Grey's Anatomy: I Carry Your Heart (20x09)

Nick is so annoyingggg. This episode was full of multiple little irritants, to be honest.

Cons:

Like, look, I understand that Meredith is being a bad girlfriend to him, I do understand that. But Nick is still the most boring man ever invented for TV so it's hard for me to be invested in Meredith's love life with him. So when she's being dismissive and not prioritizing him, I'm like... so? Good for you. Leave his ass, Meredith, he's so generic I couldn't pick him out of a line-up. So I'm not invested on whether Nick decides to stick it out or not. I don't even know if I buy that Meredith would care that much if he suddenly vanished in a puff of smoke.

Link and Jo also suck in this episode! Their petty little fight over a patient just re-emphasized how uninteresting I find their romance. When they're happy, they're bland and forced. When they're snipping at each other, I just wish Alex Karev would barge into the room and take Jo back to run off with him so they can be happy. I've loved Jo for so long as a character but to be honest, with the news of Schmitt and Yasuda leaving next season, I'd swap Jo and Link for them in a heartbeat.

I was glad to see Maggie but she felt a little wasted in this episode? She and Winston have the awkward tension of near-divorce while still obviously caring about each other, and honestly it just bums me out again that they didn't make it work. They should have become another Bailey and Ben, where Winston is a character on the show and Maggie is just... off-camera, still his wife, still being a bad-ass surgeon somewhere. But they wanted to keep Winston in the pool for romance plot lines, so instead we've got this bummer divorce after some honest character assassination of Maggie to get there. I don't know. Seeing her should have been fun, but mostly I'm just bummed.

And Winston and Maggie's scenes together made me feel that spark, that connection, much more so than Winston and... Monica?? How dare. I wish Winston had just made a stupid decision and kissed Maggie when she'd tried to start something. But instead we get this frankly out of left field development with Monica. I get it, they're both just divorced and they're making a stupid rash decision. But this is just gonna make Amelia sad, and I don't like when Amelia is sad! Come on, Grey's.

Yasuda and Helm breaking up makes sense I guess, but I'm just sad that we didn't actually get to spend more time with these characters. This show has never known what to do with Helm, and now Mika is leaving next season, and it's just a bummer all around.

Adams is brooding personified. He finds out he might need to repeat his intern year, and he mopes about it. He's weird about Simone, who has no idea why. He gets offered a job, and now next week we're going to have to hear him agonize about that decision. He'll probably ultimately choose to stay, right? I'm bored. He should leave with Maggie, maybe that means Yasuda and Levi could stay instead.

Pros:

I was right that Owen and Teddy having drama about the secret funding would be annoying, but it was actually not that annoying, and Teddy getting fired is drama I like better for them as a couple, honestly? Their careers have been so messy and they've been through so many ups and downs, I could see being okay with a plot line where Teddy has to figure out what's next for her personally, with Owen's support. I've got my fingers crossed that this won't be too much of an irritant next season.

Kwan and Jules are great, I actually feel more and more invested in them, they're pretty much the only relationship on this show I feel fully excited about. Confirmation that Jules is queer was much appreciated, also. I think seeing them two of them talk and flirt kind of antagonistically and then hook up, do the pillow talk thing, it's all emphasizing why the Simone/Adams romance doesn't work. All we get with those two is the fraught angst of their complicated relationship. with Jules and Kwan, we see the back and forth, the hook-ups and then cutting themselves off before they can really be vulnerable, we get all that drama, but we also see them just... talk to each other? Enjoy each other's company, listen to each other talk? They have an actual foundation I believe in, so the fraught uncertainty of how they'll end up actually carries weight. I'm invested in seeing them together, because I know what that might look like, and it looks happy and fun and good.

Amelia and Meredith's Alzheimer's breakthrough is super interesting! I love how Amelia brought Derek into it, talking about how his contributions will be erased by their progress. Meredith feels that too, but she's also thinking of her mom. I love this connection for them, I love the Derek mentions. I want Meredith's recurring character moments on the show to be about this, not about Nick! My vendetta against Catherine Fox is still going strong, so I do wonder what I'll think of how that story develops as we move forward...

I got super emotional about the patient stories in this episode, the heart transplant stuff! You've got the couple who just moved in together, with the guy needing another heart transplant after the first one is failing. Then you've got the young man who gets a new heart and lungs. Turns out his heart is viable for the other guy, even though it wasn't viable for him anymore... slightly confused about logistics here but sure. In the end, both patients are successfully saved with the magic of organ donation, and the one guy's boyfriend tearfully hugs the parents of the younger guy. It was such a powerful beautiful moment that really made me tear up. Now that couple doesn't have to rush the wedding, they can take their time!

Looking back at the bulk of this episode, I'm annoyed with pretty much all the romantic drama in the show right now. And this is Grey's Anatomy, so that's kind of... most of the show. That said, there were still plenty of elements here I'm invested in, and that will always remain true! (What's with Jo collapsing in the promo for next week? That doesn't look good!)

7/10