In response to George O'Malley's story line, he noted how his sensitive personality constantly results in difficulty in his path to becoming a proper surgeon. He also expressed excitement in the doors opened by the previous season's cliffhanger, seeing the arrival of Montgomery (Walsh) as "certainly speaking to the show's focus on relationships over the nuts and bolts of being a surgeon", while praising Rhimes for continuing to "merge those disparate elements in the way that does, or at least should be a source of enthusiasm for both men and women, creating an atmosphere both professional and intimately personal, often at the same time". Noting the realism in the writing for the series, Gilchrist stated: "It's as if Rhimes and Co. harnessed the sublime and the mundane of our daily experiences, that strange sense of drama that emerges from even the most unimportant daily conflicts, and it transported it on a world that is legitimately fraught with life and death decisions." However, he expressed disappointment in the end of the second season, which he deemed surprisingly less strong, compared to the "powerful" first half and the "immaculate" first season, describing Stevens' "awkward and self-destructive" relationship with a patient as a way to "slow episodes to a screeching halt with maudlin and painfully underdeveloped turns towards melodrama", while expressing the predictability of Duquette's death. Gilchrist stated in response to Stevens' development in the last part of the second season: "Izzie's descent into abject hysteria, which followed her season-long sanctimoniousness about everything, actually made me want something terrible to happen to her too." He described how some episodes were not among the show's strongest, noting that the some plot lines created poignancy, and connected in an unfamiliar way. The reviews have stood the test of time and the season still remains a huge critical favorite. "Entertainment Weekly" reviewing the tenth season of the show acknowledged that, "the second season is still the show’s best season to date." The site added, "I do want to talk about what season 10 could learn from what I believe is the show’s best season to date: season 2." calling in all the signature elements of the show that it did the best with listing all the best moments from the season, "the elevator", "the walkway", "Joe’s bar, " Meredith's "Pick me" speech". and the "memorable patients" adding, " I want two people stuck on a pole ("Into You Like a Train") or two Amish best friends having to say goodbye, and I want those stories to be given ample time to resonate.