ABC
We’ve gone back to the trend of ‘not everybody gets to be on this episode’ and that was a phenomenon, albeit obnoxious, from way before Pandemic Times. This week we don’t have any Link or Nico (though will we ever have need for him again now that Schmidt seems to be permanently flamed out and gone?) and there’s no Nick Marsh, except for a text from him. (We also don’t get any Dr. Hamilton or Kai Bartley, but they aren’t season regulars) and we only get a flash of Dr. Webber at the beginning but you know what we do get? MORE ZOLA TIME!
It’s so nice to see the normalization of ‘if you’re sick STAY HOME!’ Obviously they’re not going to give Meredith COVID twice — but people do still get sick — with colds, with the flu — with things other than COVID, and even though she’s a ground-breaking, living-safe surgeon (in the middle of a physician shortage) she makes the smart and safe decision to STAY HOME with Zola, who appears to be sick with whatever it is Mer has. NORMALIZE THIS. America needs to take note from Grey’s — PAID SICK LEAVE so you can STAY HOME AND RECOVER.
They of course don’t have the ‘we might move to Minnesota’ discussion from last week’s preview of this episode, until near the end of the episode, but it works out the way you’d expect. Meredith says that Zola, Bailey, and Ellis are her happiness. Zola points out Dr. Nick makes her happy too. And she also points out (in an unironic but very cute kind of way) that they — meaning the kids — would follow Meredith anywhere. Awww. This becomes so much easier if you just move Nick to Seattle, but we can waffle over that next week.
Owen gets to take back the Chief Chair (even if just for a day.) He reminds everybody that he was, in fact, chief, once upon a time. (I think even I forgot about that … but wasn’t he chief when the plane went down? Because he took over when Shepherd jumped up after getting shot and basically said he was done with that role?) He’s jonesing to get back to work — and just like any other patient who’s been told no by a Shepherd (Amelia refuses to clear him for surgery), he finds a sneaky way around it, donning his med coat and scrubs to ‘be the chief’ so Bailey can do all day back-to-back surgeries and feel the joy. Of course this leads to some chaos (mostly the residency nonsense with that woman who looks way too much like Alana Kayhill from some seasons back and the sub-side plot with Winston’s brother).
Teddy even has this brilliant recall that she once married a patient. For insurance purposes! (HENRY!!!!) This gets brought up when Jo is trying to justify her liking/sort of dating the patient’s brother. And he’s cute and sweet and fun — but do we really have room for another series regular? Or is he like Finn and we’ll only see him when Link starts challenging him to date Jo again? Of course, this also brings up the Day-Drinking of Jo and Teddy from last week — of which Teddy remembers NOTHING. Including whether or not she told Jo about what exactly is going on with her and Owen.
ABC
The biggest case issue is the ‘traveling heart’ where family gets brought all into the mess. You’ve got a family, traveling in an RV across country to save their daughter’s heart — typical Grey-Sloan stuff … only Maggie and the Cardio team at Grey-Sloan can do this operation because everyone else has told them no, blah blah blah. Win-win, the kid lives. It’s very touching. But it brings Winston face-to-face — in that patient-to-doctor’s lives metaphor/mirror way that the show is so good at it — with his brother … the black sheep of the family. Who’s always working an angle.
He’s a med-red this time and starts wheedling his way in to speak with (what ends up being Hunt b/c he’s acting chief for the day) and that sparks up some fiery words with Winston. And Winston does finally get it out that he blames his brother for his mom’s death. No, the brother didn’t give the mom cancer, but if the brother hadn’t been up to his shenanigans and exacerbated the dad, who was drinking and throwing away money, then the mom could have used that money for her cancer treatments. It’s all very profound.
Jo thinks she’s falling for the patient’s brother — he brings her roses and study snacks and even alludes to the fact that he wants to kiss her — but doesn’t because libraries are for studying.
Next week is the big kicker — as Grey-Sloan grapples once again with being ‘shut down’ in some form or other. But I’m sure they’ll be fine. They dropped to Number 12, lost their Trauma #1 status, couldn’t keep a head of cardio for like three seasons, had problems with interns, had problems with residences before … if they can get through all that, they’ll get through this one too.
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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