Grey's Anatomy writer Bill Harper, who authored last night's episode, has posted his thoughts on "Rise Up" on the show's official writers' blog, and they're quite interesting.
We've condensed his intro a bit (follow the link above to read it), but here's what the writer had to say about Izzie, Denny, Hunt, Cristina, Callie, Hahn and more ...
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Detachment shows up all over in this episode.
The first Solo Surgery’s about to be awarded, it’s a huge deal, a huge honor, so our doctors are fired up to learn, to prepare, to win it - and their interns are being neglected by their teachers - everyone’s getting a little crazed, a little... detached.
Lexie assembles her league of unclaimed bodies. But Alex literally body-snatches them and pretty soon all of the residents are using them. And I mean using them.
They’re so consumed with practicing procedures (and, in some cases, their lunch) they lose track of the fact that these are actual people they’re cutting into.

Of course, it takes Bailey to snap them back, to demand for these bodies the respect they deserve. Sadly, it all lands on poor Lexie, who, from the beginning was the only person who showed those cadavers anything like respect. (I love her little speech thanking them for being there).
No wonder she joins her basement band of self-doctoring interns.
Meanwhile, George works heroically away on his “patient.” Stan (played by iStan - truly the most amazing patient simulator there is out there). The idea behind these is that they can create a scenario so realistic that doctors actually feel the stress of a real-life trauma. And by the end Stan becomes more of a person than he has a right to be (thanks partly to the Chief).
The poor beating victim, on the other hand, becomes less than human.
Alex and Cristina have turned him into a grab bag of procedures to practice on, losing track of the person to the point where Owen completely snaps.
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