In `Grey's Anatomy,' it gets harder to be patient

Izzie and George. Izzie and her new hairstyle. Callie and George, Derek and Meredith, Derek and the chief's job. Addison and Karev, Addison and McSteamy, Cristina and Burke and their wedding cake. Oh, which will they pick? Oh, what will happen then? Oh, who really cares?

Thursday night's episode presented the "Grey's" team with its biggest challenge ever -- acting in ways barely recognizable as human much less characteristic. All the interns were suddenly concerned, albeit briefly and intermittently, with their wink-wink careers as they cutely "studied" for "the biggest test of their internship." (Surely that has been staying friends with the drippy, relentlessly narcissistic Meredith, no?)

Does anyone but me remember how the series began, with a whole bunch of interns being told by Bailey to look around because more than half of them wouldn't be there in a few months? Whatever happened to the idea of benching some of these beauties? With several deaths and breaches of ethics among them, you'd think the idea that someone might be given the boot would have been floated occasionally. But no, it's all about how everyone is feeling today.

On that front, Izzie and George spent the whole episode palling around as if neither one of them had ever had sex ever, much less adulterous sex with each other. Callie huffed and puffed about their "friendship," and when Addison cut her off at the knees with the most un-girlfriendly comment on record -- "If you're obsessing about this, it means something's going on" -- she had nowhere to turn for comfort but her lip gloss addiction.

Meanwhile, Meredith spent her day narrating her actions to Derek in an attempt to "communicate," which wasn't even funny but did make it clear that Meredith is not only drippy but dumb.

In an attempt to provide some tension to her relationship with Derek, the writers decided last week to have the chief tell him that the chief had to protect Ellis Grey's daughter at all costs, even if it meant passing over Derek for the job. Why Derek didn't haul himself to Human Resources at this point I don't know. Is a statement like that even legal? It certainly makes no sense. Can you imagine Meredith's mother asking anyone to look out for her daughter much less a chief of surgery basing his decision on it?