Going, Going, Gone

"Dying changes everything. There is the emotional fall out, sure. But there's also the practical stuff. Who's going to do your job? Who's going to take care of your family? The only good thing for you is you don't have to worry about it. People you never knew will be living in your house, working your job. The world just keeps on going. Without you. They say death is hardest on the living. It’s tough to actually say goodbye. Sometimes it’s impossible. You never really stop feeling the loss. It’s what makes things so bitter sweet. We leave little bits of ourselves behind, little reminders. A lifetime of memories, photos, trinkets. Things to remember us by even when we're gone."

- Meredith Grey

Going, Going, Gone is the season nine premiere and the 173rd overall episode of Grey's Anatomy.

Short Summary
Months after the plane crash, the doctors at Seattle continue to try and find a new sense of normalcy. With a new set of interns to put through the ringer, the new fellows and attendings get used to their roles while Cristina adjusts to her new life in Minnesota. But Mark's life hangs in the balance and it's clear that Seattle Grace Mercy West Hospital is not the same.

Full Summary
An elevator opens and a new intern gets out of it. Meanwhile, Meredith's voice over talks about how death affects life. Jo, the intern, meets another intern. She starts complimenting the other one, Stephanie, but Stephanie tells her she's not going near Medusa for her. They stop walking when they see Bailey and Meredith. Jo is trying to calm herself down before going to Medusa. Stephanie walks away. Jo gives the labs Meredith ordered, and Meredith is mean to her. When she sends Jo off, Bailey compliments her and asks about Cristina, who's in Minnesota.

In Minnesota, Cristina goes outside in the cold to talk to Dr. Parker, who's listening to Dr. Thomas. Dr. Thomas is telling an endless story. Dr. Parker tells Cristina to listen to Dr. Thomas's story and walks away. Dr. Thomas asks her to move her surgery so he can join her, but she is resistant to the idea.

Derek is sitting in a lounge, when Richard comes in. Richard tells him they're all set for tonight. "5 o'clock," Richard says, before he leaves. Derek is paged.

Bailey is asking questions to a group of interns. When no one of the group is able to answer a question, it is suddenly answered by Ben, who's standing in the doorway. Bailey is surprised he's in Seattle. In the hallway, they are kissing. She tries to open up the door of an on-call room, but it's locked. "Occupied!" Alex yells from the inside. He's in bed with Heather, another new intern. He tells her he really has to go to Hopkins, as he already postponed them once.

In the ER, a nurse is staring at Callie. Callie yells that she's fine and the nurse apologizes. Callie then notices Jackson is staring at her too. "Really, Avery? You too?" she asks. He says he's not staring and walks away. Derek approaches Callie to discuss her patient's scan. He tells her he'll join her in the OR, which surprised her. He doesn't seem to think it's a big deal as she already cleared him to operate weeks ago and he's ready now.

Meredith thinks it is a big deal and questions why he's putting so much pressure on himself. Derek assures her he will be done before 5 o'clock and that he's feeling good about it and says he can't just wait around, staring at the clock. When Meredith asks him if he really needs to do it today, he says has to, especially today.

Callie is telling Mark, who's in a coma and mechanically ventilated, that Derek is going to operate again with his brand new hand. Derek walks in, and Callie says she expects Mark to open his eyes when she tells him something shocking enough. They watch the clock, and it's still 10 hours till 5 o'clock. Derek says that Mark was very specific: if there were no signs of recovery after 30 days, he wanted to be let go. Callie tries again with a sexual story, but nothing happens. "Always had to be the first," Derek says.

1994 - Someone is filming Derek and Mark in a church on Derek's wedding day. Mark says that they were supposed to have many women, but Derek laughs and tells him he hopes that Mark didn't forget the rings. Mark tells Derek he will never find another friend that's as good as him. Mark then realizes they're being filmed, and the video stops.

