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Freedom, Part 2 is the second part of the season four finale and the 78th overall episode of Grey's Anatomy.

Short Summary[]

Derek and Meredith's clinical trial is a success as their very last patient pulls through, despite some rule bending to do so. Bailey hands the clinic over to Izzie, feeling she has too much on her plate, Cristina gets her mojo back in the form of the sparkle pager and Lexie makes a shocking discovery about George. Alex deals with Rebecca trying to kill herself, bringing up poignant memories for Meredith. Callie kisses Erica, the Chief returns to Adele and Derek and Meredith decide to get back together.

Full Summary[]

Izzie is standing in the ER as Alex carries in Rebecca. She asks what happened and Alex tells her Rebecca cut herself. He lays her down on a gurney and Izzie wants to help out, but Alex says he’s got this and closes the curtain in front of it.

Derek tells Beth he’d understand if she didn’t want to continue. Meredith says they learned from Jeremy, so they have made adjustments. Derek honestly says they have not yet had a positive outcome. Beth’s parents want to take her home, but Beth wants the surgery today. Meredith says no one but Derek has any possible answer to this, but Derek shuts her up. Beth says she’ll die anyway if she goes home. Beth is confident her parents won’t lose her because she’s not finished. Jeremy would be so mad if she just gave up. She asks Derek to operate today. He agrees to.

Callie walks up to Andrew’s “friends” and asks Lola to talk privately. Lola asks if he’s okay, but Callie reminds her he’s stuck in a block of cement, so no. She then notices Lola really cares. Lola whispers he’s her friend, even though she said he wasn’t. Callie thinks he’s more than that, but she’s too proud to admit that to her friends or herself. Her friends start mocking her. Callie says Andrew is scared so he needs someone to hold his hand. She tells Lola to screw what the others think, but Lola says she can’t help Andrew. Callie tells her she’s gonna hate herself for this and walks off.

George is making sure the files look like they’d never been touched while Lexie keeps listing facts about his friends' educational pasts. He knocks over a tray of little candies and they scatter. As they clean up, Lexie is still surprised they held him back for 1 point. He tells her to forget about it. Lexie can’t due to her photographic memory.

Derek can’t believe Meredith encouraged Beth to have the surgery, whereas she can’t believe he doesn’t want Beth to have the surgery. Derek says killing things is what he and Meredith do over and over again, and he’s going to kill a 13th person because of her. After the surgery, he’s done working with her.

Callie returns to the trauma room and she lies to Andrew, telling him she couldn’t find Lola. He figures out she didn’t want to come as they start chopping off pieces of the cement. Andrew says they used to enjoy hanging out together, until he did this. There was a moment where they could have kissed, but he chickened out. Now he’s all about kissing her. Bailey finishes up putting the catheter in. Andrew thinks the hard part is over now, but Bailey tells him that there’s a chance that when they remove the final piece of cement, the toxins that have been building up will rush to his heart, which will cause his heart to stop and he’ll stop breathing. Bailey says there’s no need to panic, because they’ll restart his heart and get him breathing. All he has to do is not walk into the warm welcoming light. The doctors remove the cement and their predictions come true. They transfer him to a gurney, start CPR and get ready to intubate.

Meredith doesn’t know what Katharine means when she says Ellis didn’t want to die. Katharine asks her what her mother said when Meredith was sitting on the floor after she slit her wrists. She told Meredith to be extraordinary and independent. Katharine says she become a surgeon like her mother, which means she has all the tools to figure this out herself. Katharine promises her she’ll be glad once she works through this.

Derek is growing frustrated in his research lab.

Lexie’s head is exploding. He tells her to make it unexplode then. She notices his voice sounds mad and says she did him a favor. George disagrees. She just made it clear he’s still this almost guy. It was just one point and he let that slip away, which he didn’t want to know. One point separates him from being free. Now he keeps running around to try and prove himself. Lexie says at least he knows what it takes.

Alex finishes up bandaging Rebecca’s wrists. Izzie comes over and says psych will be down in an hour, but she wants to administer meds to keep her calm until then. Alex says she doesn’t need meds or psych. Izzie says she needs a psych consult, but Alex says she was fine as he was watching her every minute until Izzie called. Izzie says he shouldn’t be doing that and says she’s the doctor now, so it’s her treatment plan. He gets mad and calls her a stupid bitch, asking her to leave them alone. He returns to Rebecca’s side.

