Grey's Anatomy: Grey Matter

Marti Noxon on "Sometimes a Miracle"

Original airdate: 2-22-07

A few months ago, I got a call from Shonda and Betsy Beers.  I was lying on the floor when they called.  I had my computer in front of me, so I was “writing”.   I’d recently had lunch with Shonda and Betsy, and a few other meals with Shonda before that.  So we’d hung out .  We’d dined.  We’d complained about…  things only lucky TV people complain about.  Things related to actually having jobs.  Things which, by real world standards, barely even qualify as problems.  But that’s why we need each other.  Because we get each other, man 

When the call came, despite previous eating and complaining, I was intimidated.  Shonda and Betsy had created this monster hit, this highly-entertaining medical drama that millions of people watched and adored.  Including me.  I mean, Shonda’s kind of eerily talented -- and she knows Oprah. 

But, honestly, I needed a good call.  I was working on a soon-to-be Ill-fated pilot. Before that it was a brief and ill-fated stay on an otherwise successful ABC show.  And before that I launched a brief and ill-fated series for Fox.  And before that I worked on a…  brief and ill-fated series for Fox.

We see a pattern. 

Buffy was good.  Can we talk about Buffy? 

Problem is ? Buffy was a long time ago.  She lives on ?- Season 8 soon to be in comic book form…  But, in my nightmares, I’m 90 at a Buffy convention, and nobody wants my autograph.  They’re all in line to see virtual Joss, who has invented a way to put his brain in a jar on a floaty thing, live forever and be funnier and more prolific than everybody for THE REST OF ALL TIME.  I love Joss, but it’s hard being his friend. 

Like I was saying.  I needed a good call.  And it came.  Would I like to “come hang out” on Grey’s for a while?  I’ll skip the part where I hung up and cried and called my agent and he cried and we all cried because, try as I might, it would be hard for me, personally, to turn Grey’s into an “ill-fated” show.  Especially since I was to have a vague job title, no authority and non-specific duties.

So I hung out.  For a few days it was all Christmas baskets and trying to make Shonda laugh (she was dying from iron deficiency and was too weak to lift the corners of her mouth ? nobody knew that yet, so I danced like a little monkey.  But more on that later).  I also got to hang with the aforementioned Shonda and Betsy (so great at her job and so funny she makes me laugh until things come out of my nose); the amazing Krista Vernoff (amazing and pregnant and beautiful and able to write many fabulous pages in a single bound); Allan Heinberg -- Joss-like in his smartness and multi-talentedness; the warm, funny and ridiculously “on-it” in-every-way Tony and Joan Phelan; The Hammer ? Mark Wilding ? a great writer and The Godfather around here;  fantastic (also lovely and pregnant) Debora, whose writing made me laugh and cry and all that other envy-inducing stuff; Stacy who can produce both wonderful scripts and amazing portraits of people made entirely of pipe cleaners…  Not to mention the always enchanting Kip and Caro …    Zoanne and Elizabeth, great writers and the people who actually know what doctors do and say.   Every one of them was welcoming and seriously funny and dedicated.   Also -- Kern, Eric, Darren, Jim, Chris, Sonay ? assistants today ? our bosses tomorrow.  Tremendously funny and talented in their own right.

Finally ? a special mention of Meg, the Writer’s PA, who we all adore ? in the way that only creatures in captivity can love the person who brings them food.  I’ve worked quite a few places, and I can honestly say that the single greatest benefit of working on a hit show is that Meg appears, at lunch time, with hot food and everything is as ordered. This may seem like a small thing, but for some reason in has proved impossible everywhere but here.  And when lunch doesn’t come, writers get cranky and they stop working.  They start talking about Nascar and our ex-whatevers, shopping, musicals and what we ate yesterday.  (Okay, not Nascar ? but I’m doing what I can to butch up the writer image here.)   So thank God for Meg, who is great at many other things ? but basically keeps Grey’s Anatomy up and running.

But I digress.  I figured I had some time.  I was just around to do… what exactly?  Nobody knew.  This is the truth about the “consulting” title.  Nobody knows what it is.  I think it has something to do with lunch.

But Shonda and company had other ideas.   Shonda’s first part of a two-part episode became a two-parter itself ? Ferry Hell, one and two. The ones in which Meredith goes into the water and dies.  So Shonda suddenly had all this work to do and it turned out she had no IRON in her blood.  And very little blood in her blood.  Shonda needed help.  From a doctor most of all ? but a little help from me on the side.  Which is how I came to co-write this episode of Grey's.   

And the fact that there are dead people in it is just a coincidence.  For those of you who fear I’m whispering in Shonda’s ear about the dark side and alternate realities and stuff ? this was her thing, okay?  I’m here to write MEDICINE, people.  And sex.  And sexy medicine.

