ZANZIBAR!: Replying to a post on the message board from the Grey’s Anatomy website

by Brad MacDonald

Hi everyone. Because I work late into the night and live alone, I sometimes have to find awesome and radical ways to amuse myself. Tonight I decided it would be funny to go onto a Grey’s Anatomy message board and reply to someone’s very serious post about the meaning of the show and the characters involved. I did this for two reasons. 1) Sorry to fans of “GA,” but whenever I’ve been subjected to this show, it struck me as just one giant clusterfuck of stupidity. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a TV elitist. I own a boxset of Dawson’s Creek which I cherish and I once watched a whole season of The Hills. But there’s something very offputting about Grey’s Anatomy’s attempt to be both authentic as well as “steamy” 2) I waste a lot of time avoiding work by doing silly things that serve no purpose.

So here is the initial post (which is straight from the website) and my reply. Unfortunately, I don’t think the message board will accept my post due to its longwinded length so sita40 sadly may never receive my own wisdom, thoughts, and opinions on Grey’s Anatomy. And, without further ado….

sita40

5 days ago

I think that the whole point is that she doesn’t have the ‘wisdom’ to back up her bravado. It is obvious that she has the skills; she was succesful at the procedure. Even if you have the skills there are going to be times when you fail. If this had been one of those times, that would have been it for her. That was the point when Owen said that her luck would run out one day…and then what? Well, if she is disregarding protocol at the time she will lose everything. She says she was brilliant and she was, but everyone around her is brilliant. Brilliance isn’t all it takes to be a good doctor, or a good person for that matter. It takes prudence and an advanced ethical sensibility. Being a great doctor/person requires wisdom. That is what Hunt, Torres, and Arizona have that Christina does not. At the end of the show she gets it. When Mercy West guy kisses her, she might as well have said “I’m evolved” rather than “I’m involved.” That is what she is really saying…marveling at him thinking that what she did was “hot”. She realizes that she was wrong and she goes to Hunt, whom she can continue to grow with. Yang telling the little sixteen year old that she was brilliant, but more importantly lucky , and that she needed to “grow-up” was foreshadowing for Yang’s own end of the episode epiphany.

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Dear Sita40,

Definitely some fine points here but if you want to see an example of a great doctor, a doctor with brilliance, “prudance,” “an advanced ethical sensibility” and a ripped, hip hop abs gym bod, then you need to go back to episode 6 of season 13. Yeah sita40, I think we both know who I’m talking about. None other than Dr. Zanzibar Logos Cocksmithward, also known as “Zanzibar the Incorrigible Genius from Ericeira, a small fishing and seaside resort town on the west coast of Portugal.” Some have called Zanzibar a ladykiller, both for his sultry ways with the womenfolk (McRapist, eat your heart out) but also because his practices may (and I stress the word “may,” as well as the word “Portugal.”) have lead to the deaths of several ladies in episode 89 of season 46. However, it really wasn’t his fault – he tried his best to defuse the bombs that his arch Nemesis, SHADOWHAWK, had implanted into each of the women’s minds.

It also wasn’t his fault that he fell in love with one of them. Seeing him kiss “female patient 3″ just before she exploded was no surprise to me; Zanzibar had always proven himself to be a man of emotion and love. But what was a surprise to me was not only how long his tongue was but how aggressively he plunged it into his love interest’s mouth. Zanzibar loves hard in the same way that he works hard. Damn you SHADOWHAWK for taking away his one chance at true love.

You mentioned that being a great doctor/person (Is a doctor/person a hybrid? Does that involve fusing two people together? Cause Zanzibar actually performed that operation without the consent or awareness of two patients early in season 3. It was a bold move but not one that was without its merits) depends upon having wisdom as well as prudence. Well I think that when Zanzibar sawed off the head of that eight year old boy in a recent episode then reattached it, just to show that he could, he exhibited a quality that you didn’t list. Awesomeness. A good doctor needs it. I know what you’re thinking sita40, that child, like over 80 percent of Zanzibar’s patients, later died. However, it is vital to note that the child died due to complications unrelated to the experimental head sawing operation. I think he just had bad asthma or something. My VCR might have screwed up on that one – I may have missed part of that episode.

Anyway Sita40 let’s get away from Zanzibar for a second. I must say that, despite my misgivings, I still respect your comments. I think your assertion that Christina, after being kissed by Mercy West, should have said, “I’m evolved” rather than “I’m involved” is pretty well-put. In my own view, I think she should have said, “I’m…dissolved,” and then turned into a mysterious liquid that would be beyond the explanations of modern medicine but not beyond the explanations of….do I even need to say his name? ZANZIBAR!

The show needs more supernatural moments like that – sometimes I think it’s almost too real. Like the other day, I found this weird painful growth on my foot and I thought, “I better give McDreamy a call,” then I checked the yellow pages only to burst out laughing both because I forgot that he wasn’t real and I realized that that disgusting growth was just my pinky toe. That still didn’t explain the puss, the blood or the stench but good god I had a great laugh so I decided to let bygones be bygones and let the toe be.

I also like how you mention the foreshadowing that was used in this episode. My own favorite moment of foreshadowing by the ingenious writers of Grey’s Anatomy was when Zanzibar found a mysterious document inside a patient’s intestines who he was operating on at the time. He read it, looked up and said, “This is a message sent to me by my father, whom I’ve never met nor heard anything about. He merely used this man’s body to bring forth this note to me. But why doth it say, ‘Zanzibar, we will soon meet. Best wishes and fond regards, your #1 Dad,’ and who in god’s name is my father?!”

Then we’re shown SHADOWHAWK, watching Zanzibar from afar and disguised in a doctor’s uniform as this villain quietly whispers, “You will find out soon enough…..SON!” It really made no sense because they are practically the same age in real life but wow great writing and great foreshadowing and great epiphanying. In conclusion sita40, nice talking to you. I can’t wait to see what happens next!!!!