ABC
Seriously? Seriously!? Except – this season has been such a whackadoodle out-of-sorts season that we can’t even be mad that this is one half ‘If/Then’ and one half ‘Dream-Death-Repeat’. It’s the all-Teddy show (with a really nice hot-second flashback actually showing Cristina … we’re all still desperately holding out hope that she’ll somehow get swooped to Seattle in the middle of a global pandemic to visit Meredith on the beach from the Grey-Sloan side of things, especially after we see who’s coming next week!)
It’s hard to be mad at all the recycled/repeats happening this episode for two reasons – (1) It’s almost normal and because it’s so close to normal it feels like home and brings us one step closer to feeling like we might get to be back to life pre-COVID. and (2) It really fleshes out so much of the back story of Teddy that we got shoved in our faces all pell-mell for no good reason sometime last season. And bonus reason – for those that aren’t over DeLuca, he’s baaaaack. He’s Season 17’s Denny Duquette.
As Teddy lays in her … PTSD-coma? Stupor? Catatonic state? The terminology for conscious but gone is lacking in this episode, but as she lays there – Owen is busy not having his feelings and then having them in true Owen style – loudly and aggressively – with Amelia, who has arrived with a banana bag because Teddy’s a half step shy of needing to be admitted to the hospital.
Amelia, to her credit, brings up a world of good points and coping mechanisms for Owen (including the fact that he’s basically the biggest hypocrite ever, which we already knew because we’ve been living with it for 12 seasons, not wanting/letting Teddy deal with her PTSD and lying about it when he basically did the exact same thing. Twice.) Amelia has really turned into the voice of reason and logic here, which is rewarding in its own right. And she reminds Owen that he and she have both been where Teddy is, though differently, and when they lash out – they hurt people. And for once, I think what she said might actually stick with him. He does need to forgive her. He can’t spend the rest of his days hating her, and even if he doesn’t go back to her – they can learn to co-parent, and be friends, and forgive. And why does Amelia know Owen can do this? She reminds him – duh – he did it with her.
ABC
Teddy’s journey is fascinating. She keeps running into Meredith (and not on the beach!) Upright, walking, and in a sensibly fashionable blue peacoat, Meredith is the voice of reckoning and reason when it comes time to escape the PTSD catatonic state (surprise – she does.) And she’s 100% right. Losing Teddy’s parents, losing Allison, Henry (anybody remember Henry? Meredith even says ‘he was dying when you married him’), and DeLuca was not Teddy’s fault. But she also points out that Teddy runs from pain – it’s a predictable repeatable pattern – she lost her parents, she ran to Allison. She lost Allison she ran to the army/Owen. She lost Owen the first time to Cristina, she ran to Henry. She lost Henry she ran to Germany. And when she gets to the joy – she sabotages it because she doesn’t believe she deserves it (Koracick.)
The ‘rewind’ element of Teddy’s time-travel-narrative is actually really impressive and well-staged. Trying to pinpoint the trigger of the PTSD – first she rewinds back to meeting Tom in his car the night she should have run away – and that goes horribly wrong (in this case she pulls the pin out of a grenade the morning after as she realizes she’s made the wrong choice and shouldn’t be with him – and it physically blows him away. Great representation of the emotional trauma she caused him, shadowing her military life.)
And then further back, to not throwing Owen out in Germany. But that goes wrong too. All the while DeLuca is there. Like some sort of Denny Duquette ghost, but in the platonic sense as Altman + DeLuca was not Izzie + Denny. And he’s pretty logical too, when he’s trying to help her figure this wounded-soul journey out … but even he disappears, largely because he’s dead and that finally sinks in.
We get more of the Allison back story, and we get more of what makes Teddy – well – Teddy. There are images of the World Trade Center Towers and flashes of the street-level carnage which should come with a large trigger warning at the top of the episode, but don’t. This episode is probably the most all-encompassing traumatic experience since the Season 9 two hour premiere with the plane crash. It weaves seamlessly through her life – and it suddenly makes Teddy a character that we should have cared about all along (and honestly it makes her feel like the six or so seasons she was ‘away in Germany’ that she was never not a part of the Grey-Sloan dynamic. Which is depth she never had, and ever since her return with Meghan Hunt, the character has just felt so forced and now she feels as if she’s been there all along.)
It was good to see Koracick, for however brief a time, and good to see Amelia working things out with Owen, for his benefit. Teddy does snap out of it at the end, realizing that it wasn’t her fault and that you can’t ever learn from your mistakes if you stop moving forward. Very touching image of her holding baby Allison at the end. But the real kicker is the preview for next week – LEXI!!! The return of Little Grey – on the beach of course – and how is it that we all knew (but have yet to see) the return of April Kepner but they kept Lexi under wraps as well as they did George and McDreamy? So maybe there’s hope for Cristina yet! Fingers crossed – and it looks like into the ‘beach’ once more next week!
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