I was again ? intimidated. It was a challenge to write and shoot for so many reasons.  Not in a digital-ferry-crashing-into-a-digital-dock way, but still…  This, again, wasn’t a typical Grey’s.  Half of it takes place…  where?  In Meredith’s head?  In Heaven?  We decided, for obvious reasons, not to get too specific.  And we knew Meredith had to go on a journey.  But, get it wrong and it’s “Touched by an Icy Blue Surgeon.” And Denny and Dylan?  I’m supposed to touch the sacredness of Denny and Dylan?  I think not.  All will agree that I basically punted that stuff.

But you know, Denny and Izzie at the end.  Shonda’s been talking about that since she pitched me the episode.  It was heart-breaking then, in my office with bad lighting…  So on it’s feet -- awesome.  But  I’ll let Shonda weigh in more on that favorite moment.

Back in Seattle Grace we struggled with going to such a dark place and finding the funny.  Not that we found a lot of funny.  If there’s a theme here ? besides the search for Miracles -- it’s “death sucks.” 

For me, what emerged were the love stories.  Not just between Derek and Meredith, but between Cristina and Meredith.   That essential friendship.  Cristina walking out was something that was hotly debated here.  Apparently ? that’s not good doctoring (I’m new!)  But it felt right.  If not now, when?  Meredith is Cristina’s person.  And Richard and Ellis…   That love coming to a definitive end.   There’s a lot of grief in all of this, but there’s great hope too.  It’s the lesson from “the other place” too.  We are who we love.

In any case - Shonda did all the heavy lifting.  She found the moments that sing for me,  that pull it all together.  I was still running around asking dumb things like “what’s an Attending?”  Then Adam Arkin, a wonderful actor in his own right, did an amazing job directing it.  And, as you’ll see ? all the actors are in stunningly good form.  But aren’t they always?

Oh yeah ? they are really that pretty.  That’s fun. 

So.  Thanks for letting me blog.  It really was a good call to get ? “come hang at Grey’s.”  The people here are tremendous, and the show’s pretty damn fun to write when it isn’t trying to kill us all.  I hope to stick around, at least until somebody tells me what an Attending is. 

***and the agent weeps***

Drowning on Dry Land...

Original airdate: 2/15/07

So, yeah, that was Denny and Dylan.

I’m trying to be all casual about it.

Like I don’t care.

Like, you know, Denny and Dylan, whatever…I’m cool, I’m good.

But I almost hugged Jeffrey Dean Morgan to death when he arrived on set.   He was nice about it considering the restraining order he should have taken out against me during Season Two.  I was glad to see him.  And I was glad to see Kyle Chandler who was gracious enough to fly out here and film on one of his very few days off from the very well-written Friday Night Lights. 

See, I miss Denny and Dylan.  A lot.   So it was nice to see them for a moment, wasn’t it?  Even if Meredith is dead?

You all have some pretty strong feelings about this.  I’ve been reading your comments.  STRONG feelings.  Which I respect.  Grey’s is in its third season and we’re doing something a little…different.  It’s about time we did.  Because, just as I said when you all shouted your horror about the Meredith/George sex, I remind you that we writers like to follow the characters here and we try very hard not to make story just to make story.  We like to have a point.  Meredith being dead is about…well, you will see what it is about next week.  She was in pain, this girl. And…

…okay, I don’t want to talk about that.  Meredith being dead at the end of this episode.  I can’t.  Not yet. 

What I want to talk about is the other interns.  Because they all take some truly interesting journeys.  Izzie and Alex especially.   Izzie’s is one my favorites.  I didn’t come up with the “rock star” line and I wasn’t standing on set when it was shot but that was one of my favorite Katie Heigl moments this season.   She’s good, that girl.  What I like about Izzie is that, right now, she’s fighting for George.  No one else agrees with her and she’s going about it all wrong but still…she truly believes her best friend is in trouble and she’s fighting to make him see it.  It may be none of her business but when do we stay out of the business of those that we love?  But I gotta admit, I adore Callie and in that moment, when Izzie tells George he made a mistake marrying Callie, I hate Izzie.  Just hate her.  But she’s a good person and she never holds her tongue and for that, I respect her.  But will George?

It’s interesting to see Alex dealing with this Jane Doe and her horrible, painful to watch face.  He’s got some growing to do, this guy and hopefully, we’ll see him begin to do that.  Plus, I love the moment when he tells Addison that he’d notice if she went missing. I don’t know that they are in any way right for one another but it was a kind thing to say to a woman he has heat with.  Cause, I don’t know if you noticed?  But Addison’s lonely these days and a little bit adrift.

