GREY'S ANOMALY... The Musical Episode

I came late to the Grey's party. After three years of rolling my eyes at the hype, I realized that I really had no business scoffing at something I'd never seen or had only ever watched 20 random minutes of. I started watching at the beginning of Season 4, following the exit of Isaiah Washington (Burke). Many people tell me that I missed the show at its best, but in the time that I've watched it, I have come to love it. The ensemble is first-rate and while the writing can be a bit precious, it can also be simple, poetic and searing and the direction and editing are consistently fantastic.


Since the series premiere, one of things that Grey's Anatomy has been most beloved for, in addition to its stories and its cast, is its music. The show has, perhaps more than any other nighttime drama, incorporated both popular and obscure music brilliantly and seamless into its storylines. In some cases, songs became hits after they were featured on the show. Singer-songwriters far and wide dream of get a tune placed on Grey's. The show's music supervisor is one of the best in the business, always finding the perfect track to place in the perfect moment for maximum emotional impact while not coming across as manipulative. In the highly-anticipated musical episode, some of the show's most beloved songs "come to life" in the mouths of the show's characters.

The story centers around the immediate aftermath of Callie and Arizona's horrible car accident, which leaves a very-pregnant Callie fighting for her life. The accident happens immediately following Arizona's marriage proposal; before a stunned Callie is able to answer, their car ploughs into the back of a truck. While Arizona suffers a few nasty gashes to her head, Callie goes through the rear windshield and lies on the trunk near death. (Kudos to the makeup team for their fine work in this scene... seeing Callie is harrowing.)

In the episode, Callie is the out-of-body observer, ever-present as she watches her terrifying struggle to survive while her friends desperately work to save her and her unborn child. The scenes in which she sings from this observer standpoint work really nicely, particularly in the first song, Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol. The wonderful Tony-winning Sara Ramirez (Callie), who won the 2005 Featured Actress statuette for her role in Spamalot, has a beautiful, strong and emotive voice. (The show might have worked much better had she done all the singing.) However an honourable mention goes to Chyler Leigh (Lexie) who has some lovely moments, most notably in the scene in which she walks through the hospital corridors trying to compose herself while singing Faith Hill's Breathe, then finds Callie's best friend and father of her child Mark (Eric Dane) and sings it to him. That works really nicely. Chyler has a sweet voice, as does Broadway vet Chandra Wilson (Bailey). Unfortunately, Bailey's song moments are poorly chosen and don't work nearly as well.

Things start to go off the rails pretty quickly when the singing takes place not from a point of observation, but smack-dab in the centre of the action. The first "tell-me-this-isn't-happening" moment is when we're forced to watch Kevin McKidd (Owen) sing as he rushes Callie's gurney down the hallway. The show then gives us moment after moment after moment of people singing at absolutely ridiculous times -- even freakin' while performing Callie's operations, in some instances singing through surgical masks! WHAT THE?! That's bad enough, but these scenes are made harder to watch by the fact that instead of being part of the episode's soundtrack, the songs are separate canned recordings that are badly lipsynced by pretty much everyone except for Sara Ramirez and Chyler Leigh. It's a bit of an artistic car wreck.

What could have worked SO much better, and this did happen for the second half of the song How To Save A Life, would have been for the songs to be recorded by the actors but still used as background music, not sung by the characters in the middle of the action. That way we still would have gotten the emotional impact of hearing the actors' voices as opposed to the original recording artists, and it would have personalized the scenes so much more to have had the characters singing those lyrics at those moments. As an aside, there is also the bizarre decision to bring back Addison (Kate Walsh) as a special guest star for the musical episode, which you'd think would suggest that she has vocal chops and is going to sing something. But nope, not a note.

