The Rest Of Us Just Go To A Therapist

***Spoilers for Grey's Anatomy****


The alternate title of this post was "you don't have to die to hug your mother." But I thought that might give too much away at the outset.

I do, however, think it was nice of Denny and Pink Mist and Train Girl and Mean Nurse and Dead Dog to all make an appearance at Merediith's 'getting-to-know-me' deathday party. I am, however, questioning my belief in a merciful God, given his decision to throw her back.

Between last night's Lost and tonight's Grey's Anatomy, I'm starting to realise just how tired I am of television dramas exploring exploiting Mommy & Daddy issues. I think that as a writer that's the easiest path to take when analysing your characters. Parental issues are a walk in the park, because nearly everyone has them to a degree.

Therein lies the problem. Since nearly everyone has parental issues, we've all had to work on them in our own ways. We see therapists, ministers and good friends. We take up crocheting or handball to keep our hands busy and burn off the energy. A lot of us write blogs as an exercise in exploring the people we want to be now that we can't keep blaming mommy and daddy. But not one of us out here in Viewerland gets to be as utterly cruel and self-centered as Jack on Lost and Meredith on Grey's. We have not yet been nor ever will be able to parlay the insecurities and self-doubt born of those parental issues into a festival of MEness. We do not beat up Thai tattoo artists with bad hair and we certainly don't randomly kill ourselves so that the dead will indulge us with a fifty-minute hour of talking it out.

And that's what tonight's Grey's Anatomy was. It was a rip-off of Fiscus' temporary death on St. Elsewhere, coupled with more than a few stolen grace notes from Hawkeye's journey into madness during the M*A*S*H series finale Goodbye, Farewell and Amen. The dead assemble to show Meredith the error of her ways, but seem to think that oblique hinting is a better way to do this than an outright slap across the face. Oh, I so longed to see at least one of the departed smack Meredith across her dead face and ream her out for throwing away life. Instead, Denny tells Meredith exactly why she must go on living. The upshot of his speech is that everyone at Seattle Grace believes in fairies and unicorns and rainbows and soft puppies and Meredith's Sainthood. If she gives up on life, apparently no one at Seattle Grace has reason to exist. Meredith IS the wizard, and she must return to the hospital to give George his courage, Alex his heart and Izzie her brain. Christina gets some fabulous red shoes for ninety-nine cents.