Mark meets Callie in the scrub room. She’s watching the surgery and he says she should be sitting down. Mark noticed the way she was looking at Erica all day and says it’s terrible to think about sex all the time. She admits that she was turned on, despite the severity of the case. She blames it on Mark’s dirty talk, but he says it’s about what his dirty talk was about. She tries to deny it, but he says he wishes he was all someone thought about.

Lexie sits down with George in the gallery. She says he had 14 letters of recommendation, more than any other resident. Nobody had recommendations like his. His letters said he was great, kind, his attention to detail and his perseverance. It was the kind of doctor that she hopes to become. It was an honor to read those letters. Now she knows that what separates him from the others is greatness, so he shouldn’t let one point hold him back.

Bailey meets Izzie outside the OR and asks her to talk fast. Izzie talks about Alex wanting to take Rebecca home while she needs a psych consult. Bailey doesn’t really help her. Izzie tells her to do her job, but Bailey says she is doing her job. She’s asking what Izzie wants to do about her patient. Izzie says she doesn’t know what to do, but Bailey says Rebecca is her patient and Alex is her loved one. She knows what to do, but it's just hard. Izzie says she’ll try, but Bailey ensures her she’s got all the right skills to do it. Izzie doesn’t look too happy as she walks off.

Bailey re-enters the OR and asks for an update. Richard says Hahn, Torres, and Sloan are done for now, so it’s up to them now. Cristina correctly updates her as the monitor starts beeping.

Beth is taken into surgery.

Rose tells Derek she liked it better when he talked science stuff. He says he’s never good enough, no matter what he does or says. He never wanted to do this clinical trial, as it’s making him a failure. He fails her over and over. “You mean fail them,” Rose says before disappearing into the OR. Derek sighs.

Cristina is performing CPR. Andrew is gonna need an embolectomy, so they need Hahn back in there. Cristina sees the clot and says she can get to it with a thoracotomy. Cristina assures them she can do it and it’ll only take her seconds. She did it before with Burke. Richard decides to trust her. Cristina makes the cut.

Derek enters the OR. He tells Beth she doesn’t have to do this. She asks if he’s scared and he admits he is. She is too, so they should just leap. He says okay. She is put under.

Erica comes in and is surprised to find Yang doing the procedure. She thinks Cristina is doing it wrong, but Cristina defends her choices. Hahn wants to step in to interfere, but Cristina yells to shut up and let her work. Hahn is shocked, but Richard tells Hahn to let her work.

Richard walks up to the surgical board and notices Derek had two clinical trial patients scheduled while they agreed he only had one more surgery. Rose says Meredith told them she cleared it with him. Rose claims she might be mistaken, but Richard doesn’t think she is.

Meredith and Derek are watching Beth. She’s relatively good, but still alive. Derek doesn’t think it’ll last long. They both want to stay with her, but ultimately Meredith leaves Derek alone.

Richard finds Erica, who’s mad. Richard says Yang flew solo, which should have her celebrating as it means Erica is doing her job right. Teaching her how to save a life. Residents are like puppies, eager and enthusiastic, and Erica has to learn how to teach without crushing their spirits. Erica needs to be a better teacher if she wants to keep working here. As Erica walks off, she sees Cristina is working on a computer nearby, meaning she overheard everything. Richard tells her not to make him regret this and she thanks him.

Izzie returns to Rebecca with a psychiatrist and says he’ll ask her some questions while she talks with Alex. Izzie tells Alex her treatment plan is the one they’ll follow and she’ll have him arrested if he tries to take her home without her okay. Alex sees he’s worried, but he thinks she’s unreasonable. He wants to take her home, but she firmly says no. Alex is sure he can take care of Rebecca as he’s done this before. She’s just going through a bad patch and he can take of her until it’s over. He took care of his mother and he can take care of Rebecca. He was a kid then but now he’s a man, so he’ll be better at it. Izzie understands.

At home, Meredith sees the blood on the kitchen floor, reminding her of her mother’s suicide. She starts to clean it up.

Richard finds George sitting by Andrew’s bedside. He never went home as he knew Richard wanted Andrew to be monitored. His vitals are stable and he further updates Richard, who says he did a good job. George disagrees. It’s not a good job for him. He’s better than that and Richard knows that. His personality is not as hardened as the others. Maybe that’s why Richard made the mistake of thinking George doesn’t deserve a second chance while everyone else has gotten one. It’s a mistake because he’s excellent at his job. He deserves a second chance. Richard says okay. He can retake the test.

