It’s a smart move for Grey’s Anatomy to put the focus of “I Ain’t No Miracle Worker†on a patient’s story. If nothing else, it distracts us from how infuriatingly childish Meredith is being with this whole Maggie-and-Riggs thing. Which, in case you were wondering, is very childish. I refuse to dedicate a ton of space to talking about how ridiculous it all is, so let’s get it over with quickly.
Maggie is in the midst of some top-notch ennui over Riggs’s rejection, but Meredith continues to blow her off. She wants Mags to get over it and move on. Annoyingly for all of us, Maggie can’t. Amelia tries to fill in as No. 1 confidante, but she’s mainly just pissed at Meredith for being so insensitive. They’re all sisters, and sisters listen to each other whine whether they want to or not. Meanwhile, Meredith and Riggs keep bumping into each other to get their flirt on. Riggs thinks they should just tell Maggie the truth and be done with it. I know! An actual adult response to an awkward situation. Who knew? But before you start thinking these doctors are thinking rationally, Meredith has her own suggestion. She wants Riggs to take Maggie out on a date and be his old jerk-self so Maggie gets over his charms. There’s no way around it: Meredith is a dick.
Thankfully, Riggs does not take Meredith’s idea seriously, but this whole thing is about blow up in a big way. It cannot happen soon enough. Save us all!
The bright light amid all of this romantic angst is Arizona Robbins. AZ is back from NYC, where apparently all is well and good with Callie, Dr. Snooze, and Sofia. Also, everyone’s brains have been wiped so nobody remembers how badly that story line was botched last season. EXCEPT FOR ALL OF US. We’ll never be able to forget, no matter how great the view of Central Park is from Callie’s apartment.
Regardless, having Arizona back in the hospital is a breath of fresh air. She has a different perspective on the Alex-DeLuca situation since she is DeLuca’s landlord and basically shaped Alex into the good man and defender of tiny humans we know him to be today. She loves Alex, and when she lectures him about throwing his career away, it’s definitely fueled by sadness and disappointment, not just anger.
On the flip side, Arizona cares about DeLuca, too. DeLuca assumes Arizona will be definitively #TeamAlex and tell him to move out for what he’s putting her friend through. This poor guy is obviously scared and alone, so Arizona pulls him in for a roomie hug. It’s a great scene and I didn’t realize how much I missed Jessica Capshaw until that hug happened. The kindest landlord in all the world!
Arizona also offers an optimistic take on the big case of the week. Let’s talk about the Fisher family for a moment, shall we?
Much to Ben Warren’s demented glee, the ER fills up after a funeral procession gets hit head-on and a seven-car pile-up ensues. Everyone comes out of it relatively unscathed, including the dearly departed’s wife and adult children. The person the docs are most concerned about, of course, is pregnant Kara. She confesses to Arizona and Owen that she was the driver who caused the accident … and she’s also the estranged daughter of the deceased. She hasn’t seen her family in ten years and was trying to get to her father’s funeral when she, well, ran right into it.
Kara is distraught. Her family won’t want to see her after this. Arizona tells her patient to buck up. She believes that a mother will always forgive her child, so Kara needs to talk to her mom. Jo Wilson scoffs at this while permanently sulking in her corner, but no one cares. Go home, Jo Wilson.
Kara is warming up to Arizona’s idea, but when Arizona heads downstairs to the pit to find Georgia Fisher, she runs into a problem.
Georgia is shocked and thrilled to hear that Kara is back. (Her siblings, not so much.) Before she sees her daughter, though, she wants to see her husband’s body. She tells him that their baby has come home. It’s a miracle! Georgia also admits that she wanted to die with her husband, hand in hand. Georgia is a big fan of The Notebook.
Just as she’s spilling that Nicholas Sparks death wish, Georgia goes into cardiac arrest. Amelia, Maggie, and Stephanie work on her, but Georgia ultimately gets her wish — she goes out with her husband. Typical Grey’s heart-wrenching stuff, amirite? Georgia’s children don’t take the news well, and blame Kara for killing their mother. Kara panics, the baby’s heart rate drops, and AZ has to rush her into the OR for an emergency C-section.
Yes, another emergency C-section.
While Arizona is busy being a surgical dynamo, Amelia, Maggie, and Stephanie let the Fisher family grieve over their mother. Suddenly, Georgia’s daughter screams out. Her mother squeezed her hand! She must be alive! The three good doctors try to explain why that’s impossible … and then Georgia sits up, eyes wide open, gasping for breath. This dead woman is totally alive, you guys.
Apparently it’s called Lazarus syndrome and, as Stephanie points out, there have been 38 reported cases since 1982. They slip in that fact a little too nonchalantly for my taste. I’m sorry, 38 people have COME BACK TO LIFE and we’re all just cool knowing that?
So, Georgia is completely fine and Kara may be a complete disaster, but she did not kill her mother. Yet, it still takes an Amelia Shepherd scolding to get the Fisher kids to realize the truth of the matter: They just got their sister and their mother back! Both of those things are miracles, so they need to recognize. And they do. They recognize big time. Together, they visit their sister and their new nephew and now we’re all a bunch of crying sad sacks, aren’t we? Thanks, show.
Arizona may not be ready to forgive her own complete disaster, but she does find Alex to make sure he knows how much she missed him in the OR. She needed him, and more important, the patients deserve a doctor like him. He’s mad at himself, too. And as much as he wants to give up and walk away, he’s staying put. He’s going to do whatever it takes to get his job back — and that is the person Arizona raised. Yeah, it’s really good to have Arizona back.
Laughter Is the Best Medicine, Except for Real Medicine:
- Ben and Bailey play a delightful round of good cop, bad cop to properly punish Tucker, now a fully formed human, after he bullies a kid at school. After Bailey “deputizes†Ben, he takes it upon himself to have Avery show Tucker photos of DeLuca’s face post-Alex, and tell him that the person who did it is now in prison. Chandra Wilson and Jason George look like they have so much fun together. Please never hurt Bailey and Ben, Grey’s Anatomy.
- Jackson Avery is still winning Dad of the Year. April is bored out of her mind at home, so she brings Harriet to the hospital in hopes of getting a nice whiff of the chaos. Jackson saves his daughter from all the blood and guts of the ER. He does hold Harriet a lot, but there are zero eskimo kisses. I guess they’re right — we really can’t have it all.
- Webber is so excited to see Arizona hop off that elevator! Get those two to a lesbian trivia night, STAT.
- Meredith has lived through some truly scary moments, so where does Amelia’s “Don’t make me move back home!†threat fall on the scale? Definitely less scary than watching her husband get shot, but more scary than holding a bomb in a man’s chest. Girl’s a terrible roommate!
- “There’s not a lot of urgency in that job, I think.†Stephanie Edwards on the lack of hustle coming from the morgue.
- “I love my job.†Jerrika Hinton needs more to do. She’s so good! Someone should see if Wilmer Valderrama is clanking around in that morgue or something.
Sob Scale: 5/10
Sure, sure. Meredith talking about her “miracle dream†where Derek knocks on the door and apologizes for being gone is a punch to the gut, but I’m mad at her. Aside from the Fisher family reunion, you know what really got the waterworks flowing? When Arizona hugs DeLuca. That boy really needed a hug.