Something Will Click

Calzona Review 11x19 “Crazy Love”

“Love. Neuroscience tells us it activates the same parts of the brain as habit forming addiction. It makes us feel like we can do anything., be anything, achieve anything. And once we taste it, we want more.”

Lots of loving and monologue dates and rekindling of paused  love  in this fun and fine episode.

Intense  too because of the most tension-filled hostage situation in TV history when a penis was taken hostage and we were traumatized by the vile  threat of the penis being  flushed down a toilet.

Amidst all the love and penile hostage drama, was a cute Calzona scene which takes us a tiny step forward.   And of course there was that significant Callie line at the end of the episode that fed my bleeding, impatient heart with much comfort.

I’m not even  counting screen time anymore.

I just hope that in the  last five episodes  we will see more of our beloved pair.

No second date for Mr Cop

First thing that caught my attention in this ep was a delightful surprise.

Callie had already had a date with the cop! And yes!  No more second date was planned.

Adding to Maggie’s woes about not getting a call after her date with Ethan, Callie pops in from out of nowhere and chimes in…

Callie: Hmm I’m actively not seeing my cop anymore.  (It’s Intentional  that I typed this in boldface)

Maggie: You guys went out already?

Callie: Yep. We went out on a date, it was bad. Well, at first it wasn’t that bad. He was all “I save lives and I wear a uniform." And then I realized, I save lives,  I wear a uniform, and I’m not boring. No second date for him.

What worried me last week, was this guy was boyfriend material because of the ample screen time given to his altruistic and noble thoughts, but strangely (although I am thankful), he turned out to be boring for Callie.

I felt a little disjoint in that because as a friend mentioned to me, a lot of screen time had been given to scenes focusing on Pruitt’s character, and even Callie-Pruitt scenes seemed to have had some kind of seriousness. Like their dialogue was leading up to something deeper.  

Could  there have been a change of mind/rewrite because first, this cop date thing happened off screen, and then is  suddenly, hurriedly  dismissed by  this conversation. Mr  Cop Guy is out of Callie’s periphery. She just isn’t interested. 

Well actually,  it is a very good thing for me and I’m not complaining.

I  just had to mention this to appear objective and to show that I care about story flow,  continuity and consistency, somehow. Wink.

Anyway, all’s well,  because as of last count, it has been a  4 out of 4 scorecard  for Callie in the dating game.

She has had four “love interests” but they all fizzled out.

No person was good enough for her.

Sometimes I like to indulge myself in secret happy thoughts like maybe Callie is beginning to realize how no one is really good enough for her and worthy of her true love except for the love of her life—her estranged wife Arizona. But those are my own secret thoughts...

Ortho vs Neuro

Callie and Amelia’s common patient Marissa McKay , one of the best junior golfers in the country, is suffering from severe lower back pain. 

Callie and Amelia were in a tussle, with their differences in opinion about Marissa's case all throughout the episode.

It was Ortho vs neuro all the way.

Marissa though, had impressive confidence:

Marissa: ….there are  no apologies for being excellent. And I am…I am excellent what’s wrong with that?

Callie: Absolutely nothing…

There was  a severe misalignment of the spine and Marissa’s main concern was to undergo surgery as long as it didn’t affect her game. Five athletic scholarships at top schools were offered to her because of her excellence in golf.

Callie and Amelia were to plan their approach.

Amelia’s approach: two rods at either side of the spine to preserve nerve root  function

Callie’s approach of placing a frozen graft directly into the spine and add a metal support plate  to give Marissa more stability.

It was  limiting the motion of her spine  when the point is to let her be able to still play golf, in Amelia’s opinion.

But to Callie, the defect is so pronounced that she might have to let her golf career go. To Callie, she wants her stable to keep her from getting paralyzed. 

For Callie, Amelia's approach was putting the patient at risk for a far worse injury.

The Ortho vs Neuro debate went on:

Callie: That’s where neuro underestimates the fundamental biomechanics

Amelia: And that’s where Ortho can tend to go a  little overboard

Callie: We do bones, we do stability and you guys do brains

Amelia: And we do nerves, that’s why you wouldn’t  hire a carpenter to rewire your house

Callie: Whoa!

So this had been a point of contention for both,  with that painful “carpenter” line, still fresh in my brain, until Owen came into the picture and broke the tie.

Arbiter Owen chose Amelia’s approach as more sound, much to Callie’s chagrin.

Callie: Well, back to the sawmill for me.

The neuro vs ortho debate will always be a reality in other cases.  As it will be in other differing  fields in medicine. 

And it will always be a matter of which factors to really prioritize.

I admired  the way Callie gave in and submitted to Chief Hunt’s decision. She was professional enough to abide by the Chief’s decision even if clearly, she objected.