Beth’s parents are worried because she hasn’t woken up yet. Meredith says it’s normal after brain surgery. The parents ask if it’s possible she may never wake up, but Meredith prefers not to think about that until they have to.

Callie finds Lola at the entrance of the ICU. Lola admits she likes Andrew, but she thinks no one needs to know that. It wouldn’t be easy for anyone. Callie thinks it’s better to be honest. Andrew is barely alive, but he’s alive.

Alex enters Rebecca’s room and says he called her husband. He told him he took the baby and left her two months ago. He said she has something called underlying borderline personality disorder, which means this has been coming for quite some time, and then her face changed after the accident. He helped change it. She needs help and he can’t give it to her. So she has to stay here and they’ll transfer her to a psychiatric facility. He thinks that’s better. She says she’s sorry. She really tried to be better for him. She wanted to be someone he could depend on. He says it’s okay.

Richard finds Meredith and confronts her about the fact they didn’t have approval for a second surgery. “So?” Meredith asks. He says that’s not how you talk to the Chief. Meredith says her mother tried to kill herself after he left. He didn’t know that. Meredith says she was a talented, gifted, extraordinary surgeon, and she wonders how he could do that to her. She then realizes something and rushes off.

She enters Katharine’s office. Ellis was an excellent surgeon, so if she were really trying to kill herself, she wouldn’t have slit her wrists. She knew better. She would have cut her carotid artery, but she didn’t really want to die. She wanted Richard to come back to her, but he didn’t because he never knew about it and she was too stubborn to ask. Katharine asks her what that means, but Meredith wants to hear that from her. Katharine says she’s an excellent, extraordinary surgeon like her mother, but Meredith gets to learn from her mistakes. Meredith then figures out that Ellis telling her to be extraordinary wasn’t about surgery at all.

Andrew wakes up as Bailey is checking up on him. She tells him she promised him he’d live. She also reminds him of the bigger picture as Lola steps into his field of vision. She takes his hand and they share a kiss. Callie and Bailey smilingly watch them.

Lexie gets on an elevator with Alex. She knows he has two balls and he better hope she never tells the Chief. She then notices he looks down and reaches out to him. He doesn’t reply and gets off the elevator.

Rose and Meredith are watching Beth’s scans. The tumor is shrinking, which means the trial is working. Meredith tells Rose to go tell Derek, but Rose says it’s the kind of news he wants to hear from her. She tells Meredith congratulations.

Meredith rushes into the lounge to get the champagne. Cristina is sitting on a couch and tells Meredith to take her sparkle pager back, as she’s drunk on its power. Since Cristina doesn’t know where Derek is, Meredith walks out as Lexie enters the room. Cristina paged her. Cristina tells her to grab the banana in her cubby as she’s going to teach Lexie the running whip stitch.

Derek enters the ICU and hears Beth’s mother crying. Derek goes to check and tells Beth hi. She’s waking up. She realizes she’s alive and smiles. Derek is visibly happy as well.

Derek walks into the lounge and takes the champagne from the trash can. Cristina tells him that’s not sanitary, but he ignores her. She gives Lexie more instructions and continues to listen to her music. Lexie smiles.

Bailey finds Izzie and asks her how it went. Izzie admits it was awful. Bailey gives her keys to the clinic. She’s giving Izzie the clinic. She’s seen the bigger picture. She loves the clinic, but she doesn’t love it as much as she loves surgery, being Chief Resident or her family. She’s seen the bigger picture and she can’t do everything and still have everything, so she has to let some pieces go. This piece is Izzie’s piece. She’s watched Izzie earn this piece the hard way. Izzie has grown into a fine doctor. Izzie thanks her. Bailey tells her she makes her proud.

Meredith’s at Derek’s trailer, but Richard informs her he’s not there. Richard tells her he’s not a bad man, even though he’s the villain in her story.

Mark and Callie leave together. She wants to finish what they started, but he says she can finish what she started. They see Erica looking for something in her handbag and Mark says he’s growing. He tells her to go. Callie walks up to Erica and says hi. Erica can’t find her keys and she doesn’t hear what Callie is saying. Callie gets through to her and says she wanted to say something. She leans in and kisses Erica.

Derek enters Meredith’s house and calls her name, but there’s no response.

Richard rings the bell at his house. Adele opens the door and he says he wants to come home. He’s a good man and he spent his days being a good man at work. He made one mistake with a woman 20 years ago. He’s a good man for everybody but her, and he knows that, but he’s her husband and he loves her. He’s not asking her to come home, but he’s telling her. He wants to come home to his wife. She says it’s about time and they share a kiss.

