There's lots to admire
about the evolution of television, with the rise of prestige dramas, series
created for bingeing, and all the creative and narrative liberties they afford.
But there's also something to admire about the event episode. The big, fat,
broadcast TV stunt that is advertised with blaring sirens and neon flashing
lights. Ludicrous, implausible, utterly random acts of God that terrorize your
beloved characters, in turn riveting you to your TV. In the grand tradition of
NYPD Blue, ER, and Law & Order (particularly of the SVU variety), Rhimes is
a skilled maestro, masterfully conducting the loud, bombastic swell of the
stunt episode, the must-see TV event.
She crashed a ferry. She crashed an airplane. She killed McDreamy. She
blew up Coach Taylor and made her poor damn cast sing for an hour. And Thursday
night? She proved not only that she's still got the touch, but, for a series
that's been on for 12 seasons and many people have written off as a broadcast
relic in an age of streaming cable, that Grey's Anatomy is still capable of a
first-class viewing experience.
The Sound of
Silence," Thursday's night blockbuster episode of Grey's, certainly made
due on the first requirement of quality stunt television: promote the goddamn
hell out of it. Footage of Ellen Pompeo's Dr. Meredith Grey being beat up by a
patient and left for dead on a hospital room floor has been promoted with the
admirable aggression of, well, a network promoting an event episode. There's a
cheapness to stunt TV, sure. But there's also a crass beauty to it. It's a
high-risk creative gamble that only pays off when the series has properly built
a universe of characters we are so invested in that we can forgive the
implausibility of the larger-than-life situations we're about to find them in.
Characters that we care so deeply for that the ludicrous scenario we're about
to watch doesn't reek of a ratings grab or audience exploitation, but instead
delivers a dramatic payoff. It's a kind of television that the slow-burn cable
drama or the even slower-moving atmospheric television that has become all the
rage in the age of streaming and binging can't get away with. It's television
that you can't just watch at your leisure. It demands that you watch it right
now. In an age of on-demand viewing, it's the last remaining TV that has any
sense of urgency.
And on all accounts,
"The Sound of Silence" delivered. A standout performance from Ellen
Pompeo, who for over a decade has been one of TV's most criminally underrated
actresses, spotlighted a daringly directed (by Denzel Washington!) episode that
just didn't shock for shock value's sake, but had meaningful things to say
about female power, victimization, forgiveness, and resilience. Even though it
still ranks as one of the highest-rated dramas on all of television, the most
common response I get when I mention something about Grey's Anatomy is,
"Oh my god! That's still on?" Thursday's episode proves why we should
be so glad that is—and it reminds us why we fell in love with it in the first
place.
The episode began with
Dr. Grey narrating a monologue on the gender politics of ambition in the
professional workplace. Underlining the theme of the episode, she says,
"In this world where men are bigger, stronger, faster, if you're not ready
to fight, the silence will kill you." This, of course, is an episode where
we all know that Dr. Grey, a highly intelligent female surgeon, is about to be
attacked by a man whose sheer strength overwhelms her. Is it heavy-handed? God
yes. But this is Grey's Anatomy. It's supposed to be. A major thing that is
lost in television criticism is the concept of audience. Is Grey's Anatomy, or
any Shondaland creation for that matter, high art? Couldn't be farther from it.
But does it expertly execute a tricky balance of camp, soap, and culturally
provocative drama? Better than anyone in the game, and that's why it has value.
The handling of the big attack scene in "The Sound of Silence" proves
it. Dr. Grey is treating a patient who wakes up after a seizure disoriented and
confused. She is alone in the treatment room with him and, because of his brain
trauma, he starts beating her when she tries to get him back into bed. The door
to the room is closed and the blinds are drawn. Dr. Grey is helpless.
In a remarkable
directorial decision, the most brutal parts of the attack aren't actually
shown. This is another way this broadcast TV stunt differs from a cable series.
The graphic images are left to the imagination instead of being shown as some
Game of Thrones-esque violence porn. I'd argue there's a greater creative
payoff because of it. The way the attack is presented akin to a scene in a
horror film. What you don't see is scarier than what you do. There's not enough
credit being given to ABC for the bold storytelling freedom it grants its content
makers. You look at a series like American Crime, which will air an entire
episode of two-person dialogue scenes, often times not even cutting to the
perspective of the minor player in the conversation, and then cap the whole
hour off with a five-minute interpretive dance. There's a similar provocative
mode of storytelling at play here. During the attack Dr. Grey's eardrums burst
and she was made temporarily deaf. Making the harrowing decision to play most
of the episode from the perspective of Dr. Grey—thus viscerally portraying her
fear, confusion, and distress as she heals from the trauma—most of the episode
plays out without any dialogue, instead soundtracked by the unsettling siren
sound that Dr. Grey hears and sometimes even silence. Sound, then, becomes the
first indicator that she's getting better. Denzel Washington, eh? This guy's
got a future.
Ellen Pompeo was
spectacular in the episode, given the arduous task of acting without being able
to speak, conveying the myriad emotions a person victimized in this way feels
without the vehicle of speech to express them. Still, she manages to telegraph
the conflicted feelings a person has as a victim of an act no one can be held
truly accountable for. She portrays the burden of being a good patient. Sticking
true to a narrative that's defined Meredith Grey for over a decade, Pompeo
continued to explore the idea of likability, and whether that should matter in
the portrayal of a lead television character. Grey wasn't a noble or
accommodating patient. She was a raging bitch and looked like shit. It was
beautifully messy. Meredith Grey is still imperfect. It's hard to watch. And
it's fantastic. In terms of Grey's history of event episodes, it's unlikely
that "The Sound of Silence" will be remembered as iconically as the
ferry crash or the bomb episode. But it may actually be the more valuable than
both. That's the other benefit of stunt TV: it's a clever way to remind casual
viewers of a long-running series' relevance.
There was a time that
Grey's Anatomy was a religion for me. I was one of many devout followers. Over
12 seasons, we've lost our faith a bit. We've become lapse worshippers. But
once in a while we still return to our church. Like a Christmas-and-Easter
Catholic, we're conditioned to return on major occasions. Stunt episodes are
our religious holidays. We find that it is possible to return now and again. We
don't know who the hell half the characters are at this point, and can't give a
crap about who's boinking whom. But when Meredith, or Alex, or Bailey have a
crisis, we're invested. They're our people. We haven't seen them in a while.
But they're still our people.
