If you’ve arrived here because you saw the promo for “Sorry Doesn’t Always Make It Right†and thought, Oh, it seems like Meredith will be waking from her never-ending stint on the Death Beach this week and things are turning around for season 17 of Grey’s Anatomy, I have some, um, news.
Meredith wakes up for one scene that lasts maybe two minutes? She’s off the vent but so weak she can’t really stay awake. When she does open her eyes, it’s at least long enough to tell Webber that she’s glad she chose him to be her power of attorney, and since we always love a touching Meredith–Webber moment, it is an acceptable use of time. She also has a second to inform Webber that he needs to talk to Jo. Believing Meredith was fully unconscious, Jo finally filled her mentor in on her plans to switch specialties to OB. Since Alex left, her home has been a dark place and she wants work to be her happy place, and she thinks this change would do it, she tells a sleeping Meredith. Oh, but Meredith Grey is listening. She is always listening. And that’s all that happens with Mer this week. Then she’s back asleep. She’s not even like, Hey, so, Deluca’s dead? That kid really got a raw deal. Anyway, you’d have to assume Meredith will see Derek one last time before really waking up, but if we could just speed the whole process up that would be like so, so cool. We’re all moving on, Grey’s. It is time.
Elsewhere in the episode, we spend a lot of time at home with Amelia and Link. Those two are exhausted from taking care of what seems to be, like, 11 children (it’s 4), so when Link’s parents randomly pull up in their Winnebago and offer to take the kids out for the day (they’ve properly quarantined), Amelia can’t shove them in the trailer fast enough. You may recall that Link’s parents went through a terrible divorce that really messed Link up and then recently they decided to get remarried and that really messed Link up, too. So, when Link’s mother starts making comments about how he should just freaking marry Amelia already (Zola is pro-marriage, too, but she’s mostly in it for the party), it stirs up a lot of feelings.
Finally alone in the house and ready to have some rip-roaring sex (the amount of sex this house has seen is honestly staggering when you sit and think about it), Amelia bursts out into tears. Link misreads the situation and thinks that Amelia’s upset by the whole marriage thing and so gets down on one knee to propose, but Amelia tells him to stop — that’s not it at all. The two proceed to have a very open conversation about where they’re at, marriage-wise. Link loves the family they’ve built and knows marriage is “how society locks it all in,†but he’s scarred from his parent’s divorce and is understandably fearful of putting a ring on it. Amelia’s not super into the idea, either: She’s a terrible wife and she’s “wired for self-destruction,†she tells Link. And then she confesses that she hasn’t been able to stop thinking about getting high. All day, every day. And that’s a big, scary deal.
She opens up about how the pandemic is set up to make sobriety impossible. Link listens attentively and asks questions and takes it all in before assuring Amelia that she’s the opposite of self-destructive and telling her that he’d marry her “in a hot second,†if that’s what she wanted. He even goes to propose again, but for a second time Amelia basically asks if he is out of his mind. This is not the time, Link. She, too, loves him so much her heart could burst or something, but neither of them are 100 percent on board with marriage today. Link does ask Amelia to do whatever she needs to do to stay sober. He’s not like Owen, he tells her, he’s not hardwired for drama. It is such a hilarious Owen drag, and I’m obsessed with it. In the end, they decide they’ll just do a judgement-free check-in every few weeks to see where they are emotionally and go from there. Are they “super-broken or super-evolved,†Amelia wonders. Time will tell!
Because we are allowed a few nice things, that’s not the only Owen drag of the episode. There’s more. So much more!
Back at the hospital, Bailey and Owen are working on Shayne, a man who had gotten married that morning and then he and his brand-spanking new wife Karissa were in a car accident. The actual accident happened over on Station 19 (calling this a “crossover event†is a real stretch, ABC, and enough is enough with these things), but all you need to know about them is that during the rescue Karissa screamed that she should be saved first because Shayne has no one in his life but her. Just really kicking a guy when he’s down, ya know?
Shayne wants nothing to do with his terrible wife, but Bailey is trying to make him see things differently by talking about the ups and downs of her parents’ 60-year marriage. But there’s also a lot of rough wedding-day talk, things like how a wedding day that kicks off with the wife calling the husband a loser couldn’t get much worse, which is hilarious because Bailey’s saying it directly to Owen, receiver of a Wedding Day Sex Voicemail. Owen remains unamused throughout the whole thing. In fact, he thinks Shayne got lucky, since they don’t have any kids or a shared home to worry about. He can make a clean break.
After surgery, Bailey tries to persuade Shayne to fight for his marriage a little harder. She wants him to remember who Karissa was when he met her, people don’t change, she says. Karissa is still that person he fell in love with. The whole “people don’t change†argument feels highly antithetical to a lot of what’s gone on over 17 years of Grey’s Anatomy, but I guess we’ll just let it slide.
Bailey thinks she’s won when Shayne asks if he can video chat with Karissa. But he only wants to see her face so he can tell her he wants an annulment. Apparently, she’s always been a selfish garbage human and he just ignored it because he was lonely. No more, he says! So, suck it, Bailey, I guess?
Owen also takes Bailey’s advice and applies it to his situation with Teddy. He goes to see her and tells her that they’ve been friends their whole life and she’s always been there for him. Her sleeping with Tom was so out of character, Owen should’ve known something was up and he should’ve been there for her. He asks her to tell him about Allison. He wants to try being friends again. Perhaps this means the Teddy–Owen saga is wrapped up for now? Maybe?
The O.R. Board
• After Mer spills the beans on Jo, Webber tracks Jo down to call her out on keeping her desire to change specialties a secret and tells her … that he wants to support her any way he can. Richard!!!
• Jackson gets into it with Intern Ortiz (Alma’s had two big eps in a row!) when he attempts to do something good by paying for patients’ hotel rooms when they test positive for COVID-19, don’t have a place to properly quarantine, and can’t afford a hotel. Although his intentions are good, Alma explains that he’s stepping on the toes of other organizations who are trying to do the same for people in low-income communities, and he’s making it hard for them to do their job. She was a social worker for many years before switching to medicine and has seen people like Jackson try to put Band-Aids on problems like this before. It doesn’t work. So, Jackson wants to do something that will work. He tells Alma that he has deep pockets and she has ideas. They’re going to work together to come up with a better plan.
• Cormac and Maggie team up on baby Arthur, who is probably going to die while waiting for a heart transplant. But then, Cormac convinces Maggie to remove part of Arthur’s heart to make room for an artificial pump that will keep him alive until they find a donor. It all works out! Everyone involved needed a miracle and they got one. So that’s nice.
• Do people not know that Maggie and Winston are engaged? Why is no one celebrating this? Or, at the very least, why isn’t Jackson being awkward about it? Why isn’t Webber saying something fatherly and heartwarming?
• “I just need to be crying right now.†— Amelia Shepherd, really summing up the last year.