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Suicide Is Painless
Original Air Date: Mar 25, 2010
Farrah Kaye – Associate Editor
farrah@thetwocentscorp.com
We’ve seen a lot of flashbacks on Grey’s Anatomy and we’ve also wondered about Owen’s time in Iraq. But the previews for this week’s previews are nothing short of intense. While Owen went to therapy to deal with some PTSD issues he had after choking Cristina when he had nightmares of still being over there, it’s obvious memories still linger. I predict we will also find out a lot about Owen and Teddy’s relationship during this episode.
Cristina is sleeping and Owen is wide awake at 3AM. He does the voice over this episode, talking about how dying isn’t easy and the body isn’t made to die. When the alarm goes off, Owen hasn’t slept at all. Teddy visits with a couple and the patient says “today is the day.” Kim, the patient, has stage 4 cancer and has used all options and nothing has worked. Washington allows physician-assisted suicide and Teddy asks Owen to be the second physician to sign off on the chart. Sara Gilbert plays Kim and is beyond amazing in this guest role. Kim’s husband is uncomfortable with the idea and Kim tries to reassure him. After Kim takes the medicine, it will take her about 45 minutes to die. Mark is talking to Arizona and Callie about his dates with Teddy. Three dates – no sex. He’s surprised at how much you can learn about a person “when you’re upright.” Callie freaks out to Mark about Arizona not wanting kids after Arizona leaves the room. Mark tells Callie she needs to tell Arizona. Derek is in a meeting when Meredith comes all excited to tell him something. She tells him that she’s going to be assisting on a tumor removal surgery and Derek is less-than-thrilled that he was interrupted for that. Most of the male docs are waiting for an ambulance because of the hot paramedic when Dr. Webber comes up to them. They apologize to him because they still look at him as the chief. Teddy finds Owen and asks him what his problem is – he’s against the assisted suicide and as Teddy is walking away, he starts his flashback of being in Iraq. He, Teddy and their unit are playing soccer when a helicopter comes in to take them away. By the way, Owen and Teddy are super cute together in his flashback!
Callie and Mark, along with Webber, Karev and Avery, are working on a group of three friends who jumped out of a helicopter to ski. They do a once-a-year man trip. Owen is working on one of the men and flashes back while switching him from the stretcher to the bed. He’s back in a medic tent working on several soldiers at once. As they are in the heat of working on their patients, they are ordered to evacuate. Owen and Teddy are evacuated in different ways (him by truck, her by helicopter). Bailey snaps Owen out of his flashback. Of the three friends, one never made it out of the helicopter and is completely fine. Cristina is helping Teddy with Kim. Kim asks Sean, her husband, to make her hospital room as much like home as possible. She doesn’t want to die at home because she doesn’t want Sean to deal with the aftermath of her death there. Kim tries to get Sean to talk about his feelings and he won’t. Kim wants her quilt, wine, and a real wine glass so she can feel comfort when she’s dying. Teddy asks Mark his stance on physician-assisted suicide and at first he thinks it’s just her wanting to get to know him, until she explains she needs his assistance on Kim’s case. While Meredith is looking over the scans for the tumor removal, Shepard’s lackey comes and takes the scans away, telling her and “Shadow Shepard” that Derek is doing the surgery. Meredith is furious. Owen takes a chart and is in a zone and flashes back to Iraq again. He and part of his team are in a Humvee with a patient when there is an explosion and they flip over.
Still in Iraq, Owen makes it out of the truck and there’s a body part on the ground. He and one other guy, his Captain, are the only ones alive, but the other guy is pinned underneath the truck. Cristina comes to Owen after he paged her and she is trying to snap him out of his flashback and he is interrogating her about Kim’s chart. She tries to ask him what’s wrong and he freaks out and leaves. The three friends are talking about their adventures because they have boring lives at home. Meredith confronts Derek about stealing the surgery from her and if he’s going to steal it from her the least he can do is let her assist. He says he can’t because she’s on Dr. Nelson (“Shadow Shepard”)’s service. Meredith storms off and Dr. Webber asks Derek if he’s eaten lunch yet. Derek says he can’t eat in the cafeteria anymore because of “the vultures.” He can’t eat in peace. Owen asks Derek if they can speak. Webber smirks. Mark, Callie and Arizona are eating lunch and Mark tells Callie to “say it” and she tells him to shut up. Dr. Webber tries to lunch with them and he is not welcomed. Teddy confronts Owen about Kim in front of everyone at lunch. Literally. The ENTIRE lunch room is silent and looking at them. Owen gets up and leaves.
Mark finds Dr. Webber eating alone in the conference room and tells him about Teddy ripping Owen a “new one” and that everyone is talking about it. Webber says not to him. Mark essentially tells him that they still look at him as the Chief and he should take it as a sign of respect. Because Owen is questioning Kim’s chart, she is being put through an unnecessary test and Sean is upset about it. Cristina is her blunt self and tells him “the test is unnecessary and the hospital is just covering its ass.” Webber tries to be “cool” in surgery while talking about a hot girl and says “I would hit her hard” and Karev corrects him (it should be “hit that hard) and Bailey says he shouldn’t be hitting anything. Avery talks to Meredith about her yelling at Derek and how she shouldn’t let it ruin her day. Something about Who-ville and the Grinch…I dunno, I don’t keep up with that stuff. It’s cute though. I like Avery. I also still think Avery might secretly be Webber’s long-lost son. While Owen and Lexie are stapling one of the friends, he flashes back to Iraq again and helping his Captain, named Dan, not lose his … arm? But when he takes his hand off his neck, he starts spouting blood.