2007 - Mark is installing a camera in his bedroom, where Callie is sitting on the bed. Callie doesn't wants to be filmed. Mark jumps onto the bed and assures her she'd want to relive the moment that's about to happen over and over. He starts kissing her, but Callie throws a pillow at the camera.

Meredith is writing her appendoctomy on the O.R. board. Owen asks if she really wants to do the intern appendectomy today. "Especially today," she says. Bailey comes over and asks Meredith to take her laparoscopic colectomy surgery, but Meredith says she can't as she has the intern appy. Richard comments that she's living up to her nickname. She asks what her nickname is, and Bailey tells her it's Medusa. Bailey says that's good to be the attending with the scary nickname to keep her residents in line. "Take it from the Nazi. It's good be feared," she says. Richard tells her she has another nickname nowadays.

Cristina enters Parker's OR to ask something. All surgeons and nurses simultaneously raise their hands, which is usual, he tells her. She asks if she can do her surgery without Dr. Thomas as he is a big talker. Dr. Parker says she has to do it with Dr. Thomas, and the surgeons and nurses salute her before they continue their surgery.

Meredith and Cristina are FaceTiming. Meredith tells Cristina about her nickname, and Cristina says she had to push her flight. Cristina assures her it's not like last time or the time before that. She explains her surgery got pushed back, but she says that she's on stand by for a later flight. Owen sees how Cristina stops the conversation, and he asks Meredith if Cristina is coming. Meredith that she'll come, even though she won't make it by 5. Owen thinks Cristina won't get on the plane, and Meredith says she probably won't.

Meredith, Alex, and Jackson are having lunch. Alex says that he has said goodbye to his fan club of interns all day, and he advises Jackson to comfort them when he's gone. When Alex says that he needs to get laid, as he hasn't banged anybody since Lexie, there's an awkward silence. Alex apologizes, and Jackson stumbles that he has banged people. At the intern table, Jo tells the rest she's screwed as long as Meredith's her attending. Heather tells them she's coming over. She informs them that she picked out Jo to do the intern appy with her. Jo is surprised.

Derek is looking at the scans of Callie's patient. Callie takes a look at Derek's hand. Derek assures her he's good to go and that she did a good job on his hand. Owen comes in with Mel Barnett, who introduces himself as the new peds attending. Derek and Callie tell him their names and specialties. When Mel hears Callie's name, he tells her he's sorry about her wife. Owen and Mel then leave, so Owen can show him the NICU. "Let's not make a big deal," Callie says before Derek can open his mouth.

In the next scene, Callie is crying in a supply closet. Alex and Leah, another intern he slept with, come in while kissing. He tells Leah the same thing he told Heather about Hopkins. When they hear Callie crying, Callie tells them to get out. Leah leaves. Alex is trying to comfort Callie, but she yells to get out. Alex just closes the door, and Callie, who thinks he left, continues sobbing. Alex watches her.

2010 - Mark is explaining a suture technique to Jackson in a surgical video. Jackson stops filming as Mark tells him to go scrub in and allows him to finish up.

Jackson is talking about plastics cases to a comatose Mark. Just talking to Mark seems to inspire Jackson.

Cristina is watching a surgery from the gallery while FaceTiming Meredith again. Meredith asks if Cristina wants to FaceTime or Skype when it's 5 o'clock. Cristina doesn't answer and continues talking about the surgery and criticizing Dr. Thomas. A resident asks her to leave as he's trying to take notes, but Cristina replies that there's nothing to learn. Cristina tells Meredith that she doesn't get why everyone is so worked up about 5 o'clock, as Mark will still be in a coma whenever she arrives in Seattle.

Ben and Bailey are making out in an on-call room. Someone knocks on the door, and Shane, Bailey's intern, tells her that she needs to see the scans of her patient. He slides them under the door. She looks at the scans while Ben kisses her neck. She giggles while telling Shane to watch the patient closely. Ben and Bailey continue making out, when Bailey hears giggling outside the door. She suddenly opens the door, and interns flee in all directions. She closes the door again.

