Grey's Anatomy: Love You Like a Love Song (21x17)

Wowwww I'm so annoyed at Lucas!

Cons:

The thing is, sometimes Lucas is just kinda boring and vaguely whiny and I think to myself "my dislike for this character is probably too extreme. I should get over that." But this whole story-line with Simone has been like... wow, my dude, where is this vitriol coming from? Straight up, Simone expressed in a fairly mature and straightforward way that she wanted to be a little more cautious and move slower with their relationship, and Lucas has been nothing but terrible to her about it. He's getting all pissed off at her for the extremely reasonable things she's saying about a patient? And just being huffy and avoidant and cold when she tries to have conversations with him? The fact that he could have the audacity to break up with her, and over what? For what reason? I really think I might hate this guy. I'm glad they've broken up, but we all know that's not going to last and I'm already annoyed.

Also, Jesus Christ, Owen, get your SHIT together my dude. What a dark and ugly episode for Owen Hunt. I understand that what's-her-face (Nora) is dying, but the dishonesty to Teddy, missing the wedding of his friends, cuddling with her in the hospital where anybody could see... what a massive dickhead. I'm sorry, but even if you're trying to do a kindness to someone who is vulnerable and scared, you don't just disregard the way it's going to make your wife feel. I'm on record wishing this whole open marriage story had gone in a really different direction. I wish they could have actually tried it and liked it. Then maybe it's this interesting thing where Teddy is still weirded out that her patient is sleeping with her husband, but it's all above board and she's adjusting to the strangeness of it. That still provides this really angsty and interesting scenario, where, how do you comfort your husband who is sad that his new... girlfriend? Casual sex partner? is dying and you couldn't do anything to save her on the table? I just hate how shitty Owen is, I hate how annoying everyone is behaving.

I'm not going to be too mean about Link this week, but I thought his song was almost too cheesy to look at with my eyes. The idea of someone serenading me at our wedding is so cringe-inducing that I've floated out of my body in horror at the very thought.

Not a ton happened here but I continue to be frustrated by the Jules and Winston thing. Why is he depriving her of career opportunities because he's being a weirdo? Let's just stop.

Pros:

I really liked Blue once again in this episode! His relationship with his patients is actually very sweet. You can tell that he really cares! And despite how annoyed I was with the Lucas stuff, I like the stuff with him and Amelia where she's teaching him not to set unrealistic expectations with the parents. He needs to learn to do things the hard way, sometimes!

It's so sad that the little girl from last episode (Dylan) is still alive but trapped in her body, unable to move. By the end of the episode she's even lost the ability to communicate through blinking. This is one of the more depressing patient story-lines we've had in a long while, and I'm genuinely wondering what the outcome is going to be. The poor dad is holding it together as best as he can, while the mother gets increasingly erratic. It's heart-breaking because you can tell this relationship won't survive losing their daughter, and I really hope it doesn't come to that!

I liked the patient who comes in with the digestive issues and how supportive the first date guy was! That was a cute story-line, much less fraught than the rest of the patient stuff going on, with Nora and Dylan. I feel like those two might really make it work!

Also I like that Simone has a messy hook-up with a rando right after Lucas dumps her. Like, yes, that relationship sucked for you, might as well make some bad choices about it now. Of course I know we're still supposed to be rooting for Lucas and Simone, but fuck that noise.

Honestly, if it were a relationship I could have believed in more for Jo, I would have really loved this wedding episode for her. I like that it was relatively low-key and there weren't a lot of hijinks, nobody was late, nobody got injured right before, Jo didn't go into early labor... it was just a normal day and she got married. That was unexpected and appreciated.

I thought the drama with Jo's future mother-in-law was good... I was a little annoyed that Levi so easily played it off as "oh, moms are just like that" because she was actually being really critical and annoying about some things. But I still liked the realization Jo had, that she's never had a mother figure in her life before, and she'd like to get used to it. Letting her zip up the wedding dress was a lovely little moment!

It was soooo nice to see Levi, oh my god. I'm so happy for him and his boyfriend and their feminist dog, I cannot even tell you. It seems like things are going so great for them, and while I hate that we had to lose him for it to happen, it's genuinely nice to have characters leave this show to go be happy, instead of leaving to be dead or because trauma happened to them. And Taryn making the cake... a little moments like Ben and Bailey wondering about Owen and Teddy's relationship status, and Bailey giving Link advice about his vows... this episode did have a sense of community to it, with a lot of the core cast being there for each other and showing up in big and small ways. That was nice!

I was expecting to hate this episode because of the Jo/Link wedding. I'm trying to bow to the inevitable here, even though they bore the hell out of me and I can't imagine them ever becoming compelling. But honestly, the wedding was just fine. It was the dang Simone and Lucas drama that I hated, actually! Insufferable couple!

7/10