Things go horribly - I mean HORRIBLY - wrong when suddenly for no justifiable reason, while their close friend and colleague is in the hospital overnight close to meeting her maker, the doctors all decide to have sex romps and sing happily to a funky tune. This scene is probably the worst decision I have ever seen on Grey's, EVER. It was tasteless and baseless and out of place and completely illogical. If the powers-that-be were too blinded by their own idea to realize what a complete slap-in-the-face this ludicrous scene was from a character AND story perspective, you would think that someone at ABC would've intervened. That no one did is highly perplexing. It is so completely misguided that it's too bad to be laughable. Maybe I'm judging this episode so harshly because I majored in television in university, or maybe it's because of how much music means to me, or how much acting/directing/writing mean to me, or simply just how much Grey's means to me. Or perhaps it's all of the aforementioned. Probably.

And then - if rather late in the game - the sun peers out.

Just as I'm thinking that this episode is a lost cause... along come the last 8 minutes. In the episode's best non-musical scene (which was also its most moving), Meredith breaks down over the cruelty and randomness of the Universe giving Callie a baby only to send her through a car window. The always-fabulous Ellen Pompeo (Meredith) gives such a raw and sweet performance that it makes you realize what this musical experiment is missing -- gut-wrenching, honest feeling and great acting. There is also a short but affecting scene during this final segment between Teddy and Christina (Kim Raver and Sandra Oh), in which Teddy informs a shocked Christina that she is dumping her as her protege.

That final 8 minutes - watch them here - are so strong that they almost make some of the preceding fiascoes forgivable. The climatic musical number, Sara Ramirez singing Brandi Carlile's The Story (one of my favourite songs of the last 5 years), is glorious. As Callie gently caresses and talks to her comatose self, visits her newly-delivered baby and then marches back to her own bedside and wills herself to come back to life... goosebumps appear on my arms. (I could've done without her shaking the bed, but that's a minor qualm and I have a feeling that that was fuelled by Sara's own emotion, rather than an actual stage direction.) I've now watched the final segment probably twenty times - I love it that much. Ms. Ramirez is a monster and gives us a glimpse as to why that Tony is on her mantle. She is the kind of performer that I adore -- a beautiful, bold beast who leaves not an ounce of passion unspilled. Not only is her vocal performance earthy and divine, but she makes such fresh and interesting changes to the melody on certain lines - some that I actually prefer to the original - while completely honouring the song... gorgeous. She is also amazing in the moments of stillness in which Callie is lying dying in the hospital. Her frightened, pained face, her subtle movements -- she is wonderful every moment that she is on-screen. But watching this particular scene, the last scene, you can see how much Sara the actor loves her character and how much Sara not only inhibits Callie, but how much Callie inhabits Sara. It is powerful, sexy and soulful. And as Grey's has provided for me so many times in the past, it was an epiphanic moment. I was flooded by the feeling of how much I miss performing not just as an actor, but as a singer. It reminded me so much of the days when I would bleed all over the stage giving voice to that magical combination of music and lyric. There is nothing like it. Nothing.

Had the rest of the musical numbers given us the kind of raw exposure to the character's souls and motivations that The Story did - had the songs advanced the plot the way it ultimately did in those last moments - the show could have been a triumph. The actors really did dive in and give it their best, but some terribly confounding creative decisions turned it into an uneven, head-scratching mess that was only redeemed in the 11th hour. What saddens me so much is that I'm willing to bet that A LOT of people who don't normally watch Grey's tuned in last night out of curiosity, and turned the channel long before the end. Those of us with emotional investments in the characters would have ploughed through to the finish, and we got the reward. But I'm quite sure that a lot of people didn't, and writer/producer Shonda Rhimes - who has created magic many a time in the past - only has herself to blame for that. I ADORE seeing music incorporated into dramatic storytelling, and I love risk-takers. I applaud the concept, and I love giving Sara Ramirez a shining moment. I just wish that much more thought had been given to the execution. The first and last chapters were strong, but a successful story is far more than the first and last chapter.

If I didn't think that the show was great, I wouldn't take to time to blog about it. But I do. Not to overdramatize, but the last four episodes of Season Five literally changed my life. Shonda Rhimes is a beautiful storyteller. So I keep watching that final segment - a combination of traditional Grey's powerhouse acting AND a satisfying musical finale - and try to forgive much of what came before. For those 8 minutes, they got it right.

- TT