An elderly patient admitted into the E.R. for a heart condition sees a familiar face, a long lost love (guest star Marion Ross) who happens to be in the E.R. as well for a fractured arm, and the staff find themselves caught up in their love story. Meanwhile, Karev treats a troubled teenage patient Hayley (guest star Demi Lovato), whose parents brought her in for schizophrenia, and Meredith can‘t help but tell Cristina about her suspicions of Owen -- which inevitably messes with Cristina‘s head.

I imagine that viewers will have mixed feelings about this week‘s Grey‘s Anatomy.  It didn‘t have the emotional resonance of last week‘s "How Insensitive".  Instead, "Shiny Happy People" did exactly what it was supposed to do: lay the foundation for the "game-changing" season finale.  It was the ultimate penultimate episode because it set everything in motion and, thus, was a necessary step in getting to the end of the season.  The episode opened with Derek‘s cocktail party.  I use the term "party" loosely, of course, because even Meredith lamented how at her parties people were usually dancing on tables with the music blaring.  This was not that type of party.  It was more like a Meet the Chief sort of work function, but I liked it because it‘s nice to see our doctors outside of the hospital once in awhile and, frankly, because there‘s very little not to like about Owen and Cristina making out in the kitchen, but I digress.  There was so much going on here:  Meredith freaking out over Owen and Cristina moving in together; Callie and Arizona awkwardly avoiding each other; Alex and Lexie trying to figure out what they had going on with each other; and Reed making a play for Mark (!) which leads to a pretty funny scene later on with Teddy.  As for Bailey?  Miranda wasn‘t even at the party because she was busy getting some lovin‘ from Ben.  By the end of the episode, however, no one was in a partying sort of mood.  Here‘s where things stand at this point.
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