Grey's Anatomy: What the Hell?

I arrived at my polling place at 6:45 this morning and there was already a line around the block to vote. I hung in there, reading this book I have to review for Scandalous Women, while watching with amusement the large number of people who had to photograph the line. So my voting is done, and now I'm just keeping my fingers, toes and legs crossed that Obama wins.

I got to work at 9:00 am and went immediately to EW to read the Dancing with the Stars recap when I see the headline that Grey's Anatomy is letting Brooke Smith go as Dr. Erica Hahn.

WTF? After getting the viewers invested in a Callie/Erica story-line, now they get rid of the character? The one mature, sensible doctor on the entire staff, the only one who could put Cristina in her place. I admit it took me a while to warm of to Dr. Hahn. From the one she arrived at Seattle Grace and butted heads with Preston Burke, she rubbed me the wrong way. Perhaps because she was arrogant, and sure of herself as a surgeon. But then she joined the staff full-time after Burke left and bonded with Callie. She became more of a person, you got to see behind the hard shell. She was still a beyotch when it came to surgery, and had the worst bedside manner in history, but she was different from the other doctors on the show.

And I was totally invested in her relationship with Callie. Two women, who had never had a sexual feeling for another woman in their lives, suddenly found themselves attracted to and falling in love with another woman. I thought this was a great chance for the show to demonstrate just show fluid a woman's sexuality can be. And again it was a nice contrast to the Mer/Der drama, and Meredith's mommy issues.

Yes, Callie's dithering about the relationship could have been annoying, and the fact that she had to have Mark Sloan teach her how to "go to Brazil" as it were, was a bit strange. Wouldn't she just have consulted a book? I know that there are books written by gay men teaching women about men. I'm pretty sure there must be a book for straight women who are dabbling in Lesbiana. But it kind of made sense that Callie would freak out a bit about being attracted to a woman, and wondering if it was some kind of rebound thing after her break-up with George.

Now Erica is leaving, without even a wrap-up to the story-line. Apparently, ABC received 1,000,000 emails from viewers who declared that they would never darken the doors of a Disney theme park again because Grey's Anatomy dared to show a relationship between two women that was relatively explicit (although tame compared to some of the heterosexual relationships on the show).

Of course creator Shonda Rimes says that the character wasn't written off because she was gay, they just feel that the relationship doesn't have legs. Really? After forcing us to sit through George and Izzy all last season, they feel that Callie and Erica's relationship doesn't have legs? The season is only like 5 episodes in, Cristina and Burke had a relationship for 3 seasons, Meredith and Derek have been going through their on/off thing for 5 seasons now.

Rimes also said some bull in the statement about how they still have a lesbian character, Callie Torres on the show. Really? Is this the same character who slept with Mark Sloan twice in the last episode, and realized that she still enjoyed sex with a man? That lesbian? Oh, and she also said that Callie wouldn't jump into another relationship for the rest of the season, because she would be mourning the relationship.

Hahn was a ball-buster as a surgeon, she took no prisoners, she didn't turn warm and fuzzy when it came to patients. Yes, she discovered that she had feelings for Callie but she never let it interfere with her job the way the other surgeons on the show do. I'm going to miss the character. If it weren't for the new hottie doctor played by Kevin McKidd, I swear I would have to stop watching this show.

I think that not just ABC but Shonda got cold feet with this storyline. Here we are in 2009, and apparently only gay men are allowed to have relationships on network TV and then only rarely. You hardly see Cliff, Marc's boyfriend, on Ugly Betty.

Sigh, I'm really bummed.