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So they did that thing where they need a whole bunch of time to pass without actually passing time. We phased through — five? Six? About a month, month and a half’s worth of time on this episode, which included the well-being of Meredith Grey, the trials and tribulations of Amelia, and the strangest love-stretch-story featuring Levi Schmidt. Life almost looks normal. (Which is hard because in reality we’re finally getting ahead of COVID and returning back to normal but those at Grey-Sloan are just entering vaccine trials …)
Helm is proving to be that awkward mess that definitely should not have been brought home to live with Jo. Though maybe now that Levi is with Niko officially and out loud, it’ll just be the two of them. Which will 100% result in Jo kicking Helm out. (And no one would blame her.)
Jo, who was totally going to adopt Luna – failed her background check apparently? Which makes mostly zero sense since anything she did – like steal a car – would have happened when she was a minor, and those records would have been sealed – and she wasn’t all tangled up in the ‘I beat DeLuca to a pulp’ mess with Alex (and those charges were dropped anyhow.) So we backpedaled somehow and no baby for Jo. Or at least no Luna for Jo. Then again? We’ve seen this before. They had Zola. Then they didn’t have Zola. Then were never getting Zola. And then they got Zola. So maybe she will get Luna.
Teddy, along with our previously departed, was nowhere to be found this week. Maybe she hitched a ride out east with Jackson & Koracick. So Owen spent a lot of time trying to provide sound advice and friendly-friendship style comfort to Amelia. Who is losing her mind of Link’s wanting more kids. (Solution – Link and Amelia adopt Luna, and basically just give her to Jo. Ding ding ding!) Amelia does not want any more kids. She can barely keep it together, loving Link and Scout (and being back at work has caused her to be all-consumed to the point where she isn’t going to Narcotics Anonymous meetings, which is saying something since they’re all virtual now.) The work she did with the car accident patient, Skylar, was stunning and really quite moving.
Maggie and Winston have a hiccupy misunderstanding over Maggie not being into the ‘let’s go to New Zealand where they’ve beat COVID and get married there.’ Mostly because she’s trying to express that it doesn’t feel right to do it right now (which she later discovers because her mother can’t and never could be there.) Which wraps in a meet-cute of Maggie surprising Winston by flying his grandmother and her father out to Seattle, with the intention of ten days’ quarantine passing between the end of this episode and the season finale, which features their wedding.
Maggie and Richard also treat a patient, who thankfully gets her heart transplant, but then starts faking headaches because she’s desperately lonely at home – and her dog ran away in the big storm. (And if this were normal times, sans pandemic, we’d have spent one quarter of the episode having this season’s crop of interns chasing down the dog. It was only implied at the end, but they did find the dog and reunite the patient and the pup upon discharge.)
Bailey keeps popping by Meredith’s house. (We learn as an afterthought about Ben’s testicular cancer and that he’s 100% fine. Thanks, Bailey, for those of us that don’t want to watch Station 19 but still care about Ben!) Meredith worries about whether or not she’ll ever fully recover. So, so glad that they did not take the ‘she got home, and poof life is all good again’ route. They are really giving her due representation for her COVID experience. (And like she said in Episode 16 – by luck, good health care, and white privilege did she get to survive this heinous virus.) Bailey, in her very Bailey way, talks Meredith into taking over as Director of the Residency program, which was where she was headed all along. (And perhaps even one day – Season 22 … 23 …? Meredith will take over as Chief of Grey-Sloan Memorial!)
But the real shocker/thing worth watching this week was Schmidt. He’s come such a long way from being ‘Glasses’ and ‘Blood Bank’. He’s got guys flirting with him, trying to pick him up, he’s got half the hospital cheering for him when he starts in with the vaccine trial, and he’s got to come to terms with the fact that he’s a wanted, desirable, likable, amazing person. They’ve done such a great job with his story arc. It’s been an incredible journey. And they even really play it up, having him stand outside of a mystery apartment (the hot vaccine-trial doctor- McFlirty – gave him his address, leaving everyone to wonder if he’d go there instead of trying to sort out things with Niko.) And it was Niko’s apartment. And they ended on a happy note!
So, as Season 17 draws to a close, we’ve got a deeply depressed Jo, a gushy happy Niko & Levi, a back-to-work-in-recovery Meredith, a confused and scared Amelia, a wants-more-kids Link, an overwhelmed Bailey, and newlyweds-to-be Maggie & Winston. And Richard seems to be doing okay. And we’re down Jackson, Koracick, and who knows about Teddy. The finale will likely be focused all over that wedding, as finales tend to be (though after this crazy COVID year, it’ll be nice not to have some crazy disaster … like a bomb, a ferry boat crash, a rogue mass-shooter, a plane crash, etc … rolling us into the next season.) May there be something worth expecting come Season 18; I’m sure there will be.
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