions whether Hunt requested Sloan by name, and Sloan claims he did.

Teddy is excited about planning with Callie and Arizona to go to a new restaurant for "ladies' night." After Teddy leaves, Arizona urges Callie to include more ladies, so Callie asks Bailey, who doesn't want to go. Bailey agrees to go, as long as Callie and Arizona are buying.

Webber tells a patent they found a donor for a multi-organ transplant of the small and large intestines, stomach, pancreas and liver. The surgery is happening that day. The patient, Neil, isn't optimistic. Meredith offers to call his family, but he has told them not to bother.

April, Alex, and Avery are frantically going through flash cards for the boards and they're struggling through them. Meredith gives them the right answer, because the Torres method is in her. Alex mentions that Cristina is the one who's in real trouble, and Meredith jumps to her defense.

Back at their apartment, Owen insists he is not going to go through all the details of his cheating. Cristina tells him he'll have to leave. She answers the phone because it's Meredith, who will come over if Cristina doesn't answer. Cristina tells Meredith that she and Owen have the flu, and quickly gets off the phone. After Cristina hangs up, she tells Owen it's up to him whether he stays or goes. He stays, and proceeds recounting the story of his cheating -- saying it was the day they ended therapy.

We see the flashback of the day they ended therapy and shouted at each other about being each other's "person." The woman came in with an emergency patient. Cristina asks the woman's name and Owen doesn't remember.

Sloan, who's really getting into this chief thing, comes in to check on a patient whose jaw is fused, as well as some of his vertebrae. Sloan says he'll be "eating burgers again real soon" after putting in a new titanium jaw Sloan made for him. Derek pulls Sloan outside and says they shouldn't do the surgery because of the dangers posed by his vertebrae. Sloan insists they need to do this quickly, but Derek doesn't think there's anything he can do by 3 o'clock, the time of the scheduled surgery. Sloan tells Derek to "rise" to the challenge.

A clerk catches Alex trying to take patient charts out of the files to copy them. She says the charts don't leave the room. Alex has an idea. He asks Lexie to memorize them all with her photographic memory. Lexie thinks it will take forever. April reminds Lexie that she and Alex will be residents next year, making recommendations for chief resident, and she warns Lexie that she doesn't want to get off on the wrong foot.

Bailey talks to Ben about ladies' night, and he tells her he had plans for the two of them to do things that wouldn't be appropriate to talk about at work, because they've been on different schedules for a while. Bailey says she'll get out of girls' night.

Sloan sees the scans of the donor for the multi-organ transplant. They find what looks like a tumor on the liver. Webber and Bailey think they should operate to remove the tumor, which could be benign, from the donor before the transplant. Sloan thinks it's a bad idea, and, in a tense and dramatic moment, refuses to allow it.

Webber tells his patient that they've put him back on the transplant list. Neil thinks there's no chance he'll make it until the next day. He says, "Thank God my family's not around for this -- it's like Lucy with the football, except it's my life." Neil tells Webber not to beat himself up about it. "It's done, it's over, you did everything you could," Neil says. Webber decides he didn't. He tells Bailey the idea to remove the liver tumor was a good one, and says he'll "deal with Chief Sloan."

Sloan, meanwhile, is at lunch with Avery telling him that being chief is about making the hard decisions. Derek shows up and presents an option for the surgery -- to stabilize the patient's neck with foam. Sloan thinks it's a decent idea, but tells Derek he "can do better," because the foam isn't flexible enough if something goes wrong in surgery. He tells Derek, again, to "rise." Derek leaves.

Bailey tells Arizona and Callie she has a dance lesson with Ben.

Alex, April, Avery, and even Meredith -- on Cristina's behalf -- are dropping charts on Lexie, and she seems a little maxed out.

Back to Owen's story, he and the unnamed woman leave the bar. She thanks him for saving her friend's life, and he says it's just his job. She asks him to kiss her. He says he's drunk and married, and she tells him to kiss her anywhere. He tells her she's trouble, and she tells him to kiss her anyway. Cristina is bawling at this point. Owen tries to hold her, and she gets up to walk to the bathroom and slams the door shut.

At day care, Derek tells Meredith she has to "fix this thing with Cristina and Hunt" because Sloan as chief is driving him crazy. Meredith says she can't, and tells Derek that Owen cheated on Cristina. Meredith says she can't talk about it with Cristina, because Cristina doesn't really know she knows. Derek hopes they figure it out -- at least partly because Sloan is driving him crazy. Derek gets up and plants Zola onto a beanbag chair, then says Sloan has a good point about stabilizing the patient's vertebrae with foam.

Sloan asks Arizona to take Sofia for the night because he has "chief stuff to do." Arizona tells him about ladies' night, but he says they owe him for Valentine's Day. Standing in front of the surgery board, Sloan asks April how long it takes to do an appendectomy. After some boards-related stammering, she says about 45 minutes to an hour and 15 minutes. He then wonders why Bailey and Meredith have eight hours books in an O.R. She says nothing, but Sloan presses her and all she can say is, "Dr. Webber was the chief for a very long time."

