When last we left what was once television’s most adorable ‘couple’ of hot docs, Callie (Sara Ramirez) and Arizona (Jessica Capshaw) on Grey’s Anatomy, Arizona had kinda / sorta camped out on Callie’s doorstep to beg forgiveness for heartlessly abandoning Callie. Then the duo saved a child’s leg together and it seemed just a matter of time before they became the poster children for pseudo-normalized representation of lesbians on television. And then this week’s episode happened!
For those of you who haven’t run to Hulu to catch up with the docs since the episode aired Thursday, big – although not wholly unpredictable, as someone on the SheWired Facebook page called this – SPOILERS ahead…
Here’s my Gay-Cap for the week, but before I boil it down to the gay storyline, kudos are in order for eat-her-with-a-spoon she’s so cute Amber Stevens (Greek’s Ashleigh), who guest starred as a sassy young intern who kept Justin Chambers’ Dr. Karev severely distracted from medicine for the bulk of the episode.
But back to the story at hand --the Callie / Arizona tale for this week opens with Callie crying and shaking her head in the mirror, ostensibly because of Arizona’s sudden reprise at Seattle Grace. One would assume Callie had begun to heal and that Arizona just ripped open the wounds with her return -- to indulge in some medical metaphors… But even from the get-go this crying jag seems more pointed, as if there were more to it than heartbreak.
Despite the heaving and the tears, Callie cleans up well. She and Mark are leaving the apartment when they discover a chipper Arizona, surrounded by boxes, in the hallway of Callie’s apt. It turns out that Arizona has bought out the subletters, who actually happened to be Callie’s subletters, but why let a little thing like paperwork get in the way of winning your girl back right?
But Callie is not impressed as she heaps an insult-laden go the fuck away sort of speech on Arizona. And well, Callie’s a better woman than I because Arizona would have had me at ‘hello I'm moving in whether you like it or not’ with those thoughtful baby blues.
“My lack of interest in seeing you is not a strategy. I’m not playing hard to get,” Callie spouts. “I don’t want to see you. I turned my life upside / down for you and you walked away because, for a week, I was cranky.”
And if that weren’t enough, she adds that Arizona is “untrustworthy” and “self-centered.” “I am 100-percent certain that if I let you back into my life that you will hurt me again… Get your crap out of my apartment,” she says.
And maybe Arizona is a tad self-centered. Whereas most folks might engage in a moment of reflection at that point, she says to Mark, “It’s good that she’s mad. It means she cares right?”
More on next page...
\\\
(continued)
Fast forward to the beginning of Callie’s work day and she’s front and center when an ambulance bearing a gay couple, Brady, who’s been trampled by horses, and his partner Kyle (Wilson Cruz in a full-dress kilt), pulls up. Kyle explains that it’s their wedding day – or according to the state, their domestic partnership day – and he wanted to make it special for his proud Scot of a boyfriend, with full dress, a horse-drawn carriage and bagpipes. Well, the bagpipes spooked the horses and the boyfriend ended up trampled as these things go on television.
Clearly just plain irritated, Callie tosses Kyle out of the room. “I have a right to stay with him,” Kyle tells Callie, speaking to the very real issue of LGBT partners and hospital situations. But Callie has her own LGBT issues to deal with. More on this later…
Meanwhile, as a Shonda Rhimes-dealt fate would have it, Mark (Eric Dane) and Arizona are working on a teen who needs risky reconstructive surgery on her cheekbones. And Mark, failing to cop to his serious foibles -- mainly being self-centered, arrogant and taking advantage of his best friend (Callie) by literally screwing her when she was emotionally fragile from a break-up --becomes priest and confessor for Arizona.
“I’m competitive, a workaholic, I smoke when I’m stressed,” Arizona says in an attempt to define just why Callie is so unwilling to forgive her. Following an argument over how to proceed with their patient’s treatment Mark also lays it on Arizona that she’s a lousy listener. I mean, why should he bother with any clarity about his own faults when he can just rail on Arizona for Callie?