Derek finds Meredith’s bedroom empty.

George comes home and informs Lexie he’s retaking the intern test. He kisses her and thanks her. He wants to celebrate and doesn’t see his kiss moved her.

Alex is crying in his room. Izzie appears in the doorway and says she’s sorry. He says whatever. She sits down with him and says not whatever. She’s sorry about Rebecca and his mother. He kisses her, but she stops him. He says please and asks for just this night. Izzie kisses him back.

Adele and Richard are still kissing.

Mark is watching Erica and Callie.

Bailey is carrying Tuck in the clinic, turning off the last light. She looks around and tells Tuck they’re going home to daddy.

Derek enters his trailer, only to find that Meredith is not there either. He then sees a lot of candles in the distance and someone walking around. As he approaches, he can hear Meredith telling herself she can’t believe she did this. He calls her name and she’s relieved to see him, although she’s been wondering where he was as she did this stupid, corny thing. She has created a floor plan of their house with candles and she points him to their kitchen, their living room, and the room where their kids can play. She had this thing prepared about building a house but she doesn’t build houses because she’s a surgeon. Now she feels like a lame loser. She got all whole and healed and he didn’t show up and she couldn’t even find that bottle of champagne. Derek holds up the bottle and smiles. He says the floor plan is a little small and makes some adjustments. He asks where their bedroom is. She says she doesn’t know yet if she trusts him, but she’s gonna try because she believes they can be extraordinary together rather than ordinary apart. He walks up to her and kisses her. After a couple of seconds, he stops and says he has to go. In order to kiss her like he wants to and do more than kissing, he needs to go break up with Rose. He wants his conscience clear so he can do more than kiss her. He tells her to stay here, not to move, and wait for him. He walks off, leaving her alone with the bottle of champagne. She stares after him.

Cast[]

Main Cast[]

Guest Stars[]

Co-Starring[]

Medical Notes[]

Rebecca Pope[]

  • Diagnosis:
    • Underlying borderline personality disorder
    • Slit wrists
  • Treatment:
    • Stitches
    • Alprazolam
    • Clonazepam
    • Pysch consult
    • Residential psychiatric care

Alex brought Rebecca into the ER and stitched up her wrists. Izzie prescribed medicine to calm her down and called psych. Dr. Shapiro came down to talk to her. He diagnosed her with underlying borderline personality disorder. She stayed the night in the hospital and then was transferred to a residential psychiatric facility.

Beth Monroe[]

  • Diagnosis:
    • Malignant glioma
    • Right side paralysis
  • Treatment:
    • Clinical trial
    • Surgery

Beth had surgery as part of the clinical trial despite the series of losses and was the first patient to survive. Scans then showed that her tumor was shrinking as planned. She was also able to move her right side again.

Andrew Langston[]

  • Diagnosis:
    • Crush injuries
    • Third-degree burns
    • Chest injuries
    • Limb injuries
    • Pulmonary embolus
    • Anxiety
  • Treatment:
    • Catheter
    • Intubation
    • Surgery
    • Embolectomy
    • Diphenhydramine

Andrew was still trapped in the cement. They placed his catheter as the rescue workers continued to chip away at the cement. They prepared for him to crash as the last piece of cement was removed. He did so and they moved him to a gurney, intubated, restarted his heart, and took him into surgery. They thought they were almost out of the woods in surgery, when he threw a clot and Cristina had to do a pulmonary embolectomy to remove the clot. After surgery, he was stable. He had anxiety, which they treated with diphenhydramine.

Meredith Grey[]

  • Diagnosis:
  • Treatment:
    • Talk therapy

Meredith and Dr. Wyatt continued to talk about Ellis's attempted suicide. Wyatt encouraged Meredith to figure out what her mother meant on her own. She figured out that her mother didn't really want to die as if she had, she would have cut her carotid artery, not her wrists.

