Barack’s Anatomy

Written by Ryan AnthonycloseAuthor: Ryan Anthony Name: Ryan Anthony
Email: mica1884@gmail.com
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About: 25 year old Tennessee resident and small government conservative. I first discovered my love of writing while working for a high school newspaper; that was eight years ago. Now I'm studying for an Associate's Degree in journalism. My favorite topics to cover for Parcbench include contact sports and television.See Authors Posts (34) on September 29, 2009

Did you see the series pilot of Flashforward? Yes? I did, too.  So I’d like you to do something for me . . . imagine you’ve blacked out and are looking not just six months, but six years, into the future: into a Seattle Grace Hospital that has become overrun by rationing, long wait times and government micromanagement. Imagine watching . . .

dum da da dum . . .

BARACK’S ANATOMY.

If you don’t feel like subjecting yourself to the torture of doing so, I’ll run its season opener down for you:

Scene One, Day 1: We view Izzie sleeping peacefully in her portable-fan-cooled room at Seattle Grace . . . then sleeping no more. Well past Stage 4 of her tumor, she dies silently for want of both drugs and qualified neurosurgeons. I guess the buzz was correct, both Heigl and Knight DID leave the show.

Scene Two: George, battered and bloodied on the operating table, lies lifeless due to intra-cranial pressure spike. Courtesy of Cass Sunstein edict, Owen asks not if George is a donor, but how soon his body can be prepped for organ transplant – regardless of the fact George is a Jehovah’s Witness. The doctors are now in a race against time to save what they can of his inert form.

Alex cleans Izzie’s room up after a while, removing the Post-Its. Spying her purse half-open on the chair, he investigates it and notices her wallet tucked to the inside pocket. Quietly, Alex withdraws the wallet, caresses its exterior, and opens it up to reveal little photos of their wedding.

They’re too much for him. He breaks down and cries.

Camera pans over crowded room, to settle on teenage Andy (with back pain severe enough to induce puking into a basket) and his mother. They’re both more than a bit perturbed when they finally see someone, having twiddled their thumbs for seven and a half hours.

After Callie unsuccessfully tries to break news of O’Malley’s becoming one with a bus to his máthair, happy duo of Owen and Cristina are standing at wait near the SGH emergency room doors, which have been malfunctioning since last week and are stuck open. Their interpersonal chatter is interrupted by a car booking down the ER path straight to them. Its visibly distraught passenger, upon questioning, can only numbly point to the back seat – in which both docs find the body of a 19 year old girl, chopped up in a speedboat accident.

Back to blonde nurse, since I don’t want to get too graphic.

(After all, Barack’s Anatomy is rated TV-14. Let’s just say she didn’t make it.)

Andy’s mother directed to one of the last functioning private clinics in Seattle. Blonde Nurse thinks they’ll have better luck treating him there, if not booked to the hilt. Richard learns his fate has been decided by Washington; he’s not much longer for his job.

Miranda sets surgeons to work on retrieving George’s kidneys, which are slated for government workers instead of 150-pound eight-year-olds thoroughly steeped in Big Mac addiction.  Cystic fibrosis guy, while judged to be dead in five years, is also stricken from transplant list for heart and lungs. Why? He doesn’t get enough exercise outside the house; his bank account records show too many online purchases. Paperwork for the rest of his organs is now lost in an endless sea of red tape.

Day 7: George’s funeral – complete with the Biblical lyrics of Ecclesiastes – takes place; Derek welcomes Richard to his impending world of joblessness over drinks; Miranda sends two-pack-a-day smoker with a broken arm away. Speedboat girl’s friends hang outside of hospital in daze, at which point Callie heads out other – newly-fixed – automatic doors and threatens to kick both their asses to next week if they don’t head home STAT.

Incidentally, Torres ends up heading home later as well. She quits, with the parting words of “They don’t pay me enough for this crap.”

Day 11: Turns out Blonde Nurse was right: Andy and mother are back. So, it’s up to Richard and Arizona to evaluate whether the kid should be kept around or sent home. The possibility of MRI is brought up, but quickly nixed owing to the fact it will take at least six months – and most likely eight – to stuff Andy’s happy ass in the cylindrical sardine box. Richard, after cursing the long-deposed architects of HR 3200 under his breath, orders Robbins to refer the kid home to a Battleberry Slurpee and rest.

Callie cries on Mark’s shoulder outside their government-appointed apartments, then nothing really happens until hour two, when the Chief runs a red light and gets brought to Mercy West. He meets an old high school friend who leaves him with a rookie doctor and cheap expired sutures that smell of tuna.

Day 23: In a meeting with VA-employed Dr. Wyatt, Owen – after some relevant reading material to shove him in the right direction – confesses his life is not worth living anymore. Miranda presides over a botched operation and comes to blows with Cristina in a debate over whose dirty equipment killed the patient faster.

Day 30: Alex knocks back a few beers.  Miranda joins him.

Day 39: Police come to haul George’s lost puppy away after Meredith calls the cops. Owen sleeps in the bath tub and prays for death.

Day 40: Richard, in front of the assembled interns and residents, has an announcement to make: The Department of National Health has settled on his replacement – a Weeble.