Grey's Anatomy: Season 3
Episode 9

Title: From a Whisper to a Scream
Episode: 3.09
First Air Date: November 23, 2006
Writer: Kip Koenig
Director: Julie Ann Robinson
DVD: Grey's Anatomy: The Complete Third Season -- Seriously Extended Edition
Guest Stars:
George Dzundza as Harold O'Malley
Brooke Smith as Erica Hahn
Debra Monk as Louise
Lois Smith as Dot
Emy Coligado as Janelle
Kate Anthony as Nurse Kate
Linda Klein as Nurse Linda


Music:
Grey's Anatomy Theme: Cosy in the Rocket by Psapp

Title Performer Label 
"You And I Are A Gang of Losers" by The Dears (Arts & Crafts) 
"9 Crimes" by Damien Rice (Warner Brothers / Dreamworks) 
"New Day" by Kate Havnevik (Continentica / Universal) 

Fan Rating: 9/10 (Average of all fan submitted ratings)


Synopsis:

A traumatic car accident fills the ER; Cristina has a crisis of conscience about her deceptive teamwork with Burke; Izzie pushes the boundaries of probation.

(From ABC)
A traumatic car accident fills the ER, Cristina has a crisis of conscience about her deceptive teamwork with Burke, and Izzie pushes the boundaries of her probation.

The characters on ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" learned a lesson this week that could have come straight from their former Sunday night neighbor "Desperate Housewives": Secrets never stay buried for long. (Spoiler alert: Stop reading now if you've saved the episode for later viewing.)

Dr. Burke's hand tremors — and Cristina's complicity in hiding them — finally became public knowledge. But the information spread slowly through this extended-length episode (it ran 10 minutes past the hour). And those who possessed it were unsure how to react.

For Cristina and Burke, much of the night was spent in a crisis of conscience. Burke nearly confessed to Chief Webber. But the chief shocked Burke by offering him the job he's always dreamed of: chief of surgery. (The chief is apparently retiring to save his marriage.)

Rather than being elated, Burke was stricken: "I can't be chief now, not like this," he told Cristina. "There's blood on it." He wrestled further with confessing, but two emergency surgeries (which he managed on his own) kept Burke from returning to Webber's office. When he finally got there, Cristina had beaten him to it.

She wasn't trying to sabotage her man. But after weeks of doing complex heart surgeries practically on her own, Cristina couldn't handle seeing Burke operate without her.

Was she worried for the patients' safety or feeling rejected at suddenly being just another intern? Sandra Oh's performance was nuanced enough to leave viewers wondering. Either way, their romance — and, likely, their careers — have suffered serious damage.

The catalyst for all of this was George: He'd brought in Burke's nemesis, Dr. Hahn, to operate on his father. George didn't rat Burke out: He told no one (not even Izzie, who's usually his confidante) why he switched doctors.

But he did tell Callie he knows about her night with Mark Sloan. She tried to explain, but he was too consumed with his father's survival (and the realization that his hero, Burke, is fallible) to listen.

On the bright side (though there barely was one), Derek and Meredith seem to be forging a solid relationship. The Burke/Cristina revelation caused some strife (he was upset that she didn't tell him Burke's secret as soon as she figured it out). But it's clear there's real trust between them.

And the quietly simmering attraction between Addison and Alex bubbled to the surface when they connected over a pregnant car crash victim. No doubt they'll hook up just as Izzie decides she's ready to take Alex back.


(Recap From ABC)
Meredith and Derek are still sticking to their "no sex" policy so Cristina isn't interrupting anything when she barges into Meredith's bedroom early in the morning and demands to talk to Meredith alone. She asks Meredith a hypothetical question: What if Derek robbed a bank and Meredith drove the getaway car? Would she turn herself in too? Before Meredith can figure out what she's really asking, Cristina leaves.

Cristina voices her fears to Burke that George will reveal their secret to the Chief. Burke tells her it'll be fine, because he hasn't had a tremor in a week and that they're still a strong team.

All the interns are paged to the emergency room: a driver plowed into a fish market and there are at least a dozen victims. Izzie hopes she'll get to help at last, but she's assigned to watch George's dad.

