Grey's Anatomy season premiere 2009 recap: George O'Malley dies

Grey's Anatomy" lost one of its surgeons on Thursday's sixth-season premiere, when Dr. George O'Malley died during the opening moments of the show.

The plot came as no surprise to fans who kept up with entertainment magazines over the summer. That's when viewers learned actor T.R. Knight, who portrays George O'Malley, wouldn't be returning to the show.

Two character's fates were uncertain when the last season of "Grey's" wrapped up. One of those characters was O'Malley, who jumped in front of a bus to rescue a woman he didn't know. The other character hanging to life: Dr. Izzie Stevens (Katherine Heigl), who had struggled with a brain tumor throughout the season.

When season five ended, O'Malley was covered in injuries and Stevens had lost consciousness after a risky operation. Their characters, dressed in fancy attire, met in an elevator -- presumed to be heaven.

Turns out Izzie only left the real world briefly. She regained consciousness shortly into Thursday's show, which tracked 40 days at Seattle Grace.

Dr. Callie Torres identified the mystery patient as George by a freckle on his hand. When the Seattle Grace doctors learned the news, everyone handled their grief differently. Dr. Miranda Bailey had an especially difficult time masking her emotions, and was especially distant in her ties with cancer-ridden Izzie.

George's mother asked Callie to decide whether George should donate his organs, since George and Callie were briefly married. Ultimately, however, Callie concluded Izzie should make the decision. Izzie decided to donate the organs.

Meanwhile, Izzie faced struggles in her new marriage to Dr. Alex Karev. Even after Izzie learned her cancer had stopped growing, Karev was reluctant to be intimate with her since she'd only recently almost died in his arms. Thursday's show ended with the pair kissing.

The show's other newlyweds, McDreamy and Meredith, continued to enjoy marital bliss -- after getting hitched via Post-It note last season. They savored displays of physical attraction, until Meredith learned she was only using intimacy as a way to cover her grief over George's death.

Meredith isn't the only Grey who's happy. Her younger sister Lexie continued a relationship with McSteamy and decided to move in with him -- even though his former fling (and current lesbian) Callie lives in the apartment across the way.

Lexie shouldn't have much to worry about, though. Callie -- who after a fight with Chief moved to neighboring hospital Mercy West -- is still seeing Seattle Grace pediatric surgeon Arizona Robbins.

Then, there's the relationship between trauma surgeon Owen Hunt and Cristina Yang. The pair decided to move forward with their romantic relationship, despite the fact that Hunt's PTSD caused him to strangle Cristina in her sleep last season.

They attended therapy together and ultimately shared a bed, even though the show ended with Cristina wide awake.

(It's probably smart to note Cristina might not be the most compassionate girlfriend, since she called a patient who suffered a horrible boating accident "ceviche." Yeah, that's a seafood dish.)

But let's not forget there's a hospital to run here. And that's not going so well.

Early in the episode, McDreamy was approached by a member of the hospital board and was asked to take over the position as chief of surgery. Why? Board members aren't happy with the hospital's performance and they're trying to unseat Chief. McDreamy told Chief what was happening, and did his best to stall the process.

At the end of the show, Chief announced Seattle Grace and Mercy West are merging. Nobody's job is safe.

Sounds like it's time to stop hooking up and start doing your jobs, doctors.

Weigh in: Did you watch Thursday's show? Are you sad O'Malley is gone? And most importantly, which Seattle Grace staffer would you most like to see lose his/her job?

pak india news

Pak-India peace process

It seems that India and Pakistan have reached back from where they started. The peace process which was started with much hullabaloo few years back has reached yet another stalemate just as predicted by few Pakistani analysts, who at that time were branded as hawks. Alas, time has proved them right as the Indian foreign minister pointed out the other day that the peace process with Pakistan is on a hold. It took the Mumbai terror attacks for the Indian foreign minister to clearly state that the India-Pakistan peace process is no more on or at least is on hold, the fact of the matter is that even when the peace process was in its full swing, it was only Islamabad which was proposing different ideas and proposals for inching forward in the peace process. India remained rigid on all its policies with Pakistan and didn’t move an inch from its stated position. Pakistan, on the other hand, under the leadership of President Pervaz Musharraf almost gave up its legal position on Kashmir.

He also gave a four point formula, abandoning the official Pakistani position to solve the Kashmir problem. However, the Indians refused to even consider them for further negotiation on the subject. The only academic explanation for this indifference on the part of the Indian policy makers was they were following the conflict management approach to the India and Pakistan conflicts where they intended to only manage the conflicts so that they can focus more on trade and commerce which was to help them rise as a power in the region and also improve their image and standing internationally.

Pakistan, on the other hand was following what best can be described as the conflict resolution approach. Under this approach, Pakistan was keen to solve the problem of Kashmir and other related issues such as Saichen, sir creek etc before starting any meaningful economic activity between the two countries. Speaking in terms of the realities on ground, the Indians, since the very start of the peace process were under no pressure to give Pakistan any breathing space or concessions as they thought that the time is on their side. With the increasing improvement in their relationship with the Americans, the Indian policy makers concluded that the Pakistanis are in no position not to reconsider a number of their policies. They also calculated that with the Americans presence in Afghanistan and growing terrorism problem of its own, Pakistan will have no other option but to improve its relationship with India. This is the only explanation one can work out of the will –talk-but-will-not-rush attitude of the Indian policy makers to the peace process with Pakistan. Since, 9/11, terrorism has emerged as the most sensitive issue in international relations. The Americans are especially touchy on the topic. And singing along with the Americans, the Indians have all along pointed fingers to Pakistan as the hub of global terrorism. There have been a number of statements from the Indian side and analysts writings that if another terror attacks takes place, the peace process will end. When the terrorist struck the heart of Indian economic activity, Mumbai, the Indian leadership took less then an hour to blame Pakistan for it. Hardly a sensible way to deal with a country you are engaged in a peace process. Logic demands (but some time logic doesn’t work in international relations, for instance, American attack on Iraq) that the Indian should have contacted the Pakistani leadership and have discussed the problem with them instead of shouting Pakistan is behind it on the Indian electronic media. Although there are a number of unanswered questions about the Indian action and policy on the whole tragedy yet no one questioned its intentions of blaming Pakistan before a thorough investigation. The Indians blamed Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) for master minding the whole thing and also pointed out that there are certain elements with in Pakistan who are behind these attacks. This is a veiled reference to Pakistani supreme intelligence agency the ISI. Although the Indians provided no proofs whatsoever to the Pakistani authorities yet Pakistan carried out a country wide operation against LeT, seizing personnel and shutting down offices, in addition to putting its top leader, Hafiz Saeed under arrest. But this is not enough for the indians who have stated that Pakistan is still not doing enough.

After technical incursion inside Pakistani territory at Lahore and Azad Kashmir, moving the troops, asking the people leaving in the border towns to relocate, recently the Indian foreign minister has said that war with Pakistan was never an option. It seems that the Americans who can not afford the relocation of the Pakistani troops from the western to eastern border which will happen in case of a conflict with India have convinced the Indians to rephrase their statements. Although in the past few days, the Indians have started cooling down, they yet have to supplement their words with actions. However, one ugly truth has come out of this most tragic event. The whole peace process between the two countries is a farce. They still don’t trust each other and think that the other side is playing double game with them hence is not sincere in establishing peace. This is the only logical, if logic has any thing to do with India-Pakistan relations, explanation of the Indian behavior since the Mumbai terror attack. This is writing on the wall, the sooner the Pakistanis read it, the better.