But Arizona is desperate to win back her lady, and who can blame her, especially if she sings like this in the shower… Arizona approaches Callie to say that she really wants to listen to Callie’s needs.
“Really, take it in and give me what I want?” Callie queries. “Get your crap out of my apartment.” But something tells me Arizona is not yet swayed by Callie’s admonishments.
While still on the ‘ready-to-listen’ bent Arizona tells Mark she’s ready to hear about his cadaver bone procedure for their patient. But he just can’t resist giving her shit and teases her about the listening exercise.
“I suck. I’m a stuck-up, self-righteous bitch and Callie wants nothing to do with me,” Arizona says, adding that she really just wants to take care of the patient at that point.
More on next page...
\\\
(continued)
Back in the waiting room Kyle gives an impassioned, impromptu LGBT rights speech to Callie. “We don’t get marriage in Washington. We get domestic partnerships,” he says. Adding that he fought hard for marriage equality, marching, protesting, being the object of derision by antigay people… He says he wanted his wedding day to be more special than a trip to the DMV.
A thoughtful Callie, enrapt in her personal issues and with a poor bedside manner says, “Things don’t go the way you want them to… ever.”
Back to Arizona and Mark quipping in the O.R. She’s chatting about what she thinks the nature of his relationship with Callie is – best friends. Fuck buddy best friends never enters into the conversation. Arizona likens her relationship with Mark to that of siblings, and this is portentous. “You’re like me family to me. I mean that,” she says.
Next, Kyle’s partner Brady is awake and Kyle is apologizing profusely while Callie hangs back until Brady stops him.
“I forgive you, so stop apologizing,” he says. And that’s another portent, as someone, whom we think is Callie, will need to learn the art of forgiveness.
More on next page...
\\\
(continued)
Finally, Arizona asks Mark what she needs to cop to for Callie to forgive her. “You bail,” he says. “When things get hard you bail.”
Following an exhausting work day of saving lives under duress from obsessing about personal issues Callie heads to the elevator, the place where every momentous piece of her life occurs and there’s a big one coming.
Like a gorgeous little ninja Arizona slides into the elevator just as the doors are about to close. And they are trapped for 30 seconds it takes to descend to the exit. In fact, let’s call this part of the show No Exit, not unlike Sartre’s play about how everyone creates a personal hell.
Unfettered by Callie’s repeated dismissals Arizona takes a new tack based on questionably sound advice from Mark.
“I bail,” Arizona blurts, adding that she is committed to Callie. “At some point you’re going to have to forgive me and it may as well be now because I am in love with you –and you know she means it because she uses the full name – Calliope and you are in love with me. And all I am asking for is one more chance.”
More on next page...
\\\
(continued)
Here is where Mark should have informed Arizona to be careful what she wishes for. Callie goads Arizona questioning if she really wants one more chance. And here is where I wish they had paid for the rights to the Law & Order SVU sound effect (Dunt duh, or however it’s spelled).
“Today I found out that I’m pregnant with Mark’s baby,” is the nuclear bomb Callie drops. “How about now?” referring to wanting a second chance. The camera pulls back and Callie and a gobsmacked Arizona are faced off in the elevator.
At this point I find myself shouting at Callie from my living room, 'This is why we don't rebound with boys," or, "use a condom DOCTOR Torres!"
So where do they go from here? Will Arizona truly bail? Will she stick around to help raise Callie and Mark’s baby because Mark’s too self-involved to want a child? Will Callie, Arizona, Mark and Lexie Grey move across from the hall from each other and raise the baby in a modern-day navel-gazing commune? These are the questions that the manipulative Shonda Rhimes has placed posed and damned if I won’t tune in to see where this convoluted story line ends up.
.
Follow SheWired on Twitter!
Follow SheWired on Facebook!
Be SheWired's Friend on MySpace!
