Grey's Anatomy: Krista Vernoff On 'Good Mourning' And 'Goodbye'

Krista Vernoff, the writer of last night's episodes of Grey's Anatomy, shares an interesting behind the scenes look at how a scene on the show is created and the actors' involvement in the process:

Christina and Owen finally dealing with the choking incident from last season.

How brilliant are the actors in that scene???? Seriously – how freakin’ good are all three of them? If I could hand some kind of award to Kevin McKidd and Sandra Oh and Amy Madigan today, I would. Y’know what? I just might. When I was nominated for an Emmy and didn’t win, my best friends made me an Emmy out of tinfoil. I might do something like that – that’s how good they all are. And here’s what you don’t know… I handed them that scene 20 MINUTES BEFORE CAMERAS ROLLED. Swear to God.

The scene was something totally different. It was actually a funny scene right up until the last minute. I had been desperate to find humor anywhere I could in these two hours and because Sandra is a pretty reliable source for comedy, I had leaned on the funny. And I got a call from the set after they rehearsed the scene. Sandra and Kevin had smart questions – and what became crystal clear to me instantly is that this storyline could not be resolved in a humorous way. It had earned weight. Indeed, it required weight.

I knew what the scene had to be and I frantically wrote it and ran it over to the set and Kevin smiles and goes, “Great. I better go memorize this.” Sandra thanked me, Amy thanked me. Huge 11th hour rewrite and no one flinched.

And then I saw the dailies… When I say I handed them a completely rewritten scene 20 minutes before cameras rolled I am not exaggerating. 20 minutes. So I was stunned by the dailies. The work is so beautiful, I would’ve been stunned by what they delivered regardless of when they got the scene -- but in this case, I was double extra stunned. Tin foil emmys all around, I say. Or, y’know, real Emmys. Just sayin’.

As for the storyline, I feel like this is just the beginning for Owen and Cristina. It’s a really interesting beginning because it’s sort of like, okay, we’re dealing with the PTSD, with all the damage. And the damage has, strangely, been a lot of the driving force in the coming together of these two very different people. So now…if the damage is being treated…if the damage is not the focus…what is? Who will they be together? I, for one, am really excited to find out.

Cristina avoiding her pain all together - like when Meredith almost died and she was at the bar.
Cristina, who as a young child, held her father’s heart in her hands as it stopped beating, is perhaps the least “processed” of our core group, the least “healthy,” the least able to handle the impact of George’s sudden death. Mer is using sex, Cristina is using her frustration around her lack of sex. So when she finally gets in bed with Owen and she finally has the tension release that comes with that kind of, um… tension release… She can’t hold the truth off anymore.
That’s the thing about the five stages of grief. They truly are different for everyone. Cristina clung to the Denial stage for 40 days. And then she let in the fact that George died. And as much as Mer’s tears got to me, that intake of breath from Cristina got to me even more. The sudden realization that George really did…die.

Source