Derek tells Owen the test came back with the same results and Mark signed off on the suicide. Owen says “you’re not going to kill him, you’re not going to kill him…” Derek recognizes that Owen is in a bad place and tells him to go home. Owen flashes back and Dan keeps passing out and Owen is trying to help him and there’s not much he can do. Night has fallen and help still hasn’t come. Dan is near death now, despite all Owen has done and Dan wants to say a Hail Mary. He orders Owen to remove his hand from his neck so he can bleed out and die. Owen leaves the hospital, standing outside in the rain. Callie is talking to the one friend who wasn’t hurt and he admits to hating everything they do but they’re his friends and they stick together. Teddy writes the prescription for the pills for Sean to fill so Kim can die. Owen comes in, soaking wet, and asks Kim what if they find a cure, what then? Kim tells him that there comes a point where death isn’t scary and for her, a cure is too late and hanging on to hope, for her, makes her feel alone. This finally makes Sean realize what she is feeling. She asks Owen why he is so afraid to let Kim die.
Owen is sitting outside the hospital when Sean tells him he had to run around town to find cash to buy the pills that will kill Kim because they weren’t covered by insurance. Owen tells Sean about the moment he’ll know when Kim is gone: the pain will be gone from her face and Sean will feel relief. It’s at that moment, Sean will know he did the right thing. Owen flashes back to Dan telling him to let go and how much pain he is in and that it’s okay. Owen removes his hand and Dan begins to cough and bleed heavily and shake. Then, his face goes still and he dies. Owen tells Sean to hold on to that moment, the moment where Kim is at peace. Callie tells the friend who is hurt the worst he will be in his cast for six months and Callie blurts out that the one friend hates the adventures. Then the other two admit they hate it all, too. They wind up agreeing to go to a wine tasting in Napa as their next adventure. Derek gets to his office and finds Webber waiting for him. He gives Derek tips on how to get through his day: 1 surgery in the morning before everyone else, have the secretary fill out the paper, don’t eat alone in the cafeteria (they can even eat together). Kim gets her pills and drinks her wine to wash them down. With a smile on her face, Sean climbs in to bed with her, saying he’s scared. Derek gets home and apologizes to Meredith, but she’s all Who-villey and says she’s not mad. Callie gets the guts to tell Arizona that she wants kids and Arizona leaves. Teddy goes to Mark’s place and tells him about helping Kim die and when he asks if she wants to talk about it, she says no and rips off his shirt. Trying to fall asleep, Owen flashes back again to the moment Dan died. He closes Dan’s eyes and the helicopter shows up, with Teddy right in front to come save him. He gets out of bed and does push ups in the living room. Cristina asks him if he’s okay and he says yes, but she knows something is wrong. He won’t open up one bit to her. His last flashback is of him, Teddy and Dan playing soccer.
Next week, Derek talks babies with Meredith, Alex’s brother shows up and Teddy is lovin’ the lovin’ that Mark gives her. Also, if you’re a Private Practice or Derek fan, his little sister shows up to one-up Addison.
Well wow, that was really intense. I’m glad we know more about Owen now but we also know more about Owen and Teddy. They’ve got a pretty intense connection and I don’t think we’ve seen the last of it. And poor Cristina. It takes a lot for her to open up to someone and she is being shut out of Owen’s life completely right now and she knows it. I feel bad for Webber but it’s cool they all still respect him. Eventually he’ll find his place, it will just take time. Eventually this Who-Ville thing will go away and Meredith isn’t going to always be happy with Derek. Should be interesting to watch. What did you think? Leave your two cents below!
“Even if letting a person die is the right thing to do, it’s not what surgeons are built to do.” – Owen in his voice over
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TheTwoCents 
Unfortunately, very few people who love this show realized the importance of this episode. These flashbacks are not here only to shape a more well-rounded Owen, they are not from outside the story, but from the inside. They provide a very good, though hidden explanation for a part of the show I never fully understood and therefore accepted as credible: the chocking in `Elevator Love Letter` (season 5 episode 19).
Owen was not trying to save his life in that nightmare he had, as he said during the therapy. Why would have he chocked the enemy instead of hitting him, let’s say? There must be a reason why Shonda chose this action. I bet you can see now the similarities. In Iraq, Owen had to put pressure on the neck of his wounded commander in order to save his life. When he finally accepted his death as inevitable, he took his hands off the commander’s neck. But one minute after Owen saw the propellers of the helicopter! If only he could have kept the bleeding for a few seconds more!
So in `Suicide is Painless` the fan blades that remind him of the helicopter. And realizes he must keep his hands around the neck of someone he didn’t want to die. In fact, Owen was trying to save the life of a person he loved very much. That chocking was actually a proof of love.