The elderly Mr. Dickerson was driving but his wife says that the accident wasn't his fault because he just couldn't stop the car. Police are waiting to take her statement, but she insists on staying with her husband and talking to them later.

Cristina watches nervously as Burke works on a patient without her, especially since his med school rival, Dr. Hahn, the one who had first dibs on the heart that went to Denny instead, is on site.

A woman covered in blood walks into the ER and collapses in Addison's arms. Her name is Janelle, and she was thrown through a plate glass window in the fish market accident. As Mark and Alex work to suture her many cuts and remove the glass, Addison checks to make sure her baby is okay, since Janelle is 10 weeks pregnant.

Mrs. Dickerson, who is one of Janelle's best customers at the market, asks how she's doing. Just then, Janelle starts coughing up blood. A scan reveals that she has a shard of glass in her heart and needs to be operated on immediately.

Izzie is singing Burke's praises to Mr. and Mrs. O'Malley but George is markedly less enthusiastic. Izzie asks what's going on and he tells her to stay out of it. He asks Dr. Hahn, who is at Seattle Grace for a consult, to do the operation on his father instead. Cristina sees Dr. Hahn and Richard in Mr. O'Malley's room. When Richard tells Cristina that he needs to take to Burke immediately, she assumes the worst and that Richard may be asking Hahn to replace Burke entirely.

Meanwhile, George's parents reschedule the operation so Burke can do it after all, since Izzie has been telling them he's the absolute best. George loses it and informs them why Izzie is there: she's on probation because the last time she treated a patient, he died.

Callie tries to inquire about George's dad, but he reminds her they broke up and that he knows about her sleeping with Mark. She assumes that Meredith told George, so she finds her and slams her against a locker. Meredith says she didn't even know who the other guy was until George told her. Callie finds George to try to explain that she slept with Mark only after they broke up, but he tells her he can't deal with this right now.

Mr. Dickerson's scan reveals a subdural hematoma and an advanced case of spinal stenosis, which means he probably couldn't feel his feet and definitely should not have been driving.

Derek wonders why Cristina is acting oddly, such as disappearing since she's supposed to be his intern today. Burke and Meredith both feign ignorance.

Cristina tells Burke the Chief is looking for him, and that they need to get their stories straight. Burke says he's just going to tell the truth. But it turns out Richard is retiring, and he wants Burke to replace him as Chief of Surgery. Burke tells Cristina that he's wanted this whole life, but now it has blood on it. He says he crossed a line, and that Cristina is the one who dragged him over it.

Mrs. Dickerson insists there was nothing wrong with her husband before the accident, but when she sees Janelle being wheeled into surgery, she confides to Miranda that she did know. Their daughter took away his car keys, but not giving them back would have felt like a betrayal. Miranda tells her she needs to inform the police.

Derek invites Burke to scrub in with him on Mr. Dickerson. Burke is on the verge of telling him the truth when Alex says they need him right now to operate on Janelle. Burke tells Derek to get Dr. Hahn to assist him, and he'll take the other operation. He instructs Alex to make sure Cristina scrubs in with him.

After removing the glass shard, Janelle's heart is on bypass when Meredith comes in to say they need Burke to work on Mr. Dickerson's heart, which has a tear in it. Burke tells Cristina to stay with Janelle, but she follows him out anyway and Meredith realizes Cristina thinks Burke can't operate without her. Cristina reluctantly goes back to Janelle. Meredith spends the rest of the Dickerson surgery watching Burke operate, not Derek. Burke returns to Janelle but there's a complication and his hand seems to be cramping up. When Cristina starts to question him, he orders her out. After the surgery, he goes to tell Richard that they need to talk and he agrees, because Cristina is already sitting there.

In the elevator, Derek asks Burke why he didn't tell him, since he thought they were friends. Derek realizes Meredith knew before he did, since she was watching Burke operate and not him, but she says Cristina is her best friend and she couldn't tell him.

That night, when Cristina finally goes home, Burke closes the bedroom door when he sees her.