Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer/Grey Matter

From Krista Vernoff, writer of "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer"

Episode Airdate: 12/11/05

So here’s a funny thing: we were never going to do a “Holiday episode” of Grey’s Anatomy. Shonda, in particular, (though many of us agree) is not a big fan of Santa Claus in the E.R. and elves in the operating room and the kinds of things you most often see on medical show holiday episodes. So, the mandate was: we can have a tree, we can acknowledge the holiday, but we’re not doing a “holiday episode.” And then Harry and Gab walked into the writer’s room and pitched this:  “A cranky, angry little boy needs a heart transplant because his heart is TWO SIZES TWO SMALL.”

Come on. That’s brilliant. The Grinch boy? How do you not make a holiday episode now? So that’s how this episode was born. We all sat around the writers’ room and watched the old animated “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” (one of my favorite days at work yet) and talked about all the ways we could work subtle references to the Grinch into the episode. Now, if you watched? You may have noticed that the whole “heart too sizes too small” thing fell out – and that the little boy who played Justin was not at all Grinch-like (he was, in my humble estimation, maybe the sweetest kid in the history of the world.) Which is frankly, part of why the Grinch thing fell away – because we cast this kid – and he had these amazing eyes, and this amazing presence but when he said of Santa Claus “Tell the fat-ass to give it someone else, I don’t want it” – it still somehow managed to be sweet. Add that to the fact that we were having trouble making the medicine work, and the whole original inspiration for the episode was gone. (Though you may have noticed a Cindy-Lou Who quality to Izzie’s enthusiasm in the opening scene, and a Grinch-like quality to Cristina’s stealing the Christmas tree from Justin’s room.)

I don’t know why I’m telling you all this… Maybe because I’m so often asked “How do you guys come up with this stuff?”  The answer is, we come up with it in a largely convoluted, fabulously meandering, highly collaborative way where bad ideas lead to good ones and good ideas lead to other ones and nothing is set in stone until about a week before you see it on TV. Which is why I love working in TV. Okay….so…after the way you brutalized Mark last week for the leech stuff (which I personally found fascinating), I know what it is y’all want to hear about – and it isn’t Grinch boy…

Yep, Derek told Addison he fell in love with Meredith. Brutal, right? I know. It felt brutal when I wrote it – actually made me feel a little nauseated (which is when you know it’s going well) because my God, do I love my husband and I cannot even begin to imagine hearing something like that from him. Then again, I can’t imagine SLEEPING WITH HIS BEST FRIEND. And here’s the thing – I think that Derek coming clean to Addie could be the very best thing to bring about a healing of their marriage, because I don’t think a marriage can survive without honesty. When we decided to get married, my husband and I made a deal that if we ever found ourselves with a crush on someone else– not a “hey, that guy/girl’s hot” crush, but a “I can’t get my mind off that guy/girl” crush, we would come home and tell on ourselves and go immediately into couples counseling. Because crushes like that don’t happen for no reason – they happen because something else in the marriage is seriously amiss. And Addison didn’t sleep with Mark for no reason, she did it because something in the marriage was seriously amiss. And Derek didn’t turn around and get on a plane to Seattle and fall in love with someone else for no reason – he did it because the marriage was in bad shape WAY before he walked into that bedroom. So – yeah, I think his confession here is the most mature and potentially healing thing that either of them has done for a long time. That said, I also think it could ultimately end them. Because, seriously, how do you recover from that kind of information?

Man, relationships are complicated…

Anyway, here’s some things I loved watching last night’s episode: I loved the runner with the interns helping Alex study, culminating in Izzie having to embrace the true spirit of Christmas. I loved it because as snarky as they are, as cranky as they are, as exhausted as they are and as harsh as they can be, they are a family, these interns. And when push comes to shove, they show up for each other -- because in the best of all worlds, that’s what family does.

I also loved that Justin decided to live in the end and that when he did, his health took a turn for the better. I loved that while Cristina wasn’t interested in coming around to Burke’s spirituality, she was desperate to save Justin’s life. And she was the right person to do it, because ultimately, she and Justin shared a belief-system, so she was the one who could say what he needed to hear. Which is another kind of family, isn’t it? It’s the “Tribe” thing I referenced in the end -- Cristina and Justin are in one another’s tribe. Whether or not the same can be said of Burke and Cristina remains to be seen, because as relationships go, I think Cristina was right – it’s easy to differ in terms of cleanliness or age or experience and still have a relationship – but to differ on fundamental philosophical/spiritual beliefs is much, much harder. I’m not saying they can’t overcome it, I’m just saying that when Cristina asked “What are we doing? I don’t know what we’re doing…” that was rooted in a real and valid fear.

Finally, I loved, loved, loved watching Bailey have to deal with her growing family during one hellish day in the O.R. I loved it because there isn’t a career-woman I know who doesn’t struggle with how and when to have kids: how do I be the kind of surgeon (writer, ad-executive, architect…) I want to be and have kids? How do I be the kind of Mom I want to be and have a career? Bailey’s struggle is just beginning, but I just loved that she’s already communicating with her child in a way that makes me know she’s gonna be an amazing Mom.

So I guess that’s it for now, except, well: Happy Hanukkah and Merry Christmas… May you find joy in some version of family this season – even if your own is making you a little nuts. Wishing Peace and Joy to You and Yours, Krista