The most interesting one to watch this episode is Derek.  I don’t know if you remember that in first season, he said to Meredith:  “You were like coming up for fresh air.  I was drowning and you saved me.”  It was good to be able to call that back (everything comes back around eventually on this show, I find) and to see what happens when Meredith is drowning.  He’s not Mer’s knight in shining whatever ? he gets kicked out the trauma room where Richard and Bailey are working on her.   He’s forced to sit out in the hall, helpless.  And he’s seeing his worst nightmare come true.  Because he’s realizing:  Meredith has become so important to him and the prospect of losing her is terrifying.  Who is he if he isn’t the guy who rescues Mer?  Who is he when he can’t save a life?

Shoots With No Script was anxious about tonight.  Not in an obvious way.  In a Shoots With No Script kind of way.   All under the surface and mellow.  But I know he was.  ‘Cause I was anxious too.   We make these episodes and then we sit still, freaked out, and wait to see how it feels when it goes on the air.  It’s a little like having to speak in public and we never get used to it.  Because you all have a reaction.  And we care about that.

Also, because Shoots With No Script and I are both a teensy bit neurotic.  But you knew that…

-Shonda

Shonda on "Walk on Water"

Original airdate: 2/8/07

Holy crap, am I glad it is my turn to blog again!  I have missed it, let me tell you!  How is everyone?  You still out there?  Still good?

Or are you yelling and screaming at your TV sets and cursing my name for throwing Meredith into the water and then rolling the credits on you?

I don’t blame you for the cursing.  But please remember that next week, things get even more interesting and then the week after that, they get REALLY interesting.  I don’t want to talk about it.  Or give anything away….

Which means there’s not much I can blog about.  Damn it.  I can tell you that this episode (as well as the next) was directed by the famous Bossy McBossy Rob Corn.  And that before he had a script, he kept coming into my office to say in that quiet, calm voice of his: “YOU.  ARE.  KILLING.  ME.” 

See, it’s that time of year again.  That time of year when I get all sick and flu-y and my brain goes stupid and so I start to lie face down on the carpet in my office threatening to flee the country because my ability to write has clearly leaked out of my ear while I was sleeping.  Every year, like clockwork, it happens.  And every year, like clockwork, it takes me by surprise.   You’d think I’d learn.  But I don’t.  I don’t learn.

So Bossy McBossy is waiting for pages and I’m gathering my passport and calling the airports and Betsy (who sits in the office next to mine and keeps me sane) very kindly keeps coming in to remind me that I have pitched the entire 3 episode arc to her eight or nine times in vivid detail over the past five months.  All I have to do, she says (using, I might add, the exact same voice one uses with a three year old who won’t give you the sharp objects in her mouth), all I have to do is WRITE DOWN the things I have pitched her.  All I have to do PUT THEM ON PAPER.

HA!

Everyone knows the key component of serious, rampant procrastination is the inability to put anything on paper. 

Okay, I am actually procrastinating by writing about procrastinating.  On to the point, which is this:  Rob Corn worked his behind off shooting this episode with pages being fed to him as he shot and for that, I will no longer be referring to him as Bossy McBossy. Instead from this moment on, I will call him by his new tribal name: Shoots With No Script.

Now, Shoots With No Script will tell you that I had very definite ideas about this episode.  And I did.  But they were all character-based.  They were all about Meredith’s attitude and the little girl and Izzie and her tub of butter and Cristina and the notion that, in choosing to marry, she fears that she is LITERALLY being left behind in more ways than having to stay at the hospital while everyone goes to the accident site.  They were all about Derek and Burke and their conversation about “these women” and Richard and his badly dyed hair.  My thoughts were all about disappearing.

They were not about things that Shoots With A Script needed to know.  They were not, for instance, about what the ferry should look like when we first see it.  Because, if you know anything about me, you know I don’t want to think about hurting a ferry boat.  I, like McDreamy, have a thing for ferry boats.  Ferry boats are awesome and, in fact, very safe.  Ferry boats are amazing.

Ferry boats are a metaphor for Meredith, you know.

What I was interested in was Meredith and how she was doing after being hurt by her mother.   And the devastation of the ferry boat was the best way to physicalize Meredith’s pain.

The little girl?  She’s also a metaphor for Mer.  A motherless lost girl who can’t speak for herself and disappears?  Okay, that’s too obvious.  But you all know Meredith’s been doing a dance with death for some time.  Y’all know that if you’ve been watching.  She’s dark, our girl.  She’s dark and twisty.  And I worry about her.

Now, I’m really worried about her because she’s in the water and I want to be clear with you:  I don’t put people in the water for no reason.  Meredith’s got issues, she’s got serious Mommy issues and she’s broken and she’s in the water. 

I killed Denny.  I blew up Dylan.

I’m not entirely playing by the rules of TV here.

