ABC
Of all the things to hit Grey-Sloan (over its many incarnations as a hospital in Seattle these last 18 seasons) a cliffhanger — which ended with people and a vehicle literally hanging off of a cliff is a first. Even for Grey’s which recycles every blessed plotline in their canonical history.
But don’t go leaping to conclusions just yet because the trailer for the ‘back side of the season’ (which does not return for 70 days — that’s over TWO MONTHS!!) which features Ben Warren delving down the cliff as fire and rescue — and reporting ‘civilian down’ — is so totally obviously referencing the driver of the medical transport who stroked out behind the wheel suspending Altman, Hunt, and Hayes in the first place.
But let’s back up. The opening scene with Meredith bedecked in garland and tinsel is too cute. And we haven’t heard an open-ended, frightening intro like this one since the episode where Gary Clarke shot up the hospital. ‘…I love it here. Correction. I loved it here.’ Her ‘which is better Christmas Eve or Christmas Day?’ intro and outro is eerily reminiscent of that.
Let’s get the boring details out of the way. Jo is still stupid-pining over Link but does all the right things — including recalling him from a traffic jam drive to the airport because he’s determined to make it out to Amelia and profess his undying love to her. (As it turns out we’ve brought the whole Minnesota project back to Seattle … because Scott Speedman wasn’t available for Christmas — as he’s the only doc missing this week.) And Link even does the thing — where he blurts out to Jo’s face — ‘I LOVE YOU. I NEED YOU. I CHOOSE YOU.’ (in words not really anything like that, but still) in a mock-attempt to sound perfect for Amelia.
That all goes to hell in a handbasket and you see it a mile down the road because with Dr. Hamilton and the sudden return of Mer & Amelia? Also comes Dr. Kai Bartley. And the world of GA is awash and aglow and a-squee with their big ol’ holiday kiss. (Amelia even admits just scenes before that she has a new crush!) But of course … Link walks right into it — just as he’s about to profess his love. WOMPWOMP. So while it’s beautiful that we finally have a non-binary doctor being normalized and even whirlwind-edly romantically engaged? It’s still 100% devastating because Link is such a good guy!
Maggie is super not down with the ‘Webber Method’. It almost seems like her ‘months’ away was YEARS. (Like remember that time when Derek died and Mer disappeared for a year so they used that as an excuse/catalyst to change things on the Grey-Sloan interior?) Though as it turns out — BAM. She was right. Schmidt goes ever so mildly rogue — and I mean this is baby-duck mild compared to interns chopping each other’s appendixes out, cutting L-VAD wires, and all the other crazy shenanigans that Grey-Sloan has endured through the years — and he starts the ‘difficult part’ of the surgery that he’s doing solo … paging Dr. Webber to join rather than waiting for the attending. And it too goes to hell in a handbasket — resulting in the untimely and gruesome death of the patient on the table — who happened to be a podcast person that Schmidt really liked. So that will be a reckoning for Schmidt to come to grips with — especially after Bailey turned up and insisted he call time of death.
ABC
Bailey — who did 100% right by immediately introducing the new resident to Ben by saying ‘this is my husband’ — is being flattered all over by the new guy they sucked up from Minnesota. Not sure what sort of angle they’re working with him here but he’s already upset Dr. Webber by telling him that he’s there to learn from Bailey and so is not interested in the Webber Method.
Mer, Amelia, and team MN (sans Dr. Marsh … because …!? nobody knows) show up for a high-profile ultra super secret surgery … and it all comes back to Bono. (Is it Bono? No. He’s not Bono. Throwback!!) But because Dr. Hamilton is absolutely insistent on getting his Parkinson’s cured — he does what House always told us patients do. He. Lied. He gave Mer this heartfelt apology and told her all about where his ‘goodbye letters’ were, just in case. And Dr. Bartley ratted him out with his not-fever of 99.7. Which turned into rigid abdomen (hence the lying bit when Mer questioned him about pain) which turned into a perfed bowel. Which turned into a cliffhanger will-he-won’t-he be saved on the table. (Guess we’ll know on 2/24.)
But to the real cliffhanger. Who in Denny Duquette’s Ghostly Godliness would approve not one, not two, but THREE MAJOR DEPARTMENT HEADS GOING TO TAKOMA FOR AN ORGAN RETRIEVAL!? NOBODY. THAT’S WHO. And yet we’ve got Hunt, Altman, and Hayes — all in one car going to Takoma to pick up a heart for Megan’s son. (That was traumatic in and of itself — watching her blatant tears of joy as they say Unos just called b/c there was a 15-year-old with catastrophic brain death from an MVC … which means as happy as she is … some other mother is devastated …) At any rate — we’re all hi-ho, hi-ho, it’s off to Takoma we go … and BAM.
Unclear (heart attack? Stroke? Both?) but the driver of the med cab has something that causes him to lose control, Owen takes the wheel and they end up on an embankment over a huge 100 ft ravine. Teetering. And the great debate of ‘who should get out with the cooler’ begins. And we all discover that this is a no-win for anyone. Teddy wants Hayes to take the cooler and get out because his kids have already lost one parent — they can’t lose another. Owen points out that if he does, it’ll unbalance the precariously hanging car and then Leo and Allison will become insta-orphans. But the heart will only be viable for another couple hours (meanwhile they’ve already rolled Farouk into surgery and he’s open on the table b/c Teddy called and said they were 25 minutes out …)
It’s ultimately decided that Teddy will get out, get help, and get the heart back to Grey-Sloan. Somehow this works without sending the car plummeting. (It does keep slipping … and all of this on top of Megan confessing her severe-depression, in the words of ‘if Farouk dies, it’s what I need to stop living…’ and Hayes trying to explain to these two veterans that they cannot see that their sister is not okay and she needs help …)
Teddy does flag down a car (as all the proverbial chaos is hitting the fan back at Grey-Sloan …) and then we get a pan back to ‘who gets out of the car’ so that they both don’t die. Somehow — Hunt forces Hayes out — whilst confessing that he gave Noah drugs to end his life (they went to memorial service — off camera — earlier in the episode) and that he promised three other soldiers the same assistance — and the drugs are in his truck and that Hayes has to help them. And Hayes gets out. And the car falls. And that’s that.
The trailer for the 2+ month-away return looks six sorts of dramatic. It’s unclear whether they got the heart back on time. It’s unclear (though we know how intentionally misleading they are) as to ‘who’ Ben is referring to when he starts the rescue/recovery mission. Lots and lots of things are unclear. But this from the team that killed Derek Shepherd twice before the third time actually killed him off. (And they wonder why we have issues believing that people are gone when they’re gone. Meredith was dead for 58 hundred hours after drowning and lived like a meta ghost across three episodes. And Kepner basically did the same without the meta-ghost side of it.) Let’s all re-watch seasons 1-17 during the 70 day downtime?
What did you think of this episode? Start a conversation in the comments section below.
Grey’s Anatomy airs Thursdays at 9:00 PM on ABC.
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