'Grey's Anatomy' Season 5: Overall Synopsis

100th Episode and More

grey's anatomy
 ABC

Grey's Anatomy season 5 started with Owen Hunt pulling an icicle out of Cristina's chest and ended with two residents fighting for their lives. 

Grey's Anatomy Season 5: What Happens

This season is a pivotal one for Meredith and friends — one of the episodes hits the 100th episode mark and the season gains attention for being better than previous years. Though it has a bit of a slow start, themes soon take on new developments and exciting turns:

It Begins With an Icicle

As Meredith and Cristina yell at each other outside the hospital, Cristina slips and falls and an icicle pierces her abdomen. Owen Hunt is able to get the icicle out. He is the new trauma surgeon at Seattle Grace. He and Cristina begin a relationship, but it ends when he chokes her one night while having a nightmare about his tour in Iraq.

He starts seeing a therapist and Cristina wants to work with him. She tells him that she loves him and they get back together.
 

Bailey's Divorce

Webber offers to make Bailey an attending in general surgery, but she is considering doing a pediatrics fellowship. Tucker gives her an ultimatum. He wants her to take the attending position because the fellowship is so much more work. Bailey takes the attending position but leaves Tucker.
 

Poor Callie

Callie begins a relationship with the new pediatric surgeon, Arizona Robbins. When her father finds out he tells her that she either needs to give up Arizona or her trust fund. She chooses Arizona and begins to try and figure out how to live without her trust fund.
 

Mark and Lexie - Grownups

Mark wants to date Lexie, but Meredith tells Derek to make sure it doesn't happen. They start seeing each other behind Meredith's and Derek's backs, but Lexie puts her foot down and says she won't date him until he tells Derek.

Mark picks a bad time to tell Derek and ends up getting punched in the face. Mark grows up and decides that Lexie is "the one." He asks her to move in with him, but she declines.
 

Denny is Here for You

Izzie cannot believe that she is seeing Denny. She knows he's not alive, yet he talks to her and she can touch him, kiss him, and even have sex with him. It's not until months later that she figures out he's there to take her away because she is going to die.
 

Cancer

Izzie sets out to find what is wrong with her, and uses her interns to do tests on "Patient X". They finally diagnose her with cancer. She doesn't want anyone to freak out, so she tells Cristina because she needs to tell someone and Cristina is "a robot." Cristina helps her with treatment, but when Izzie refuses treatment, Cristina tells Bailey and soon everyone knows.
 

The Wedding

Derek and Meredith decide to get married and Meredith asks Izzie to plan the wedding to give her something to do while she is going through treatments. Meredith soon regrets this decision when Izzie makes her try on wedding gowns. Izzie is going way overboard.

Izzie's condition gets worse and Bailey suggests that Derek gives Izzie the wedding of her dreams, the one which she so painstakingly planned. Izzie and Alex get married.

Derek and Meredith plan to go to city hall, but there never seems to be time. Instead, they consider themselves married when Derek writes down all their promises to each other on a Post-It note.
 

Please Live

While Meredith works on John Doe, who was dragged by a bus after pushing a woman out of the way of it, Izzie comes out of surgery and knows who everyone is, despite being scared that she would be a vegetable. The celebration is short-lived when they realize that her memory resets every minute or so.

After much frustration, Alex yells at her and she remembers. She remembers everything, but as she and Alex hug, she loses consciousness.

The doctors work hard to save her at the instant that Meredith realizes John Doe is George. He loses consciousness.
 

Are We Dead?

Izzie gets on the elevator wearing the prom dress she was wearing when Denny died. The elevator opens to George in his army uniform.