ABC 'Grey's Anatomy' Season 10 Episode 17 Review

This week was all about Cristina.  

In a kind of homage to Sandra Oh and her character, the final episodes of this season could only be expected to revolve around her character closing her storyline.

After completing an almost impossible heart surgery called a "black mamba," Derek comes into the operation room and declares the patient to be completely paralyzed from the neck down.  It is later discovered that not only will the patient be paralyzed for life, but the patient will never be able to breath on his own.

This development forces Cristina to consult the patients wife, who says that her husband would rather be dead than continue living in his condition but that she wants Cristina to wake her husband for his opinion.

The entire episode goes into "What If" mode.  If the husband does decide to take his breathing tube out, he's doing it for himself.  By choosing to die, he eliminates the eventual suffering that he and his wife will endure for the rest of his life.  If the husband decides to continue his treatment and live, the couple will have to work together for the rest of their lives for his well being.

Similar Cristina and Owen's situation, there is an amount of suffering that they endure.  Choosing to stay together would make one of them give up what they want in life.  Owen would give up having kids to satisfy Cristina's goals or Cristina would have to give up being as successful in her career as she set out to be.

The questions asked repeatedly asked throughout the episode, the questions asked to the patient to make sure he was aware: Do you know who you are? Do you know what's happened to you?  Do you want to live this way?  These questions act as a self evaluation in every step of Cristina's hypothetical lives.

When she decides to pursue her career and put her choices above Owen's, she receives four Avery Awards in four years for her work.  Owen, meanwhile, develops a drinking problem in order to cope with living beside Cristina and never sharing their lives together.  After repeatedly working while intoxicated, he is asked to leave the hospital.

When she decides to make Owen happy and give him a family, she constantly regrets the decision.  She not only sees her former intern, Ross, accepting an Avery Award, but she introduces him to the audience.  Owen is ecstatic being a father, but Cristina could care less.  She hates herself for her decision for the rest of her life.

The Cristina/Owen relationship is at a crossroads and one of them will have to leave for the other to flourish.  Cristina now knows that Owen will never be able to leave her, so she will have to leave him and the entire hospital.