Sam pops in on Derek to tell him that Addison is praying. The two old friends catch up for a bit, with Sam asking if Meredith is a midlife crisis. (The answer is no.) Then Sam encourages Derek to figure out how he can operate on the eight cysts in Archer's brain. Derek's new plan is to operate very carefully on each cyst, one by one, controlling the way it ruptures as he sucks out the fluid. Archer doesn't want to go through with it, but Derek calls him a coward. He's a coward by trade too: being a neurologist, all Archer does is refer patients to the neurosurgeons like Derek who do the actual fixing. Oh, snap!

As Derek begins to operate, everyone gathers in the viewing gallery to watch. Bailey sits there filling out paperwork for a peds surgery fellowship, and Sam and Mark (Eric Dane) quizzically raise their eyebrows, saying she doesn't seem like much of a peds surgeon since she doesn't smile and she has a temper. (Bailey: "I smile! Frequently.") Sam takes a hit from his inhaler, but it's running low, so Bailey gets someone to refill the prescription for him. Below, Derek begins with his usual, "Okay people, it's a beautiful day to save lives," which, for some reason, I find completely irritating.

Major McHottie's patient Michael (Blondie's daddy) starts coughing up blood, and they rush him into emergency surgery. Blondie is there and wants to know what's going on, but Major won't tell her, according to Michael's wishes. In surgery, they find a big tumor, which means that he'll have to start getting chemo. But even then, Owen says that Michael won't want to tell his daughter. Her mother died when she was little, so he has been sheltering her ever since. Cristina is adamant, however, that Blondie deserves better than to be kept in the dark about important matters, which hits close to home for her, considering that she too was once ditched by a fiancé.

In Archer's surgery, Derek has successfully removed seven cysts and seven worms, but it's the last little bugger that gives him trouble. The cyst bursts before he can get it out, and the worm wriggles out and down into his brain. Archer starts coding, but instead of working to shock him back to life, Derek wants to find that damn worm. Derek kind of is a god tonight because he manages to find the squirrely (and gross!) little thing and pull it out of his brain. That was kind of gross.

The intern game is almost over, and Alex and Izzie construct a finish line tape for them to race toward. Izzie again shows sign of some visual impairment, having trouble grabbing the roll of tape from Alex's hand, which he notices. There is a footrace to the finish line, and it's a three-way tie. However, Lexie is declared the official winner because she is the only one who has the correct final diagnosis from the scavenger hunt. The prize is to scrub in on Derek's craniotomy (pregnant aneurysm Jen's) and to hold the "doomsday sucker."

Blondie tells Owen that she knows that people have a really difficult time adjusting to normal life after war, but she deserves better than a two-line email breakup. Owen finally decides to tell her that her dad has cancer.




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