In the peds ward, Mel Barnett meets Alex, whom Owen told him about. Mel tells Alex that Hopkins is a good program. Alex asks Dr. Barnett about the African kids program, and Mel says that it will continue at UCLA, as it doesn't fit with his agenda. Mel leaves when he gets a phone call.

Callie and Derek enter the OR and everyone inside applause for Derek, something that was set up by Callie. They all stay silent until they hear him say: "It's a beautiful day to save lives!".

The other interns are watching how Jo is doing the surgery with Meredith standing next to her. The interns are talking about Jo and Meredith without realizing that they can hear them, as the intercom is on. Owen comes into the gallery. Meredith looks up with an angry face, and Heather says it's like Meredith can hear them. Owen tells them that she can hear them, thanks to the intercom.

Derek and Callie are operating when Derek drops a surgical instrument. Everyone stays silent until Derek tells Callie to page Dr. Nelson.

2009 - In a video that's recorded on Callie and Arizona's wedding day, Mark is telling a story about a patient's wedding, where there were two couples who had stayed together for 60 years. He tells them that they still will be together in 60 years at their granddaughter's wedding. Mark congratulates the newly married couple when he asks with whom he'll be dancing at the granddaughter's wedding. "Well, that's easy. Lexie Grey," Mark answers.

Alex is telling Callie that Mel wants to ship the African program to L.A. and he asks her to do something about it as he's leaving, but Callie says it's not a good time and that she doesn't care that much about his peds program. "Sometimes, things die, Alex, and there's nothing you can do about it," she says before walking away.

Jo has taken out the appendix. She continues the surgery, but accidentally rips open the caecum. She panics and freezes, so Meredith pushes her aside and takes over. The other interns are watching closely, and Owen leaves the gallery.

Dr. Thomas is talking to Cristina about her generation, and as Cristina says there's only room for one surgeon as their patient is a baby, he gets ready to steal her surgery. Cristina yells that it's her surgery and that he's welcome to assist and to observe, but not take the surgery.

Callie approaches Derek, saying they shouldn't have operated, as they were emotionally unstable because of Mark's approaching death. Derek yells that his hand went num in the OR and he kicks against an instrument table. Richard comes in, saying it's almost 5.

Jackson is still talking to Sloan about his patients. He tells him he can take it from here. He leaves the room, and Callie, Derek, and Richard walk in. Richard starts telling them what he's about to do, but Callie says it's not necessary as they're all doctors. Richard says it is necessary to give them time to let their brains absorb what's about to happen. We hear Richard repeat Mark's living will, while Cristina is looking at the clock in the OR, saying it's 5 o'clock in Seattle. Dr. Thomas doesn't get why that's important and they continue operating. Outside Mark's room, Jackson and a couple of nurses are watching Richard, Callie, Mark, and Derek. Meredith is still operating too, as Richard turns off the ventilator. Callie whipes off her tears as Richard extubates Mark and leaves to give them some privacy.

Some time later, Callie and Derek are still sitting by Mark's bedside, with Richard, Meredith and Jackson watching them from outside the room. Meredith tells Jackson that they tried so hard out in the woods to keep Mark alive. She says that they thought that Mark would be fine if they could get him to the hospital alive. Meredith suddenly stands up, saying she needs to go see Cristina.

Jo is crying in a hallway. Owen sees her, and asks what's wrong. She wants to leave, but Owen tells her that she was supposed to fail, so she could be an example for the other interns. Jo asks if Meredith is so mean because of the plane crash. Owen tells her Dr. Grey is not mean, but strong, and that that's good for Jo. Owen tells her she needs to be taught so she can fix things that other people can't fix. He tells her to leave if she can't handle that and to cry somewhere else, where he doesn't see her.

