ABC
Bailey has a profound piece of advice for a patient this week and it’s simple: ‘Rest is not a dirty word.’ Unless of course you’re Meredith Grey, in which case – WAKE THE HELL UP FROM COVID-BEACH ALREADY. (Everyone is so damn antsy to get her out of that happy place … of course they don’t know it’s chock-fulla-undead former doctors.) It’s a week of balance – rest and unrest – for everyone at Grey-Sloan, not the least of which, of course, is Meredith.
But while we’re flipping ourselves inside out – let’s start with the least bit of sense-making thing that happened this week (which, like 99.2% of plotlines on GA, we’ve seen before) the part where Schmidt finally stands up for himself with Niko – telling him that letting him have a little space in Niko’s apartment is just making space for him in his life and that Niko is just so guarded. Flip Slap #1? Niko says ‘Yup.’ And then says, ‘Move in with me. I love you.’ Double Flip Slap #2? Schmidt hits the hard breaks and suddenly is like ‘Uh – Jo needs me – she’s strung out – nice talking to you – buh-bye.’ And legitimately wanders off home to movie night with Jo. (I mean we’ve seen that over and over and over … Callie & Arizona, Jackson & Maggie, Sloan & Lexi … it’s just what those Seattle Doctors do. Someone says I love you and then suddenly someone else is out of milk.) So that happened.
Jo, whose ‘sex buddy’ skipped town (and the ‘in two weeks’ preview shows us that Jackson goes to see April … haven’t we already had enough all-encompassing Japril episodes to last us? Of course that’s not to say he didn’t first go to Montana and see his dad …) is struggling with her own cause – the ‘Bailey let me go be an OB’ revelation. And of course Bailey says no. (Does Bailey also suffer from shortish-long-seasonal memory loss? When she was ready to flush general in exchange for Peds? Or like when she gave Brayden the deactivated HIV virus despite the parents revoking consent but then still crucified Meredith for committing insurance fraud? Maybe she should get that looked into.) But Jo joining OB is such a banal storyline that ultimately – who cares that Bailey eventually says yes?
Teddy is on to meltdown number – don’t know. I lost count. And she – like every other Grey’s character who’s been coupled off in times of stress – kisses Owen in an attempt to bury the trauma she can’t currently cope with. (And he actually cuts her off and forces her to experience the pain rather than bury it in sex. Good for him. Occasionally he learns things too.) Good to see fury-bent Owen is right where we left him, slamming hospital equipment into walls when he loses another patient to COVID. Though seeing him choke up and break down when he has to call the family is humbling. And here we go again with ‘long-time hospital staff that we’ve never seen before.’ Tonight’s ICU nurse (who was finally discharged after a six-week hospitalization due to COVID) is just like Frankie the Nurse or Isaac the lab tech … long-time workers of – who knows, Seattle Grace, possibly – who have been there so long – that we’ve never seen them until that very first episode where they appeared. Glad to see that tactic being recycled. For a third time. (At least.)
Link and Amelia are making progress; even if she does step in and steal his patient. (Who doesn’t love a good stolen patient?) And I was wondering how she was going to do ‘Superheroes’ without breaking scrub. THAT was brilliant. The gut-punch of Link and Koracick sitting up in the gallery asking ‘what kind of sick joke’ in regards to the pandemic is really telling of Tom’s survivor’s guilt. And it brings us back to that softer, more mellow side of Tom we got to see when he was confessing the loss of his son to April some – years? seasons? ago. That was also nice.
Little bits of off-kilter humor here and there. Bailey learned her ‘make the best damn lemonade you can when life gives you COVID-ridden lemons’ lesson – and Maggie taught Zola to scream when the overwhelming anger gets to be too much.
ABC
But the thing that really does the heart and the eyeballs in this week is all the MerDer beach time. Just from the off – you lose it. He talks about his death. He tells her she gave him everything he needed to go. They talk about the last two-ish years – how he’s seen that and he even says, ‘It was harder watching you be alone.’ There is so much honest, heartfelt MerDer that it hurts and it makes you relive all of that tragically beautiful pain, that bittersweet arc that was their story all over again. Right up until they start talking about Ellis drawing them together in a wedding dress and a suit. And then suddenly we pan out and Meredith is in a very tasteful wedding dress and Derek a beach-appropriate suit. AND WE GET THE WEDDING KISS. Lost. My. Damn. Mind. Sobbed. Uncontrollably. The End.
But not really. Because just after that – Winston (who I’m still on the fence about – he’s been surgically stapled into this show – like some sort of pacemaker that we probably didn’t need but now we’re stuck with so we’ll just go with it …) comes up with the brilliant idea that maybe having Zola visit Meredith will get Mer back to the land of the living. (This comes after they discover a build-up of ammonia in her system because of a clot in her liver, which he and Teddy remove without even a single surgery scene to have a complication in!)
And how could you not leave behind the greatest love of your life for your daughter? The parting with Meredith and Derek is another ugly cry. It’s so very reminiscent of those forbidden elevator moments from eons ago. And he tells her the kids need her, it’s not her time. And then she hears Zola. And very predictably she wakes up. Which is what we want in the end game. And it’s very thrilling; ‘We love you so much, Zozo,’ she tells Zola over and over. And everyone has their little tears of joy party outside the window. Goodbye COVID Beach, goodbye McDreamy, hello Meredith.
We get a pause for no particular good reason next week and then dive headlong into Japril (with Harriet, hopefully we’ll get some Matthew in there somewhere) on May 6, 2021.
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