Grey's Anatomy -- The Return and The Arrival

This episode was a lot better than the previous all man episode from the week before. Guest star Debbie Allen breathed new life into the aging show to the point that I wouldn't mind if she became a regular cast member.

In preparation for his mother's visit to Seattle Grace-Mercy West Jackson arranges for Lexie to go out of town to visit her sister. Which may have been a good idea since his mother is literally hell on wheels. At her lecture to the residents she has her patient, a young man, disrobe, to display the fact he has no penis and explains she's looking for the docs that will assist her in a penal transplant. To that point, she holds a contest. You know how the residents love a contest.

The episode also highlights the marital woes of our two main couples. While Meredith has started to pack up Zola's things, since she figures she'll be too big for them, the strain between Derek and Meredith is still evident; a very upbeat Cristina is making Owen breakfast trying to become ambidextrous so she can perform surgery with both her hands. Owen takes a taste of of Cristina's eggs, which include shells in the eggs, and decides a little hot sex on the floor would be a better idea.

During the surgery contest Cristina is eliminated early because one of her hands is shaking from the strain she's put on in trying to become ambidextrous. And Mama Avery eliminates April because she feels she's too uptight because she hasn't gotten herself laid yet. It turns out Mama Avery and April are Facebook friends that April idolizes. Meredith and Jackson are ultimately chosen to help her perform the surgery.

Mama Avery invites Mark to join them when she learns he's Jackson's mentor. She's not happy to learn Jackson could have been working on Derek's service and is instead working on the service of a Tummy Tuck Tycoon.

Alex and Arizona are called in when Zola is brought in having medical problems. Alex wants to tell Meredith and Derek, but the social worker forbids it. So Alex tells Cristina and lets it be her call. He doesn't want to be ostracized again if everyone finds out he knew and said nothing. Cristina, ultimately, pulls Meredith from Mama Avery's big surgery to tell her about Zola, and April is called in to replace her, which turns out to be a very bad idea.

Arizona is pissed when she learns Alex disobeyed the social workers orders. During surgery, Alex digs her that if Mark and Callie were to die, Arizona would have no rights to the baby, to try and make her emphasize with Meredith and Derek. Later she demands Callie give her a paper saying she's just as much of a parent as Mark is to the baby.

Derek puts the ick in Der-ick when he wants to perform the surgery on Zola. Dude no hospital would hopefully allow a father to operate on their own kid. Meredith and Owen manage to get through to him so the social worker won't find out they won't know, jeopardizing their chances to get Zola back. However, when the social worker happens to run into them in the hospital, by their faces, she has to know they know. Der-ick confides in Owen how mad he still is at Meredith. You know what, I'm at the point of saying get over it, dude.

Bailey's love triangle with Eli and Ben comes to a head when she decides to dump Eli. He pretty much does most of the dumping himself, saying he should have had more respect for himself and ended it weeks ago when she made it clear she didn't want to have a real relationship with him. Bailey tells Ben it had nothing to do with him, but dudes got a pretty healthy-sized ego and is sure it's all about him. He'd probably believed it even more if he knew she's been copping a look at his butt, earlier.

The Chief is still playing Meredith's cheerleader and tries to convince Bailey to involve Meredith with the research he handed over to Bailey. No one can carry a grudge like Bailey can and tells him no way, Jose. Now if only Bailey could get up a grudge against Alex, since he's still whining about getting ostracized for one episode. A Bailey ostracization would give him something to actually whine about.

During surgery Mama Avery and Mark are having a pissing contest with Mama Avery putting down Mark and his profession, while Mark thinks penal reconstruction would be a better route to go than a penal transplant, as the body could reject the new organ. While the doctors are sniping at each other, April screws up and nearly ruins the entire surgery. Mark, however, knows a technique that saves it and has Jackson perform it. It seems to make Mama Avery accept her son's decision to make plastic surgery his specialty a little more palatable. However, she's a bit worried about her son's relationship with Lexie when Mark sings her praises to her and declares Mark talks about Lexie the way Jackson should. Mama A is happy when Jackson pretty much admits to loving Lexie. She also tries to set up her Facebook Friend April with a man that will hopefully de-virginize her, since she thinks the tension is affection April's job performance as a doctor.

Zola makes it through surgery fine and Cristina volunteers to spend the night with her so she can give Meredith and Derek updates. It's hard for Owen to watch just how good Cristina is with Zola. It just seems to punctuate that there was no reason for Cristina to have aborted his baby, aside from the fact she unilaterally decided she doesn't want to have kids so it doesn't mess with her career.