There’s a point.  And it’s coming.  Shoots With A Script and I have our fingers and toes crossed that it works.

Because what happens next…well, just wait and see…

Okay, I rambled and I procrastinated and I should just stop writing and let you go ahead and yell at me now…

Joan Rater is "Wishin' and Hopin'"

Original Airdate: 2-1-07

So … Tony, my writing partner who also happens to be my husband had brain surgery last year.  He’s fine.  Totally fine.  But it was brain surgery and there was a chance that he wasn’t going to be fine.  And Tony has a good brain.  The kind of brain that remembers everything.  And I mean, everything ? names, dates, entire casts of television shows from the 70’s.  His whole family is scary smart, trivia contest winning smart, and even they acknowledge the superiority of Tony’s Brain.  So, when Tony was about to have his head cut open we were all worried about Tony’s Brain.  What if it isn’t the same?  Who is he if he isn’t the guy who knows everything?

During this time, I discovered something about my brain.  Stress - especially the stress of having a husband about to have a craniotomy - makes me forgetful.  The name of my kid’s teacher would suddenly elude me.  The lyrics to a song.  I’d go upstairs to get something but forget what I was there for.  There was one day, a few days before his surgery, where I was standing at an ATM unable to remember my PIN number.  The PIN number I’ve had for 10 years, the one I punch in without thinking everyday.  I needed money for parking but my secret code eluded me.  So I had to call a friend to bring me money.  I knew it was just the stress of the surgery, but still, while I waited on a street corner for my friend, I felt frustrated and embarrassed. 

I tell you these things about Tony’s surgery and my stressed out brain because those scary, frustrated feelings were on my mind a lot when I was writing this episode. This episode was obviously about a lot of things, but for me, it was really about Alzheimer’s disease.  How devastating it is to families, how it turns spouses and children into caretakers, how it robs people of their memory, their identity.
 
The concept of someone with this disease having a lucid day is real.  The disease varies for everyone, but experts we talked to said that patients have bad days and good days and then sometimes they have great days where it seems like they are their old selves.  Maybe it’s a moment, maybe an hour, for some a whole afternoon, but we were fascinated with the idea of getting this time, this gift, and knowing that it’s only temporary.  What would you do with that one day?  And what would it mean for Meredith? 

The words “ELLIS HAS A LUCID DAY” have been up on the board in the writers’ room since last season.  We knew it was a cool idea - what it would mean for Mer and Ellis to be able to connect again ? but we never really knew what to do with it.  I can’t tell you the number of times we’ve tried to put it in episodes but it never felt quite right.  If you’re going to give Meredith her mother back and then take her away again, you’d better have a pretty good reason.   Last season Meredith had her hands full with the Derek/Finn of it all.  The beginning of this season was so much about the aftermath of Denny.  But now it feels to me like the interns are entering a new period, a period that is really about identity.  Who are they as surgeons?  Can they have a life and a career?  Can they be happy?  Meredith is … or at least she should be. She and Derek are together and she finally has a chance at happiness.    Perfect time for her mother to show up. 

I really mean that.  Not because the writers love to torture poor Meredith, but seriously, if Meredith is ever going to be happy she’s got to deal with the fact that she had a really terrible childhood.   

On the set, when we were shooting the scene where Ellis Meredith what happened to her -- and tells her how disappointing it is that Meredith turned out so ordinary -- after the first take when the amazing Kate Burton really just went all Ellis Grey on Meredith, there was this silence. It was so awful and raw and ugly, these terrible things Ellis was saying.  And the silence was broken by someone on the crew who said, “Oh, now I get all the drinking and the sex with inappropriate men.” And it was cathartic to be on the set when Meredith finally stood up to her and said,  “You want to know why I’m so ordinary?  What happened to me?  You.  You happened to me.”  I think Ellen’s work in this episode, especially in that scene, is exceptional.

And then finally, Ellis and Richard.  With him she lets her guard down and we see her be vulnerable.  And when she tells Richard that she wishes she could do things differently, she made so many mistakes, if she could do it all over, she’d be fine with being happy, like Meredith says she’s happy, that she’d be satisfied to just be ordinary … Shonda took the final pass on that scene, and the actors did a remarkable job with it. It gets me everytime I watch it.

Because that’s really what it’s all about.  We have to cherish the time that we have here, and love the people who surround and support us, even if they make us crazy.  Because things happen.  Brain surgery, and Alzheimer’s and weddings.  And the worst thing is to come to the end of your life and realize, like Ellis, that you should have tried harder.

I know this isn’t an ordinary blog ? there’s so much that happened in this episode that I didn’t talk about.  But this wasn’t an ordinary episode.  And I just wanted to give you a little window into what I was thinking about when I wrote it.