Formerly bitter, embattled Grey's Anatomy star Isaiah Washington is scheduled to reprise his role on the hit ABC television series in May, for at least one episode of the show's tenth season.

Blue Caprice (opening this week in New York) is not a biopic. It's based on the events leading up to the 2002 Beltway sniper attacks, and takes its title from the car the real-life killers used, but—director Alexandre Moors warned me when I talked to him and star Isaiah Washington earlier this week—it's really an interpretation, and not a faithful recreation.

Kelly Bensimon has odor issues. Marge Simpson will have a 3-page Playboy spread. Isaiah Washington's still having a hard time finding work. And Nicolas Cage has a lot of money the government wants. Enjoy your Friday morning gossip roundup!

Martha Stewart turns 68 today. Tom Brady, the Patriots quarterback and father of Gisele Bundchen's fetus, is turning 32. Martin Sheen is 69. Tony Bennett is turning 83. Model Evangeline Lilly turns 30. Art-collecting heir Adam Lindemann is turning 48. Model Brooklyn Decker is 22. Sen. Roland Burris is turning 72. Mamie Gummer, an actress and the daughter of Meryl Streep, is 26. Actor Isaiah Washington is turning 46. And Salt-N-Pepa's DJ Spinderella turns 38 today.

• The Jeremy Piven sushi drama just won't quit. Piven's dispute with producers over his decision to leave the cast of Speed-the-Plow will now be heard by an arbitrator in June. But Piven doesn't seem too worried: He says he's "looking forward to testifying," since President Obama recently described mercury poisoning as "the world's gravest chemical problem." [Reuters, Us, TMZ]
• Sean Penn and Natalie Portman were supposedly spotted "making out" at the Sunset Tower Hotel earlier this month. At least that's what the Star says. [Star]
• Are David Duchovny and Tea Leoni getting back together? They were spotted "canoodling" on the beach in Mustique. [NYDN]
• Scarlett Johansson is on a "rigid diet" at the moment. She's also the "new muse" of Moet & Chandon, just so you know. [P6, WWD]

Sam Mendes turns 43 today. Rapper (and now radio host) Chuck D. is 48. Other folks celebrating: Al D'Amato is 71. Model agency owner Scott Lipps turns 39. Hairspray's Ashley Parker Angel is 27. Hedge fund honcho Ray Dalio is 59. Real estate agent Elizabeth Stribling is turning 64. Adam Duritz is turning 44. Most importantly, Coolio celebrates his 45th today. Celebrating tomorrow: Mary Louise Parker will be 44. Jeffrey Kalinsky will turn 46. NRDC president Frances Beinecke will be 59. And financier Henry Silverman will celebrate his 68th. On Sunday, Martha Stewart will celebrate her 67th with what we're guessing will be a meticulously planned party. Other Sunday celebrations: art world staple Adam Lindemann, Tom Brady, Isaiah Washington, and Martin Sheen.

Isaiah Washington, now a member of Bionic Woman's big happy family, is never too busy to shatter the deafening, one-day silence that followed his ouster from Grey's Anatomy at the hands of a shadowy cabal of moustache-twirling gay foes. Speaking to Extra, the actor delivered a curiously roundabout answer to a question about whether or not potential Bionic viewers might be turned off by his year of very bad press:

The set of much-buzzed-about new NBC Fall series Bionic Woman—eagerly anticipated by late-70s television nostalgists, the indestructible-heroine-loving Heroes set, and fanboys drooling over their weekly primetime appointment with star Michelle Ryan's six million dollar rack alike—may be officially troubled™—Var reports that "creative differences" (not the Mandy Patinkin kind, we'll assume) have forced the network to part ways with showrunner Glen Morgan, and discusses rumors that the series might be taking a "getting its shit together" hiatus:

While gabby Grey's Anatomy gay-conspiracy victim Isaiah Washington finds himself running out of media outlets willing to let him break his silence yet again about the shadowy machinations that led to his dismissal from the hit show (really, once you've chatted with Star Jones in football metaphors, there's nowhere left to go), reporters are begging Grey's slur-survivor T.R. Knight to say something, anything, about the F-Bomb That Continues To Rock The World of Primetime Television Nearly A Year After The Fact. But not even a bottomless basket of garlic knots and untold glasses of honor-bar chianti at one of Venice's finest family-style Italian eateries could entice the actor to abandon the high road he's so committed to traveling, as the LAT discovered recently:

On the premiere of her new Court TV show today, Star Jones invited Isaiah Washington to again discuss how a vast conspiracy behind the scenes at Grey's Anatomy forced him to blurt out the term "faggot" at an inopportune moment, ultimately leading to his dismissal from the series. But just when you thought the actor's serial silence-breakings had covered every angle, an all-new football metaphor helped to shed yet more light on the always scintillating subject of Washington's victimhood:

By now, we thought that former Grey's Anatomy star Isaiah Washington serial silence- breakings about the turbulent events of his recent career would be yielding diminishing returns, with nothing he could offer at this point possibly topping the virtuoso gay-conspiracy theories and McDreamy character assassinations to which we've been treated since his firing. But we were wrong. So very, very wrong. In an interview with EW.com meant to clarify the timeline of his controversial addition to the cast of Bionic Woman, Washington recounts the amazing speed with which newly installed NBC rock star Ben Silverman moved to adopt him into his network family once he discovered that the actor had been disowned by ABC. We pick up the narrative at the Chateau Marmont, where Ozwald "House of" Boateng, upon hearing that his buddy Isaiah needed a new job, set into motion the following series of completely fucking insane events:

As Isaiah Washington continues to unleash a tsunami of silence-breakings upon a public that has long since ceased to care about the vast, gay-winged conspiracy responsible for his dismissal from Grey's Anatomy, one key player who has succeeded in not speaking about the controversy was series creator Shonda Rhimes—that is, until yesterday's press-tour panel for Grey's spinoff Private Practice, when the EP was cornered by a pack of quote-hungry reporters who wouldn't take "no comment" for an answer. According to an interview with TVGuide.com, the weary showrunner was on the same page as her ABC overlords when she made the fatal call:

Since there's nothing like a burgeoning feud between two of the most powerful men in television to enliven a seemingly endless string of TCA-generated reports about the coming Fall season, we're delighted to note that ABC president Steve McPherson has come out swinging about newly appointed NBC co-chairman/chime-bearer/rock-star Ben Silverman, whom McPherson apparently felt was a little less than honest in discussing his high-profile adoption of Grey's Anatomy orphan Isaiah Washington and in the way he pleaded ignorance of the bloody execucide of predecessor Kevin Reilly that cleared the path for Silverman to take control of the Peacock. TVGuide.com relates McPherson's comments about the Isaiah situation:

With the announcement that gay-slur-spouting primetime orphan Isaiah Washington was placed into Bionic Woman foster care by NBC rock-star/case-worker Ben Silverman, the actor's mood went from a volatile Mad As Hell And Not Going To Take It Anymore to Quietly Vindicated, But Still Wanting to Break My Silence a Few More Times. After a recent Larry King Live appearance in which Washington reassured America of his enduring admiration of Gays, the actor went on to explain to Access Hollywood how the real villain—aside, of course, from mastermind T.R. Knight, pulling his pink puppet strings from on-high—was Patrick "McEvil" Dempsey:

· Bill and Hillary were the Seth Rogen and Bryce Dallas Howard of their day! (Alternate suggestion: Chewbacca/Carrie Fisher.)
· James Woods thinks the problem isn't Isaiah Washington's big mouth, it's Grey's Anatomy's miserable set. Gay slurs fly fast and free among Shark's big happy family, and no one gives it a second thought.
· We're confident that the actual Jon Lovitz/Andy Dick Smackdown was a lot more exciting than John Henson's action figure reenactment on TV Guide channel. (Side note: The girl playing Andy Dick has the voice-register right, but needs to work more on the slurring and asking-strangers-for-blow part.)
· Canadians: Our extremely easy-to-please neighbors to the north.
· And finally, it's Geometry Fun Time! Brought to you by Subway cheese slices.

Realizing that explaining the reason that Isaiah Washington has unexpectedly joined the cast of their new series was, "Because Ben Silverman knew everyone would go apeshit if we put the angry Grey's Anatomy doctor onto our show. And, by golly, Ben was right! People hate that guy!" might get them off on the wrong foot with their new boss, the executive producer of Bionic Woman was more politic in discussing why he was willing to take on the actor's prohibitively heavy baggage. Reports TVWeek.com's TCA blog:

· Openly gay publicist Howard Bragman "adores" star client Isaiah Washington, who might have "more gay friends than I do."
· Amy Winehouse might have two functioning livers, but Lily Allen has a third nipple.
· Ah, Hollywood, where even the formerly mobbed-up can make a nice living and knock up Victoria's Secret models.
· Welcome back, Potter.

Prospects had looked bleak for Grey's Anatomy shitcannee Isaiah Washington, who seemed all but certainly headed for the dinner theater circuit, where the mercurial actor would live out the remainder of his career silencing talkative audience members by climbing down from the stage to personally stuff an olive roll into their mouths. Credit the infectious positivity and counterintuitive vision of NBC co-chairman/rock-star Ben Silverman, then, for seeing in Washington a skilled and appealing actor, where lesser network heads might have merely seen a litany of choking-related lawsuits. Reports USA Today:

• Isaiah Washington: Gay's Anatomy [iklipz.com]

"Isaiah Washington was a lot of things on Larry King—personable, cool, self-pitying, non-committal, shiny-haired," writes blogger Rich Juzwiak: