Dissecting alternate reality in Grey's Anatomy

The idea of "what if" has always been tantalizing, from the children who fantasize about being born into royalty to the adults who wonder what would have happened if they had made one different decision. In reality, it's impossible to know what would have happened in an alternate dimension of one's life. That's where television comes in.

Grey's Anatomy producer Shonda Rhimes took full advantage of the ability to manipulate reality in last week's episode, "If/Then," where she explored what Seattle Grace Hospital would have been like if Meredith Grey (played by Ellen Pompeo)'s mother, Ellis Grey (played by Kate Burton) had never gotten sick, and had married Richard Webber (played by James Pickens, Jr).

The foray into this alternate Seattle Grace universe starts with a familiar note as Rilo Kiley's Portions for Foxes started playing, just like it did in the first episode of the series, "A Hard Day's Night," when Meredith Grey woke up to her one-night stand with the man she later finds out is her attending, Derek Shepherd (played by Patrick Dempsey).

Instead, Meredith Grey, whose name is now Meredith Webber, appears unnaturally clad in pink, far too excited to see her parents and to go to work.

At Seattle Grace Hospital, it is revealed that Meredith Webber's "person" was never Cristina Yang (played by Sandra Oh), but perky April Kepner (played by Sarah Drew) when Meredith Webber jubilantly tells Kepner that she is engaged.

Her creepy pink happiness is outshined by Alex Karev (Justin Chambers), who waltzes in with a smile to match his ridiculous glasses. We find out that he is the lucky man who Meredith Webber is engaged to.

Meanwhile, the attendings are having an early morning staff meeting, led by Chief of Surgery Ellis Grey. Callie Torres (played by Sara Ramirez) is somehow married to Owen Hunt (played by Kevin McKidd), and Miranda Bailey (played by Chandra Wilson) has become a shy, mumbling excuse for a doctor who gives up surgeries and is scared to speak her mind, the opposite of her usual character. Derek Shepherd is uninspired, unshaven and about to have a baby with his wife, Addison Montgomery-Shepherd (played by Kate Walsh).

Although Walsh is no longer a character on Grey's Anatomy, her appearance was absolutely integral to the episode. While this episode showed many characters in positions that seemed fake and unnatural, all viewers have ever wanted for Montgomery-Shepherd was for her to finally have a baby. That one concept is even the entire goal of her spin-off series, Private Practice.

However, the Shepherd marriage is far from dreamy. Even though Montgomery-Shepherd has everything she wants, she experiences the exact same problems in her marriage that existed during the second season of the show.

The cracks in this utopia become even more apparent when the "good" sister, Lexie Grey (played by Chyler Leigh) appears as a tattooed coke-head patient, the extreme of what Meredith Webber could have been if she had been dealt a different fate. While Lexie Grey is confined to her hospital bed, the "shiny, happy" residents are all eating lunch together, excluding Yang, who has become an even more intense version of herself. This scene becomes even more wrong when the doctors start to talk about their former colleagues, George 0'Malley and Izzie Stevens. Meredith Webber doesn't seem so nice when she gleefully reminisces about how she got Stevens fired by turning her in.

The world of Seattle Grace Hospital continues to unfold, as the Shepherds' marriage falls apart alongside the cookie-cutter life that Meredith Webber has created for herself. Rimes manages to find time for the medical moments that the show is known for as well, showing multiple high-stakes surgeries alongside the drama. The best moment of the episode, however, mirrored what is arguably one of the best moments in the show's history, when Mark Sloan (played by Eric Dane) appears next to Montgomery-Shepherd shirtless in the same hilarious way that he did in the season 3 episode "I Am A Tree."    

This episode is another one of Rimes' successes. Not only did it provide viewers with a break from the weekly drama, but it proved that the way Rimes envisioned the series was perfect from the start.