Grey's Anatomy, "These Ties That Bind": Of course, I'm an excellent surgeon. Yeah.

Spoilers for last night's "Grey's Anatomy" coming up just as soon as I take out my own appendix...

Sigh... they were doing so well this season, and then they had to go and give us an episode that was like a concentrated 44-minute burst of everything I hate about "Grey's Anatomy."

Where to begin? Maybe we start with the usually sublime Mary McDonnell doing her best Rain Man impression as the heart surgeon with Asperger's. I'll admit to some personal sensitivity on this issue as I have a lot of personal experience with people in my life who are on one point or another of the autistic spectrum, but all of McDonnell's scenes were played so broadly (and with the hateful cutesie-pooh, "You're supposed to laugh now!" music underscoring them) that my eyes rolled so far into the back of my head that I can't actually see the computer monitor right now. (Thank goodness for that touch-typing class I took in 10th grade.) It was like watching an episode of "Boston Legal," where even the characters who don't have Asperger's act like they do to suit David E. Kelley's bizarre comic sensibilities. And for her diagnosis to come as a complete surprise to Bailey? Really? I want to hold out some hope for the later episodes of this arc, but this was an awful start.

Or maybe I should start with the introduction of Melissa George as Meredith's old friend Sadie. Ooooh, she's damaged! And sexy! She takes off her top and then eagerly cuts herself for the other interns! That's hot! George tends to inspire a lot of hatred, stemming largely from her time on "Alias" (one of the worst-conceived characters in the history of anything), and while she was one of the weaker links on "In Treatment" (where she was also playing a surgical intern), the format of that show allowed the writers and George to go in-depth about her character's demons in a way that "Grey's" just can't. Eye-roll number two, and that's not even counting the whole secret cutting society the interns have created, which really makes all our resident characters (and the Chief, and everyone else in authority) look bad for not even trying to teach these poor boobs.

Or I could have led with Callie's breakdown in the OR, which was meant as a big emotional moment in showing her dealing with the abrupt departure of Hahn (apparently imposed on the show by outside forces), but just seemed silly. There's a line between letting characters work out their personal problems in the course of their work and just turning the medical stuff into an opportunity for the characters to cry in unusual situations, and this was the latter. Eye roll number three.

But, really, where else could one begin in complaining about this episode then the moment where Izzie reaches out to touch Denny's ghost and he's real? No matter where this story is going (and no discussing rumors you've heard or read about it, because they're out there, and we don't do spoilers here), it's stupid. It's beyond stupid. I'm not even sure I have eyeballs anymore after seeing that stuff.

This was the kind of episode that makes me reluctant to buy into any future episodes that I like, because I'm always going to fear that one like this will turn up soon after to sucker punch me. Blech.

What did everybody else think?