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Was it their best Halloween episode in 19 seasons? No. But we should probably just be lucky that it was a Halloween episode. Not as cool as the crazy chainsaw competition, or the one after Brooks died where there was a spooky elderly patient and a kid who almost got scared to death. Or even that one where they used really bad CGI to insert George, Lexi, Doc, Ellis, McDreamy, AND McSteamy into Mer’s path as she left the hospital. This one was just — okay. Though we did finally get some backstory — at least on Griffin.
She’s the one with the past mistake haunting her — terminated from her previous program because after failing to live up to the ‘higher standard’ that doctors of color were held to, she lost her mind and destroyed an OR prep room. And the security footage spilled out onto the internet. (There’s this gooey-touchy moment at the end, after the interns were mocking the footage earlier in the episode, where she takes agency over her past, shows them the footage and explains that it’s her and they all mouth off saying how they would have done way worse … and then they all go for breakfast.)
The overall ooey-gooey ‘world-peace’ tone that this season has been slip-sliding into since the pandemic is infecting the entirety of the show faster than any COVID variant ever could. When the interns compete during their trauma training session, and the prize is a scrub-in with Winston, Adams (who gets deemed the winner for a whole host of ooey-gooey reasons) suggests that they should all win. You never — NEVER — would have had that in the original intern year. Or the Jo-class intern year.
You get even more ooey-gooey diffusion from Bailey (of all people, though true to form she does it in her badass Bailey way … decked to the nines like Princess Leia from Star Wars) when she has to prevent two fathers of two teenage patients from coming to blows. (Their AP-student sons apparently took LSD and jumped off a roof aiming for the swimming pool. One hit the pool the other one didn’t and of course the Dads immediately go to blows playing the blame game.) Ever so slightly concerned about how bristly Warren was when he dropped Pru off (in her sports costume only to later have her changed into her Ewok costume) for hospital trick-or-treating.
Let’s see, interns practice on fresh-tissue cadavers in the skills-sim-lab instead of dummies in the parking lot, or instead of live-tissue pigs … so we’ve made steps with that. Jo and Link are still non-angsting over each other. Well, Link is at any rate. And gets bad advice from Teddy … she is apparently regretting after all this time that she let the love of her best friend, which resulted in a doom-fated marriage, ruin her friendship with her best friend so she’s telling Link to just keep sleeping around in hopes that his feelings for Jo will fade away.
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Nick and Meredith try to get some time away (Amelia has the kids, except for Zola who is at a sleepover) and they have a fancy hotel room — we even get the enticing promise of a bath with them together … and while we repeat, reuse, recycle, and regurgitate every blessed other thing from the show’s past … we do not get Meredith and Nick in the bathtub. Or even having any kind of physical intimacy. What we do get (predictably) is Zola having another panic attack, and Meredith having to go get her (but Nick, that ace, even says he’ll drive so that Mer can stay on the phone with her the whole time.)
Not sure how/what/where they’re going with this Zola thing, but it’s a fascinating way to keep her involved.
Schmidt is burning out. Again. This time Webber seems to have a plan; he won’t let that kid flame out on his watch twice. (I guess Nico is officially gone-gone-gone? Parking lot of no return like so many before him.) We see Helm. Again. Pitching her same ‘I’m happier here but you could entice me back’ as last week.
The Teddy-Hunt dynamic is strange. She comes into the on-call room, clearly he’s exhausted, shares a really wonderful memory with him, and he falls back asleep, so she rips the sheet off of him and storms out. No idea why she’s yo-yoing all over the place. (Pregnancy hormones?) Oh — and Winston has decided that in order to keep loving Maggie and his marriage, he needs to switch specialties. (I mean Meredith and Derek did it to keep their marriage alive … so that shouldn’t come as a shocker to anyone else.)
Next week we get Avery back, Tom Koracick back, Catherine Avery appears (it looks like her cancer may be spreading/back/returned …) though no mention of April Kepner or Kai or any of them. Never did get that recurrence from Robbins either. And of course, now that Derek’s favorite nephew is about to be exposed for being a Shepherd, I suppose we should be looking for a McDreamy return sometime this season as well? Guess we’ll know next week.
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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