Cristina enters Dr. Parker's office. Cristina tells she's all about team playing, but she asks him to steer Dr. Thomas into someone else's direction. He explains to her that there's no ego and competition in the hospital. He tells her to take a couple of days off to soften up her sharp edges. Alex, who is about to leave Seattle, walks by Sloan's room. Bailey comes too, and sits down next to Webber. She asks him about her nickname. He only tells her her nickname has something to do with the fact that she's happy whenever Dr. Warren comes to visit. He says that he doesn't want to tell her because he's a gentleman. Jackson doesn't want to say it either. "Okay, I'm going to tell you this because I'm literally about to walk out of forever. You're nickname is BCB," Alex says, with Richard trying to get him to shut up. "BCB?" she asks. "Booty Call Bailey," he explains. She thanks him for saying it. "Goodbye, Dr. Bailey," he says. "Yeah, bye, Karev," she responds without looking at him.

At the airport, Meredith sees Alex. She walks over to him and asks if she's not even as good as one of his intern girls. "You're not gonna say goodbye to me?" she asks. She blames him for just leaving now that Mark is dying. He says that he will still talk with her when he's at the other side of the country, but Meredith says it's not the same and that everything has changed. He says that he can't stay around, being the guy that should've been on the plane. He yells that he's not going to stay in Seattle just because she doesn't want to be alone. "Hopkins won't wait forever, I've got a plane to catch, so bye," he says. Meredith angrily walks away without saying anything. He wants to turn around, and bumps into Owen, who doesn't notice it's him. Owen runs towards his gate and boards the plane.

Callie and Derek are still sitting next to Mark. Outside, Richard, Jackson, Miranda, and Ben are watching. As Mark's heart stops beating, Ben takes Bailey's hand in his. Callie and Derek start crying.

There's another video of Mark holding his daughter, and shushing the one who's filming.

Meredith is on her plane, and she starts getting restless. She suddenly wants to get out of the plane. The flight attendant tells her to stay in her seat, but Meredith starts screaming she needs to get off the plane.

At home, Derek is playing with Zola.

Cristina is FaceTiming with Meredith, who's sitting in the cafetaria of the airport, telling her she couldn't board her plane. Meredith and Cristina agree that they need to get over their fear of flying. Suddenly, Alex sits down on the bar stool next to Meredith. While Meredith points the camera towards Alex to let Cristina know who's there, Alex apologizes for before. She apologizes too. Alex says that he couldn't leave and he and Meredith hug. Alex tells Cristina to tell Hunt that he's staying in Seattle, but Cristina doesn't know what he's talking about. Alex says that he saw Owen in the airport.

April is leaving the barn with a pig at her parent's farm. Suddenly, Owen appears in front of her. He tells her that Mark died and that he wants her to come back to Seattle. He tells her that he wishes that he could fix a lot of things, like Cristina, but there's only one thing that he can fix: hiring her back. He says that he shouldn't have taken her job from her, as she belongs in Seattle, where she can save lives.

Callie enters her bedroom, where she tells Arizona that she can't keep doing things alone. She yells at Arizona to get up and snap out of it. While she's ranting about how she lost her best friend and Sofia lost a parent, Arizona turns towards her and reveals her residual limb. "Snap out of this? How am I supposed to snap out of this when you cut off my leg?" Arizona yells. Callie is speechless and leaves.

There's one last video. Arizona is filming Mark, Sofia, and Callie, instead of taking a picture. She says she's pressing the button, but nothing happens. Mark takes over the camera, and he turns around the camera to figure it out. "Oh, I get it!" he says, when he takes a photo of himself, the last one we get to see of him. When the photo faded away, this appears:
 * Mark Sloan
 * 1968 - 2012

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
 * Kevin McKidd as Dr. Owen Hunt
 * Jessica Capshaw as Dr. Arizona Robbins
 * Sarah Drew as Dr. April Kepner
 * Jesse Williams as Dr. Jackson Avery
 * Patrick Dempsey as Dr. Derek Shepherd

