Grey's Anatomy: Unbreak My Heart (12x11)

So... the Jackson and April episode has arrived. I was not looking forward to this, because I figured I was going to hate it. I've been so fed up with these two for such a long time, that I figured a whole episode just focusing on them was going to drive me mad. I'm happy to report that this was not the case, however. This wasn't one of my most favorite episodes ever, but I quite enjoyed it all the same.

Cons:

The episode is told using a lot of jumping around in time. We see Jackson and April's relationship from the day they met all the way through to the present moment, all out of order and jumbled. I liked this technique a lot, but what I didn't like was the stupid fake-out they had at the beginning of the episode, where it looks like Jackson is getting married to somebody else, a woman named Tatiana. By the end of the episode you see that Jackson is walking Tatiana, a patient of his, down the aisle at her wedding. I rather enjoyed the relationship between Jackson and Tatiana, as we saw how close they were as patient and doctor, and as friends. It was unfortunate that they felt the need to taint that with this romance fake-out.

This episode got better in the second half. In the first, there were a lot of really strong elements, but a few hokey dialogue moments as well. We were seeing moments of the Jackson/April relationship that we had never seen before, but a few of the moments, particularly when they had Chinese takeout and discussed their marriage, felt like recycled material. It didn't show me a new perspective, it merely reiterated the same issues that we've seen them going through all this season and last. When April and Jackson complained that they were having the same fight over and over, I sort of felt like I was being forced to watch the same fight over and over.

Pros:

But luckily, the pacing/repetition issue wasn't overwhelming, and didn't last through the whole hour.

I liked how we got to see all the stages of this relationship, and harken back to the days when Jackson and April were just friends, and then their early relationship, all the way through to the bitter end. This episode drew in a lot of old stuff, in particular the victims from Jackson and April's original hospital, many of whom died in the shooting. It was interesting to remember that Jackson and April had this special connection because of their shared loss, and it brought me back to the fact that these two characters weren't originals. That's pretty wild to think about.

I think my favorite moment of the whole episode was when Jackson and April are goofing off and dancing around to no music because they had just learned that April was pregnant. As Arizona, then Meredith, Richard, Callie, and Alex all come in, everybody (sans Alex, of course) joins in with the dancing. Callie accidentally lets the pregnancy slip, because she already knew about it, and April announces to the group at large that she's going to have a baby. It was a simple moment full of joy and fun. I liked how Meredith came in, saw everybody dancing, and said "who died?" She only ever dances it out when something bad happens.

The most tragic moment of the whole night wasn't when they finally split up for good, but when April was shown sitting in Samuel's room, the baby she never got to bring home. Jackson doesn't know how to reach out to her and offer her comfort. He tries suggesting that they try again, and have another baby, and April is disgusted at the very suggestion. Jackson looks so hurt at April's anger, and it ties it all back to an earlier moment when we learned that Jackson really wasn't coping very well with his son's death. He was just trying to be brave and strong for April's sake. He needs her and she can't be there for him through all of this because of her own pain. I felt more of an emotional connection to their lost child in that small moment than I did when it was originally happening on the show.

We also dug back in to some old and important issues in Jackson and April's relationship - namely, their religious differences. I liked the moment when, before they got married, they discussed whether a justice of the peace or a minister would be doing the service. April says it's really important to her that God be at her wedding. She's not expecting Jackson to change his beliefs, but he has to respect hers as well. This aspect of April and Jackson's relationship has long been the most fascinating thing to me. I don't think if I could sustain a serious relationship or a marriage with somebody who had fundamentally different thoughts about faith. It wouldn't work for me. And, clearly, it's a large factor in the relationship between April and Jackson as well. Their differing religious beliefs are not what ultimately split them up, but they certainly didn't help matters much either.

I liked the character of Tatiana, despite the dumb wedding fake-out with Jackson. She was a good talisman to mark the passage of time throughout April and Jackson's relationship. Through all of the crazy ups and downs, the terrible losses and the moments of joy, Jackson was also an important part of this young woman's journey back to herself. She had acid thrown at her face, and it took many surgeries and years of recovery to repair the damage. I liked seeing Jackson grow in his professional field and be successful with something, even as everything is falling apart in his personal life.

Kudos to Jesse Williams and Sarah Drew for their performances this week. They held down the fort really well. I mentioned that there were a few shaky/repetitive moments up top, but they could have been a lot worse, and would have been a lot worse if not handled by capable and devoted performers. I especially admired how hard they worked to show these characters at different stages in their lives. The April who started her first day as an intern was very different from the April who found out she was pregnant, and that April was very different from the April who lost her child, and also very different from the April who eventually agreed to a divorce, because it was what Jackson wanted.

Of course, in true soap opera fashion, we end with the shocking revelation that April is pregnant once more. Arizona comes over to commiserate with April about having finalized her divorce, and... yep. She's pregnant. Obviously this is going to throw a huge shockwave into proceedings, and a part of me just wanted to roll my eyes at the whole thing. But another part of me felt the deep tragedy of this situation. A relationship as complex and passionate as Jackson and April's can't end with a quiet signing of papers and a parting of ways. It now seems certain to remain complicated...

Let's see how things shake out for these two next week. For somebody who has never counted Jackson and April as one of the more interesting elements of the show, and for somebody who has been especially annoyed with their storyline of late, I was very pleasantly surprised by this episode!

8/10