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Isaiah Washington's 12-word response to his firing—"I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!"—hinted ominously that the newly downsized actor had retaliatory measures in mind. In one of a number of disturbing scenarios, we imagine the actor silently stalking the halls of ABC, picking off random receptionists, assistants, and executives with the most bigoted, spittle-flecked invectives he could muster, before ultimately turning the slurs onto himself. Howard Bragman, the actor's publicist, tries to explain Washington's seething rage at having lost his job after submitting to every demeaning stipulation ordered by his superiors:

"If they wanted to fire him," Bragman asks, "why didn't they fire him when [the incident] happened? Why did they say, 'Here's what you need to do if you want to come back... ' and then, when he did everything that was asked of him, he still gets fired. Why do you treat somebody like that?"

If you made a mistake, you acknowledged the mistake, you went into counseling, you met with the groups, you did the PSA, you did everything that was asked of you, and then they still kick you in the gut? How would you feel?"

While Bragman says there was no formal agreement with ABC that if Washington did X, Y and Z he could keep his job, "There was a discussion and it was agreed upon that this is what needs to be done to come back, and he did everything," he notes. "And, in fact, WE were the ones that pushed for the PSA."

Clearly, the Grey's Powers That Be were toying with Washington all along, convincing him to endure hours of tedious gayhab sessions—and doing nothing to discourage wasting all of his free time shooting a silly PSA no one probably paid attention to anyway!—all the while knowing that at the end of his redemptive To Do list, there lay no fourth-season-pickup reward.