We next see Sloan burst into the O.R. demanding they not touch the patient. Bailey asks him to let them do their jobs. He tells her that as the chief of surgery, he told them not to do the surgery, so "do not touch him." Sloan goes back into the other O.R., where Webber is removing the tumor from the donor liver, and asks if he wasn't clear earlier when he said the organs would be compromised because of the tumor. Webber gives Sloan a great, wise speech about how Sloan is a great surgeon and may one day make a great chief of surgery, but being a plastic surgeon he's a "perfectionist" who is trying to go by the book. Webber admits the transplant he's proposing "won't be pretty, but it will work" and that's all he needs. He warns Sloan to "stand down" and Sloan leaves the room, saying nothing else.

Back at the apartment, Owen begs Cristina to open the door. He starts to worry that she's hurting herself because she's not responding. He says he's going to kick open the door and tells her to get away from it because he's coming in. She opens it just as he collides with the door and he goes flying through the bathroom onto the floor, which makes Cristina laugh. Owen chuckles a bit and Cristina keeps laughing, more and more maniacally. She then starts listing off her degrees and says she's supposed to be studying for her boards, but she's "locked in a bathroom crying because of a boy." She finally stops laughing and goes completely silent.

Owen and Cristina are now laying in bed next to each other. Cristina says she thinks it would have been easier if he's fallen in love with someone else because he would have simply left Cristina for the other woman. He says it would not have been easier. She asks if it was "just sex," and he says it was just sex -- "just once." She says she doesn't understand why he'd do it. He says he was lonely because they were fighting, and he got drunk and did "an incredibly stupid thing." He says people make mistakes, and tells her, "You make mistakes." She thinks he's bringing up the abortion again. He says he had sex with somebody because he was hurt, and she tells him he wanted to hurt her back. Owen says nothing.

Arizona tells Callie that Sloan can't keep Sofia, and they decide to ditch Teddy, perhaps to do some "salsa dancing" -- a reference to Bailey's "dance lessons" with Ben.

Webber, Bailey, and Meredith work on Neil's transplant.

Derek shows Sloan how he's using a beanbag (from the day care inspiration) to support his patient's spine. Sloan decides he's a great leader because he encouraged Derek to "rise" and he rose.

Arizona talks to Teddy about ladies' night, and Teddy worries when she'll stop freaking people out. She doesn't mean to be the sad widow and ruin everybody's fun. Arizona feels bad and goes to talk to Callie and Bailey about how bad and selfish they are for trying to avoid Teddy. Arizona demands they all go, "no excuses."

Lexie is numb, telling Meredith she read too much and she's worried stuff is "falling out" of her brain.

Owen has a bag packed and tells Cristina he'll come back to get the rest of his stuff another time. He tells her she was the love of his life and he'll never love another woman. Cristina, stone-faced, shoots back, "You don't even remember her name." Owen tells her to take care of herself and leaves.

Neil wakes up after his surgery and sees Meredith. He asks Meredith if he's alive, and she says she's afraid so. He asks where everybody is, and she reminds him he told them not to call and not to visit. He can't believe they didn't come. Meredith says they should call them.

Arizona and Callie have Bailey at their apartment, waiting for Teddy to arrive. Bailey wants one drink before getting on her way, saying she told Ben she'd be gone in 45 minutes. Teddy arrives with several bottles of wine and "movies -- 'Dirty Dancing' and 'Beaches.'" Bailey smiles along, but is totally annoyed.

Meredith calls Cristina and asks if she's feeling better. Cristina says she is, but then starts to cry. Meredith tells Cristina that while she knows Cristina doesn't want to talk about it, she just wants to stay on the phone with her until Cristina wants to hang up. Cristina nods, then cries a little more before hanging up.

Derek finds Owen hitting golf balls on the roof. Derek asks Owen if he's feeling better and, after first not knowing what Derek meant (about the flu), Owen says he's fine. Derek says Sloan turned out to be a good chief, which surprises Owen because he'd asked for Webber or Derek to fill in.

Meredith has Avery, April and Alex for an early-morning study session. She's now teaching "The Grey Method." There's a ring at the doorbell, and it's Cristina. She says she's going to fail her boards if she doesn't study, and Meredith welcomes her inside.

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

 * Rene Auberjonois as Neil Sheridan
 * Jason George as Dr. Ben Warren
 * Alexis Carra as The Other Woman

Co-Starring

 * Burl Moseley as Jason
 * Cloie Wyatt Taylor as Annie
 * Maura Soden as Librarian
 * Shi Ne Nielson as Paramedic

Notes and Trivia

 * This episode's title originated from the song Support System, originally sung by Liz Phair.
 * This episode scored 8.85 million viewers.