ABC
Despite everyone’s hopes being sky-high for the return of a certain Season 14 departure, April Kepner does not make it back to Grey-Sloan or the COVID-Beach or anywhere on this week’s episode.
The bulk of the episode was spent, as so many of our mid-pandemic episodes have been spent, accurately showcasing how difficult just living life is during this unprecedented time of a global pandemic. As if COVID-19 wasn’t enough, the death of Andrew DeLuca (fatally stabbed after successfully aiding in the apprehension of sex-trafficking criminal on last week’s episode) has its fallout all over the hospital. (If you want the particularly touching expressions of grief from his sister Carina, who started on Grey’s and jumped ship a while back to Station 19, you’ll have to catch SE4E7 ‘Learning To Fly’.)
Bailey isn’t coping. Period. And no surprise, she hasn’t had a moment to process losing her mom in this pandemic. As she spirals out, she starts grilling and drilling Altman & Hunt about DeLuca, even goes so far to insist that the autopsy report be used in the M&M, right up until Richard shuts that down. It isn’t until Schmidt starts his rambling, which results in some typical epic Bailey faces, about his personal experience with life and religion, but ultimately she finds solace in his words about the traditions … the protocols … of death, which leads her to announce to Richard that she needs some time off.
Amelia and Link have yet another fight — this time because she’s found his hidden bottle of whiskey tucked away behind the fancy candles in a cupboard somewhere. He’s been sneaking drinks alone late at night in the garage. This leads him to storm off to Jo’s but not before screaming that he will be back because he’s a good guy (and that he has to leave because he doesn’t want to say something he’ll regret because he does love her.) But seriously — Amelia is 200% extra at the best of times — and he went from being scared brainless about bringing one baby into the world, now he’s trapped in Meredith Grey’s house raising his baby, and her three babies while his baby-momma spirals out over whether or not her ‘sister’ will ever come off the vent. Can you blame him?
Meanwhile, JoJack — because bangers with benefits is still apparently a thing — are hanging out nekkid but on separate surfaces in Jo’s loft, when Link bangs on the door and literally says, ‘It’s Jackson, I’m here for a bang.’ Which is hilariously awkward when Link gets let in and Jackson is actually there. Commence the day drinking. Jo’s still insisting on switching to OB but I think that’s a pandemic-only storyline and as the vaccines spread around the globe (but not at Grey-Sloan, they’re still in the dark worst of it) there is hope that this too shall pass.
Winston ingratiates himself with the Grey-Shepherd children by busting some cute dance moves, but he gets a gold star this episode for the mystery diagnosis of the cardio patient who gets brought in at the top of the episode. THIS patient is one of the hardest threads of this week because he’s petrified of COVID-19. He flips out upon waking in the ER — because the media has led him to belief that it’s not safe to be in the hospital. And this hits home so hard for so many — how many out there who didn’t die from COVID, but did die early on in the pandemic because they were terrified to go to a hospital or seek medical treatment because they were afraid they would catch COVID and die? The patient busts off the OR table just before they anaesthetise him (giving Perez his gold star of the episode … ‘Did you guys lose a naked patient? He went that way…’ As ONLY Perez can deliver it.) Ultimately Maggie reassures him that the problem he has can be helped if he just lets them help.
Maggie gets bonus props for helping Helm, who has the ‘I felt/said bad things about Andrew’ guilt weighing on her (just like Steph, Jo, Lea Murphey, and Ross when Brooks died) by giving her the ‘back-hug’, which is just like our ‘elbow-high-five’. Props to Maggie for understanding.
Meredith gets precious seconds with Derek on the beach, most of which he just spends mocking her in that good natured McDreamy sort of way. It’s infuriating because you want them to be closer, share time together, almost like she did with George, but we all know if she does that, it’s one step further away from living. And we’ve all watched Meredith die too many times already. They also looped Hayes into the beach because he’s trying to give her the will to live. (In the same way they brought Bailey and Richard in.) And that’s touching too.
Richard and Catherine have a very touching moment, which is such a relief after all of their strife. He’s shaking apart at the foundation of his faith, sanity, and sobriety, because DeLuca’s murder has left him with no clear picture. Catherine reveals that she’s just had her most recent Stage 4 cancer scans and not a single thing has grown. That is peaceful.
Niko and Schmidt are holding hands again. And Niko gets a gold star for saying, ‘My go to is numb.’ And Schmidt, very insightfully says, ‘Did you just sum up why our relationship failed in five words?’ Schmidt has grown so much as a character; he’s come so very far from being ‘Glasses’.
Altman is flailing. And apparently we’re not clear of DeLuca just yet. (Not that we wanted to be — but they kept saying ‘he’s gone, he’s gone’.) Teddy Altman is hallucinating him. Everywhere. (And the promo for next week shows more of that — and plays into Altman’s delirium from which she may not recover.) So distraught and unable to process this loss, Owen finds her a huddled shell on the curb of the parking lot and physically has to carry her home.
But the overarching beauty of this week’s episode was the sendoff, albeit truncated, of Andrew DeLuca. Everyone gathered — not sure where that was supposed to be — helipad(?) rooftop where Derek, Owen, and Mark shot golf one time? Ambulance Bay? Parking lot? SOMEWHERE outside on hospital property — and we saw (in silence) everyone who had recorded a goodbye tribute to DeLuca, including Bokhee!! And then we got DeLuca’s ‘video interview/if I match with the Grey-Sloan surgical intern program’ video. I can’t recall a send-off tribute as touching as that since Mark’s postmortem sendoff with all of the made-up footage of him on that camcorder.
It’s still a bumpy road ahead. Meredith won’t be coming out of her COVID Coma anytime soon, and now it looks like Altman might be hanging on by a thread. April Kepner (Sarah Drew) is due to make a reappearance at some point, and now that Killing Eve has announced its series finale, could we possibly be on the lookout for Sandra Oh’s Cristina Yang to return — pop into the COVID beach and dance it out with Meredith? We’ll just have to keep watching.
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