The head writer on "New History,"Allan Heinberg, has posted some thoughts on last night's just-aired episode of Grey's Anatomy on the show's official writers' blog.

Below are excerpts, with a link at the bottom to the full entry ...

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No matter how hard we try to let go of the past - to learn from it and move forward - all we’re really doing is creating new history, trying to learn from past mistakes.

The past, it would seem, is inescapable.

For Izzie Stevens, the past has never been more present. The decision she’s facing in the present is exactly the same one she faced in high school. Is she going to let a careless error – and her own hurt feelings and regrets – rob her of her future as a surgeon?

There are no easy answers for Izzie at the end of this episode, but you definitely get a sense from Katherine Heigl’s performance that Izzie’s not about to give up on her dream of becoming a surgeon. Somewhere, somehow, she’s going to be a doctor.

Alex, too, is haunted throughout the episode by his past with Izzie. He’s obviously still wounded by her having left him – but he’s determined not to allow himself to acknowledge that – to feel it – to reveal himself to Izzie in any way. It's heartbreaking.

What will this blast from Owen's past mean for his future?

Meredith longs for the moment when George was sill alive, and Izzie was okay, and everyone was happy – a moment she was barely even conscious of when it was happening. Derek seems to mourn the time when the hospital ran smoothly, and he and Richard were allies.

Sometimes the past doesn’t stay in the past. Teddy’s arrival unleashes all manner of complications for Owen, Cristina, and herself. Cristina’s immediately suspicious that Owen and Teddy were more than friends during their time together in Iraq.

Teddy confesses to Owen that she apparently misread their mutual history, and walks away from him, mortified. And Owen’s left haunted by Teddy’s confession, now forced to re-examine his own history - and his feelings for both Teddy and Cristina.

Ultimately, however, it’s the Chief’s struggle with the past – specifically with his history of alcoholism – that’s the most surprising and the most devastating. So far this season, the stressed-out Chief has behaved in extremely erratic, un-Chief-like ways.

The Chief is drinking again. And apparently he’s been drinking for a long time. Right now, only Meredith Grey knows the truth. And what she’s going to do about it will surprise you.

Follow the link for the entirety of Allan's blog ...

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