This chosen approach  had actually become  a major cause of conflict for Amelia and Owen, because first, the approach turned out to be unwise. It was the wrong approach, leading Amelia to succumb to admission right in the O.R. during the surgery, that Callie was right.

The injury was even more severe than what was  shown in the scans.

It was too intense  a scene…seeing Amelia prioritize her patient’s condition over her ego:

Ben: That sounds exactly what

Amelia: Exactly what Torres was saying, yes

Ben: But can you do that? Put in a bone graft?

Amelia: No, Warren, I can’t. I don’t do bones.  Torres does bones, so we need Torres.

Ben: So you’re looking at

Amelia: I’m looking stupid. Is what I’m looking. But I would rather look stupid than paralyze this girl. Go scrub out and find her and  tell her that I  think she’s right and great and ..smart and pretty. I’m Im saying suck up a little.

Light Moments with Callie and Arizona in the  Gallery

So the penile reconstruction was underway, and on the first row of the gallery, watching the famed surgery by madam Catherine Avery, were Arizona and Callie, separated by just two persons, namely Mer and an unidentified doctor.

Arizona was musing about the irony of reattaching  the penis :

Arizona: It’s gonna take them at least ten hours to reattach that thing, and what? It took his wife like what, a minute to cut it off?

Funny how Arizona called the penis “that thing” tee hee.  Nothing personal maybe, but it’s  an apt line for a non-lover of penis. Nice touch from the writer.

Mer: She must have been really mad

Arizona: Ugh, you know, how do you get that mad?  

And Bailey from a row behind,  gave her sarcasm-laden,  hilarious, poker-faced recount of how she dealt with her e-mail-cheating ex-husband.

This led Callie to clear her throat loudly, emphasizing sarcasm.

Which didn’t escape Arizona’s attention.

And the topic  gained strength. It was an all-too-familiar topic. Not just to Meredith (with whom the threat of it was quite fresh), but of course to Callie and Arizona.

Mer: I thought Derek was cheating on me and I got that mad. Two trauma surgeons and an orthopod kind of mad.

Callie had to comment:

Callie: Hmm…No comment

Arizona: You know, cutting off a penis isn’t actually that big of a deal. I mean it’s not like he needs it for survival or to think, I don’t know like to walk.. (reactions from the gallery)

What? Hey It’s my leg. And you know, for the record, I only thought of maiming you once, Callie, and I told you that the second I thought it.

Callie: Thank you (?)

Then this charming chatter was cut short when badass superstar  with a scalpel Ortho Goddess Callie Torres was needed in the O.R. for Marissa’s case.

Watching this scene was refreshing.

Callie and Arizona had never really touched on this very sensitive cheating topic after the breakup. And them making light of such a topic, with Callie doing her tongue-in-cheek “no comment,” it was a pleasant icebreaker.

Not to be one-upped, Arizona in turn,  went candid and made an odd parallel between cutting off a  penis and cutting off a leg and it was chuckle.-worthy.

It melted down their hard-line defenses on these issues and in essence, it brought forward in a lighthearted manner, the most serious elements that built up their  conflict.

The fact that they addressed  it  with humor,  and  now  seem to have overcome these very sensitive topics,  just goes to show that they are past these issues. They have moved one step forward and it was amusing. 

Badass Ortho Surgeon to the rescue

Callie arrived at the O.R with the patient in a worse state.  The spine was even more unstable . She was going to be paralyzed ….

Callie: Unless we get in there now

And they flipped the patient over, with Ben even hesitant because one wrong move was going to paralyze the patient, but I was bursting with admiration and pride with how Callie was authoritative and confident of what they were to do, shouting out orders to the surgical team to flip the patient over.

It is in intense surgery moments like this that Calliope Torres shows us how badass she is, and how she truly is an Ortho Goddess.

During the surgery, Callie and Amelia were still at odds with their approaches, leading Ben to quip and get both to their senses. They had to agree if they were to move forward:

Ben: Stop. Stop. All due respect, but I cant set up a myelogram. Retract vessels and get  spcer simultaneously.  I have been an anesthiologist ….and believe me, this isn’t the first time Ive seen two brilliant surgeons duke it out over a body. I am not getting in the middle of that.  So, I'm gonna stand hereand I will happily proceed as you both see fit. But youre gonna have to agree on what to do first.

Thanks to Ben  (who will be put by Callie on scut though after they’re done in the O.R), Amelia and Callie had found a way to agree and eventually saved Marissa from paralysis.

 Golf may be out of the question now, but at least she is not paralyzed.

Callie and Amelia did the painful chore of briefing  Marissa’s mother about her condition, that they were able to realign her spine, and that with therapy, Marissa will be able to walk again.

