Comment: Heigl, 'Grey's Anatomy,' have ruined Izzie

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, May 6, 2009 | by Aaron Kinney

I'm pretty sure I represent a large TV demographic: guys who watch "Grey's Anatomy" because their wives or girlfriends do.

So while I'm not exactly a fan of the show, I've come to know it well enough over the years, looking up now and again from my laptop or book of Sudoku puzzles, to be able to draw some conclusions.

Chief among them is this: Izzie Stevens, the headstrong resident played by Katherine Heigl, may be the most annoying character in the history of television. She is irrational, difficult and mercurial -- her actions seem calculated to provoke eye-rolling violent enough to sprain the extraocular muscles -- at least in viewers who like characters to be grounded in some semblance of logic or plausibility.

On the bubble

I thought now would be a good time to address the subject, since the show is threatening to kill Izzie off by the end of the season, due in part to Heigl's antagonizing the producers and writers last summer by publicly asking not to be nominated for an Emmy.

The problems with Izzie -- who overcame a troubled upbringing in a trailer park to become a doctor-in-training at a top hospital -- really began in Season 2, when she fell in love with a scuzzy- looking heart patient named Denny, who quickly charmed her with a torrent of cheesy come-on lines.

At the end of the season, in an attempt to save Denny's life, Izzie sabotaged the machine keeping him alive to move him up the heart-transplant list. He died, but not before proposing to her. She accepted.

Izzie was neither barred from medicine nor criminally prosecuted for this transgression. She was barely repentant. She quit the program and began acting like a lunatic, baking bushels of muffins and refusing to cash an $8.7 million check from Denny's estate.

Eventually she returned to Seattle Grace, where she continued to be difficult and irrational.

This year, however, in Season 5, Izzie outdid herself: She had sex with a dead guy. More precisely, Izzie slept with Denny's ghost. After a bout of supernatural lovemaking, however, Izzie grew irritated with his lingering presence, leading him to apologize to her for having died.

"No. No, (expletive) you!" Izzie yelled. "No, you don't get to apologize for dying. You don't get to apologize, because I killed you!"

I don't care if she was venting a guilty conscience -- only Izzie Stevens would berate the ghost of her dead fiance because he said he was sorry for dying. We later learned that Denny was an apparition caused by skin cancer that has metastasized to Izzie's brain. This does not excuse the writers for having subjected us to ghost sex, however, in case they were wondering.

Now Izzie is undergoing treatment for her cancer, which has made her sympathetic and vulnerable. But don't be fooled. Annoyance is ready to strike at all times, as Izzie's frenetic planning of Meredith Grey's wedding has so clearly demonstrated.

Whose fault?

All of this brings us to an important question: Who is most responsible for making Izzie so annoying: Heigl or "Grey's" creator Shonda Rimes and her team of writers?

I feel it's the latter. The main issue is the ridiculous things the writers have Izzie say and do. Heigl's interpretation of Izzie may at times exacerbate the problem, but the problem wouldn't exist if Rimes and her creative team had a different vision for the character.

As crazy as this sounds, coming four-fifths of the way through a column denigrating her best-known role, I actually kind of like Heigl as an actress, despite her growing reputation as a diva. Heigl is able to wring moments of genuine charm and humor out of Izzie, which makes it all the more frustrating when she returns to her default setting.

So was Heigl justified when she asked not to be nominated for an Emmy -- she claimed her material hadn't been good enough -- in biting the hand that feeds her?

That's a tough call, but I'm afraid even having to play Izzie Stevens doesn't justify that sort of disloyalty. "Grey's" has helped transform Heigl from an actress that nobody other than the five people who watched "Roswell" had ever heard of into one of Hollywood's highest-paid actresses and an emerging movie star. Things like paranormal intercourse are a small price to pay for that kind of career leap.

Part of me suspects Izzie's story arc this year was simply Rimes' way of spiting Heigl. The other part thinks Denny's resurrection was perfectly in line with everything that had come before it, just the latest ludicrous plot twist for a show that has jumped more sharks than a wounded harbor seal.

I think Shonda's going to miss Izzie when she's gone.

Reach Aaron Kinney at akinney@bayareanews group.com.Commentary