Music[]

Song Performer Scene
"The Cure for Pain" Jon Foreman
  • Wyatt encourages Meredith to work out the answer for herself.
  • Derek is frustrated with the lack of progress.
  • George tells Lexie she didn't do him a favor by telling him the test results.
  • Alex tells Izzie Rebecca doesn't need psych and yells at Izzie when she persists.
"Hometown Glory" Adele
  • Beth is wheeled to surgery.
  • Derek is upset at being a failure.
  • Andrew is coding. Cristina says she can do the embolectomy he needs. Richard allows her.
  • Derek tells Beth she doesn't have to have the surgery and they both admit they're scared.
  • Cristina successfully removes the clot despite Erica berating her and trying to take over.
"Quest" Bryn Christopher
  • Meredith goes to the trailer to find Derek. She finds Richard, who apologizes to her.
  • Mark tells Callie to go get Erica. Callie goes up to Erica and kisses her.
  • Derek goes to the house to find Meredith.
  • Richard goes home and tells Adele he wants to come home. She says it's about time.
  • George tells Lexie he's retaking his intern test. He kisses her and thanks her.
  • Izzie says she's sorry to Alex. Alex kisses her.
  • Richard kisses Adele.
  • Mark watches Callie and Erica kiss.
  • Izzie pulls back from the kiss and then holds Alex as he cries.
  • Bailey shuts off the lights at the clinic.
"Keep Me Warm" Ida Maria
  • Meredith has built a house of candles for Derek and is berating herself for it.
  • She starts ranting when she sees Derek.
  • Meredith tells Derek she wants them to be extraordinary together instead of ordinary apart.
  • He kisses her.
  • Derek tells her he needs to go talk to Rose and tells Meredith to wait for him.

Notes and Trivia[]

Grey's_Anatomy_4x16_Freedom_Promo

Grey's Anatomy 4x16 Freedom Promo

  • This episode's title originated from the song Freedom, originally sung by The Isley Brothers.
  • This episode scored 18.09 million viewers.[1]

Gallery[]

Episode Stills[]

Quotes[]

Richard: I'm not a bad man. I know I'm the villain in your story, but I'm not a bad man.

Callie: Hey! I wanted to see if you wanted to grab a drink.
Erica: I can't find my keys.
Callie: Maybe we could um... I had something I wanted to talk to you about...
Erica: I had the damn keys this morning, I put them in this bag, but I can't remember. This whole thing with Yang has got me so messed up.
Callie: Erica!
Erica: What?
Callie: I'm saying something here... I just, I wanted to say... I just wanted to say...
(She leans in and kisses Erica)

Adele: Richard?
Richard: I want to come home.
Adele: Richard...
Richard: I'm a good man. I'm a good man. I've spent my days being a good man for the hospital, for my residents, for my patients, I'm a good man who made one mistake with a woman twenty years ago. And I'm a good man for everybody except you I know that. Would you think I don't know that. But I'm a good man. And I'm your husband. And I love you. Now I am not asking you to come home. I'm telling you. I am your husband. And I want to come home to my wife.
(Richard stops for a moment, with a sense of resignation begins to turn)
Adele: You know... It's about time.
(They kiss.)

Meredith: (standing in a candle-lit outline of a house) Stupid, corny, idiotic, I cannot believe I did this. Stupid, loser, son of a ... I could be at home instead of ... stupid brain man...
Derek: Meredith....
Meredith: Where have you been?! I've been waiting and waiting for you! And I did this stupid, embarrassing, humiliating, corny thing. And I was just gonna tell you that, this over here is our kitchen and this is our living room, and over there that's the room where our kids could play. I had this whole thing about I was gonna build us a house, but I don't build houses because I'm a surgeon! And now I'm here feeling like a lame ass loser. I got all whole and healed and you don't show up. And now it's all ruined because you took so long to come home! And I couldn't even find that bottle of champagne (Derek holds up the bottle, shows it to her and smiles.)
Derek: This the kitchen? Living room? A little small. I think the view's much better from here. And that's where the kids are going to play? Where's our bedroom?
Meredith: I'm still mad at you and I don't know if I trust you, I wanna trust you, but I don't know if I do. So I'm just gonna try, I'm gonna try and trust you. Because I believe that, we can be extraordinary together rather than ordinary apart and I wanna be ...
(They kiss.)
Derek: I have to go.
Meredith: What?
Derek: In order to kiss you the way I wanna kiss you and in order to do more than kiss you I need to speak to Rose. I want my conscience clear so I can do more than kiss you. Stay here, don't move, wait for me.

Rose: I think I liked it better when you were saying boring science stuff.
Derek: I'm never good enough. No matter what I say or what I do. I never wanted to do this. This clinical trial is making me a failure. I fail her over... and over... and over.
Rose: You mean them. (Derek turns around.) When you say fail her, you mean them. The... patients.

(Derek pulls champagne bottle out of the trash and gives it one wipe.)
Cristina: That's not sanitary.


See Also[]

A complete overview of this episode's crew can be found here.

The Grey Matter blog post on this episode can be found here.

References[]

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