Grey's Anatomy Recap: A Tribute to Mark Sloan

Eric Dane exits ABC’s hit show and leaves a trail of broken souls behind at Seattle Grace

Unless you've been crying so much you couldn't see straight, we have to say SPOILER ALERT for those Grey's Anatomy fans not in the know: a major death happened during Thursday's episode.
 
Sure, we all knew Eric Dane was leaving Grey's, but we didn't know the season nine premiere was going to be a tear-jerking tribute to Mark Sloan.
 
We enter Seattle Grace 30 days after the fateful plane crash, with every doctor on board dealing with the trauma in his or her own way:

Déjà Vu: Enter a new crop of interns, very reminiscent of Meredith, George and Izzie. One is sleeping with an attendee (Alex Karev) à la Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) and Derek (Patrick Dempsey). Also, there is the "intern appy" project Meredith assigns to Jo (Steven W. Bailey), which just sets her up to fail. Oh, forgot to mention that these are all "Medusa's" interns. And who is Medusa, you ask?
 
Meredith Is the New Bailey: Medusa, the serpent-haired monster who turns interns to stone, is Meredith Grey's reputation around the hospital. Remind you of any other fable of Seattle Grace? (*cough* The Nazi/Bailey).
 
Yang is in Minnesota and She's Not Happy: Aside from the apparent blizzard, Cristina Yang (Sandra Oh) can outperform all of her peers, and she's not impressed with her surroundings. She's pushed her flight back to Seattle to visit Meredith multiple times, likely due to the fact…you know... she was in an awful plane crash. Remember Yang's trauma after the hospital shooting? This flying fear shouldn't come as a surprise, and it affects Meredith, too.

"This Is a Good Day to Save Lives": Derek is going in to operate with his "brand new hand" for the first time and it doesn't go well. He ends up leaving the operating room mid-surgery. Will he be able to recover this season? Only time will tell.
 
Seven Hours Until 5 O'Clock: If after 30 days there are no signs of recovery for Mark, it's time to let him go and "honor his wish." This is the case, as Sloan indicated in his living will that all procedures be discontinued. Time to say goodbye. In a tribute to Mark Sloan, we get a glimpse into key moments of his life and career over the past several years:

• 1994: Mark tells Derek he will never find another friend as good as him during Addison's (Kate Walsh) wedding.
• 2007: Callie (Sara Ramirez) and Mark's sex tape.
• 2009: Callie and Arizona's (Jessica Capshaw) wedding, where Mark tells Callie and Arizona congratulations and that he loves them during a taped wedding message. He also says Lexie Grey (Chyler Leigh) will be his partner in his old age.
• 2010: Mark mentoring Avery (Jesse Williams).

New Attendee Introduced: Mel Barnett from Miami is the new Peds surgery attendee. He hints that Arizona is dead, but that's not the case. Also, he tells Karev he will not be continuing the exchange program. This will dictate Alex's decision about whether or not to leave the hospital.
 
No Place Like Home: Owen (Kevin McKidd) comes to find April (Sarah Drew) working on a farm and asks her to come back to Seattle. As for Arizona, we find her alone in bed, with her leg amputated that appears to have been done by Callie. Those two will have some serious issues to work out over the next couple weeks. And yes, we will get to see what happened in those 30 days before they were all rescued.