ABC
Dear Station 19,
Thank you for rescuing all the Grey-Sloan Memorial doctors from the car that plowed into Joe’s Bar (even though Joe is long gone from Joe’s Bar.) We appreciate all your heroics but need none of your dramatics; we have enough of our own. Please drive in your own lane from now on.
Sincerely,
Grey’s Anatomy
Crossover nonsense aside, there were six sorts of things happening in the back-half (and arguably the bulky half – since we only got nine episodes in the fall) of the 16th season of TV’s longest-running prime-time medical drama. And spoilers: NOBODY DIES. Well, a patient, who never even made it to the hospital, but that’s not on our doctors, it seems to be on their fire-fighters.
The most notable thing about this week – and I can’t even talk about Bailey’s meltdown right this second or I’ll start crying again – was that for the very first time in 16 seasons we’ve seen a patient who survived surgery being wheeled out of the OR on their bed. It was so shocking, seeing Helm getting wheeled out of the OR, leaving Bailey there (to melt down later) but it was really striking. How did it take them 16 seasons to come up with that simple but beautiful event?
Alex, as we all know, seems to have made an unannounced and unexpected series exit … we’ll dig into that as details become available, but since he was already over at PacNorth doing the PacNorth thing I’m guessing that the Doctors aren’t going to make a big deal out of it … except for Jo, whose baby-hormones are clearly going through the roof right now.
LOVE that Meredith’s immediate response to Link’s flipping out about Jo’s ‘stealing a baby’ was just to reaffirm recycled plot. ‘I stole a baby.’ (And I was waiting with bated breath for her to say that. SCORE!) Meredith, all round, was just made of win this week. Comforting Schmidt after he dropped in the OR (Isn’t that twice for him now? Once when he was being a human blood bank and now?) And showing up to aid Jo with the ‘stolen’ baby, and then with Bailey. ‘I had a miscarriage once and never felt more alone.’ I think oftentimes we forget – just like ‘of course Webber had an affair with Ellis’ tidbit – that just because it’s common knowledge to us, it isn’t common knowledge to everybody. (The look on Bailey’s face, though, trying to very quickly mentally put it together between adopting Zola, birthing Bailey in the storm via C-section, and disappearing to birth Ellis in Boston …) And THAT moment with the three of them … because THAT is all that’s left. (Seriously, though? I’m betting on a horrific catastrophe … like not quite hit-by-a-bus … but that level of traumatic unrecognizable, since we recycle plotlines and Alex has gone bye-bye now …)
Was soooo hoping Maggie too was gone for good, but she’s still here, just currently in her ‘Derek in the woods’ phase. And now she’s being sued like Callie. Ah well. Yes, DeLuca, you did screw up. Move on, there’s a whole season and a half of McWidow drama we have to get to. But not before we get through all the Teddy-Amelia-Owen-Link-Baby drama first. And also Koracick.
Did he say Theodore Grace or did he just mumble and say Theodora Grace? Either way, now she’s going to be Teddy Grace for the rest of her life and I’m forever going to hear her with a southern hillbilly accent in my head. Pop goes the question, eventually the answer is yes, and everyone is happy for five seconds. Until next week when Amelia has to drop the bomb that the baby might also be Owen’s … so maybe Koracick isn’t out of this yet.
It was good to see all the doctors back at Grey-Sloan where they belong. I felt for Parker; THAT was really – I just don’t have the words. I love how Teddy handled that. And I’m glad it was a PTSD trigger and brain contusion and not a drastic brain trauma that required surgery.
Watching Bailey break down in that OR – I had to stop – wind it back – and watch it again. And I cried just as hard the second time. I can’t remember being that choked up by Bailey since she was losing it in the hallway when Gary Clark shot up the place and she knew there was no way to save Charles Percy. Except this was even more brutal. Gut-wrenching. And Ben (for the two seconds he’s in it – ‘No, I’m not okay, but Miranda comes first.’ And I did like the shared moments they had during ‘I Know This Bar’.)
Ultimately it’s an intriguing set-up for the back-half of the season, especially as no one died (that’ll be next week with Ben coming in from the explosion at the fireworks shop … notice a pattern with his rash and rogue decisions? That seems to have followed him over from his surgical intern days …) And I guess it’ll all come exploding out when someone has to tell Owen that he might be the dad … and we find out what clever thing they’re going to do in order to properly write off Alex … because you can’t just keep him in Iowa forever.
Grey’s Anatomy airs Thursdays at 9:00 PM on ABC.
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