Mother: She’ll never play golf again?

Amelia: She’s alive. She will be mobile

Mother: I wish that were enough but it’s not. This, is all she wants. The only thing. And I’m the unsupportive mom who hired the crappy doctors who couldn’t deliver the one thing she wanted more than anything else in this world.

Amelia: I’m so sorry I will talk to her.

Mother: My daughter …was excellent. You were supposed to be too.

And the mother left with those biting words that seeped right through the core of me. I mean of the characters, especially Amelia.

Callie: Hey, Amelia, we did everything we could. Come on.

Amelia: We should have done it your way from the beginning. We should have started there. She would be better off.

Callie: That is not true. Her defect…

Amelia: My approach made things worse

Callie: No it didn’t. Amelia…

Callie was the most supportive friend. Amelia was too affected by the truth of the mother’s words and hats off to Callie by being there for her.  Despite their professional bickering from the start of the case, when things didn’t have the ideal result, Callie was there for Amelia for emotional support, to boost her broken confidence from the scathing words of Marissa’s mother.

Callie knew she may have been right but she was a person first. She was a friend first. Like ‘so what about being right about the approach?’ What matters is they still saved the patient from paralysis and she was there for Amelia.

More than just one thing to love

Callie was checking up on Marissa... 

Callie: You okay?

Marissa: What do you think?

Callie: I think there are probably a hundred things that you’d be great at, you haven’t even tried  yet.

Marissa: My mom thinks I did all this because I get some kind of weird high off being better than everyone else. And don’t get me wrong.  Being excellent is amazing.  But that’s because I love this.  Loved this.  Even if you’re both right, that I’ll find something else,  I’ll never really love it. Not like this.

Callie: Maybe not, but I believe,  we get more than just one thing to love. And one day, something will click. And you’ll know you found it. I have to believe that.

Callie’s smile was so sweet  in this scene. She was encouraging the kid, but it surely did sound like she was speaking to herself.

I actually felt it in my heart that Callie was talking to herself too when she said this.

Sure, she is speaking about career. Of choosing what one can do and what one can truly excel in and enjoy to do. 

But even deeper than this, I strongly feel  that it does also mean  that one can love many other people in her lifetime, but when that someone comes, the right one for her, she  will know it deep inside.

Now come on. If this doesn’t mean she is referring to love, well I don’t know what else to say.

The double meaning is a no-brainer.

Let’s go back to Callie’s past  attachments. There was George, there was Erica, there was Mark.   But none of these lasted.

Then of course she met her great love Arizona, and things clicked.

But there were problems, and led for their relationship to break apart.

Fast forward to the recent days, after the break up with her wife, she had not really been successful in the dating game. She always realizes in the end that she does not like the people she meets up close or whom she dates.

Seems that she always has a reason for not pushing further with whom she goes out with. 

Or maybe there is truly always a reason. They just don’t click.

I know someone though who clicks with her, and I bet she knows who that is too.

The closing voice over was relevant... 

"The thing about love is, when it's good, it's so very good. And when it's bad, it hurts so much. And if you cant find a way to balance all those ups and downs it will make you crazy."

For me, this Calzona story is a fairy tale come true. It  is meant to be.

And I want to believe that Callie’s words are the start of her realization  about who is truly right for her. Who else but her one true love, Arizona.

It is the ultimate dream that both of them realize that after all they have been through, all the misfortune, all the  pain, hurting each other—the dream is that both will realize that after they have been made whole, and after each has learned to live life on her own, and discovered her own individuality,  that both will realize that there is no other right person for them except each other.

They had to go through all the necessary pain, because their relationship was not perfect then. Yes, they were together but as with any relationship, there had been misunderstandings and errors, because they are human.

One may have felt she did not have a voice, one may have felt she gave too much but was consumed by all the giving.

It is a road to the ideal state of loving, and their love had been flawed due to a number of external and internal factors.

The breakup had to happen to fix all that out.

And  when all things have been healed by time, and the rough edges of a relationship are smoothened out by the passing of the seasons  and a coming together of experiences,  they will realize that no one could make them happier than each other, and that no one is more worth loving than each other.

This is all I have been hoping for after their break up happened in 11x05.

That after all is said and done, in the end, each of them  will discover that there is no other right person for her but the other. 

And that after all the disappointments and pain of the separation, that in time, after the healing,  when each  is made whole, they will get back with each other , and it will be beautiful.

Just five episodes to go till the finale. And I  feel that this finale will be one of the biggest finaIes of  Grey’s, ever. I’m still hoping for a reconciliation this season, even during the finale, but let’s see.

I believe in true love. That’s why I love Calzona.

Forever.

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@GAFan8