Guest Stars

 * William Daniels as Dr. Craig Thomas
 * Jason George as Dr. Ben Warren
 * Steven Culp as Dr. Darren Parker
 * Gaius Charles as Dr. Shane Ross
 * Philip Casnoff as Dr. Mel Barnett
 * Camilla Luddington as Dr. Jo Wilson
 * Tina Majorino as Dr. Heather Brooks
 * Jerrika Hinton as Dr. Stephanie Edwards
 * Tessa Ferrer as Dr. Leah Murphy

Co-Starring

 * Dan Gordon as Flight Attendant
 * Brian Houtz as Resident
 * Arriane Alexander as Gate Attendant
 * Ursula Burton as ER Nurse
 * Mackenzie Bicknell as Baby Sofia
 * Madelyn Bicknell as Baby Sofia
 * Lynne Alana Delaney as Nurse Tucker

Uncredited

 * Kayla Crance as Flight Attendant
 * Capt'n Bob as Doctor

Mark Sloan

 * Diagnosis: Coma
 * Doctor: Richard Webber (general surgeon)
 * Treatment: Mechanical ventilation

Notes and Trivia

 * This episode's title originated from the song Going, Going, Gone, originally sung by Bob Dylan.
 * This episode scored 11.73 million viewers.
 * This episode takes place three months after the plane crash which is confirmed by Karev in the airport.
 * It also takes place 30 days after the events shown in Remember the Time, as Mark is taken off of life support after this period of time.
 * There's a glitch when Meredith is writing on the OR board. In the first shot, her name is already on the board, Jo Wilson's is not. In the next shot, Jo's name is on the board, and Meredith's name disappeared.
 * This is the first episode to show the black Grey's Anatomy opener since season 2.
 * We are led to believe Arizona also died in the crash until the last few minutes of the episode.
 * With the introduction of this set of interns, patterns of the gender makeup of intern classes can be seen:
 * Dr. Bailey has stated that she was the only female intern in her intern class (though this is contradicted in scenes of The Time Warp).
 * When the original five were interns, Cristina noted that there were only six women out of twenty interns.
 * This nearly an even mix of males and females continues in the intern class introduced in the season four premiere.
 * However, in this intern class, only one male is featured among four other female interns. This is a flip in gender makeup from Dr. Bailey's class. It is unknown if this mirroring was purposeful or simply a coincidence.
 * One of the video clips of Mark shows him teaching Avery a plastics technique and allowing him to finish up the surgery. The video is dated 2010, but Mark hadn't started mentoring Avery until the Season 8 premiere, which, because of holidays shown in that season correlating to the date Mark died, we know took place in fall 2011.
 * This episode marks the first in which Bokhee is seen without her trademark glasses; however, this only happens before the surgery starts. When she's shown in the middle of Derek's surgery later, she's donning the glasses.
 * Goof: In the flashback scene in which Mark rocks Sofia to sleep in his arms, the baby he's holding has completely different physical features from how Sofia actually looked as a baby. Even though she was born premature, Sofia always had very dark hair and distinctly dark eyebrows. This baby has much lighter hair and skin, appearing completely white.

Quotes

 * Mark: You will never, ever find another friend as good as me.


 * Jackson (to Mark): I really think I know what I'm doing. Plastic Posse is going to live on, I can take it from here.


 * Alex (to Meredith): I'm not going to stay in Seattle just because you don't want to be alone.


 * Owen (to April): I should have helped you be strong instead of kicking you when you were down. You don't belong here, on a farm. You belong in Seattle, saving lives.


 * Callie: Get Up! Get the hell out of bed and snap out of this because Sofia lost a parent and I lost my best friend.
 * Arizona: Snap out of this?! How the hell am I supposed to snap out of this when you cut off my leg?


 * Owen: Dr. Grey isn't mean. She is strong.


 * Miranda[: What's the problem?
 * Jo: I have these labs for Dr. Grey.
 * Miranda: Well then give them to her.
 * Meredith: I've been waiting for those for over an hour.
 * Jo: I had to do an...
 * Meredith: Stop making excuses.
 * Jo: Sorry.
 * Meredith: Stop apologizing.
 * Jo: Okay.
 * Meredith: Stop talking.