Grey's Anatomy: Don't Dream It's Over (11x16)

Yay! We finally did something with Maggie and Richard! I was waiting for their relationship to become a focal point again. Let's dive in with a plot summary.

The central focus of this episode is a terrible car accident. An elderly man drives into the home of a young couple. The wife is pregnant. The man who caused the accident has Alzheimer's, and thus had no idea what he was doing. This is hard on Richard, who remembers his relationships with Adele and Ellis. When the old man wakes up after his surgery, it seems that he is magically cured of his Alzheimer's. Amelia figures out that it wasn't Alzheimer's at all, but NPH, a rare disorder that can be quite easily fixed. However, when this man learns what he has done, and how he has killed a young woman, he decides to let his memory go again, much to his wife's distress.

Owen and Amelia spend the episode trying to have some alone time in an on-call room, but they are continually interrupted by their phones, as they are needed for various emergencies.

The young woman initially seems perfectly fine, but she then suddenly dies due to massive internal bleeding. Arizona is able to work quickly and save the mother's child, but the mother dies. Jo is extremely distressed and has a breakdown. She later apologizes to Bailey for her behavior, but Bailey tells her that she's going to make a great surgeon, and that it's a rare and wonderful thing to allow oneself to get that emotionally invested with a patient.

The father of this newly saved baby nearly dies, but Stephanie helps Meredith to save him, thus keeping Meredith's streak alive. Throughout the episode, Meredith talks with Maggie, Alex, and Callie about the situation with Derek. They all assure her that there's no way Derek is cheating on her, but Meredith isn't so sure. After all, Derek left Addison and found someone new. Who's to say he wouldn't do it again? At the end of the episode, Derek shows up at Meredith's door. He acknowledges that a woman answered his phone. The episode ends before we see what that means.

Richard breaks the news to Maggie that Ellis had early-onset Alzheimer's. Maggie tells Richard that she already knew that she had a genetic predisposition. She's simply relieved that it doesn't come from Richard, because she wouldn't want Richard to go through that. The two share a hug.

Arizona sees Callie kissing a woman that she went on a date with. Arizona seems jealous, and when she tries to talk to Callie about it, Callie brushes her off, saying it's none of Arizona's business who she dates. Arizona eventually manages to get through to Callie, telling her that this woman is her crazy ex-girlfriend. Callie is grateful to be spared the trouble.

April is back at work, and she wants to get back to being her old self. Jackson continually treats her as a fragile, delicate flower, while April tries to be brazen and seduce him in the supply closet. April is frustrated that Jackson keeps treating her so gently, but Jackson says that he wants to be there for her, and of course he's worried about her. However, April eventually gets through, and the two have sex for the first time since their child died.

Okay. There you have it. This was a really excellent episode.

My few complaints? Alright... I'm happy to see Derek again, I really am. But I'm going to be really pissed off if he's having an affair. Even more than that, I'll be pissed off if it was all just a misunderstanding. Do you see my dilemma? Either way, I'll be let down. It seems totally out of character for Derek to betray Meredith, but if he didn't, then the truth is going to feel very anticlimactic!

The patient who had NPH... I was so angry that he decided to lose his memories again, on purpose. It makes no sense. He's hurting his wife terribly, and he's also setting himself up to hurt more people in the future. I understand what a terribly burden of guilt it must have been for him to realize he had killed a pregnant woman and caused so much distress to the family. But what he's doing now doesn't erase that. It's incredibly selfish of him, and I wish we could have seen more about the implications of that. I felt like they were barely touched on.

But I liked this episode overall. It had a lot of really strong aspects to it. In particular, I liked the way one accident brought in all of the doctors to work on the various victims. It tied together the stories in such a way that even if two characters didn't spend any screen time together, they were connected through the patients.

Arizona and Callie's plot thread was bittersweet. I'm glad that they're not angsting over each other any more, and I'm happy that they could find a moment of awkward connection over Arizona's crazy ex. But I'm sad that they seem to be moving on from each other. Selfishly, I wanted them to find their way back to one another. In any case, I liked their plot thread.

We didn't get much of Amelia and Owen, but they really weren't the focus. We'll see their relationship develop more as we go along. I still think they're adorable, though.

Alex and Jo are the cutest! I was so connected to Jo when she had her little breakdown. Sometimes I forget how hard it must be for all of these surgeons to lose their patients, but Jo's reaction brought me right in to the moment. Very touching. I'm also glad to see that Alex and Jo are staying together through thick and thin.

April and Jackson! Finally, we get April back. I've missed her, but it makes sense that it would take her some time to heal. I thought that both April and Jackson were very realistic here. Jackson isn't wrong to treat April like she's fragile - he reminds her that being fragile is perfectly natural in this sort of situation. But April doesn't want to be fragile anymore, and that also makes sense. The complexities of this situation are really interesting.

The best thing about this episode was the Richard and Maggie dynamic. I'm so glad we finally got to explore more of their relationship, since we haven't seen much of it for a while. I was genuinely upset when Maggie got hit by the panicked patient, and I was touched when Richard insisted that she get checked out, and then later berated her (using the full name "Margaret" no less) for not doing so. And Maggie's relief that Richard isn't the one to pass on the Alzheimer's was really touching. They even hugged!

I'm not entirely sure what to expect in the next episode. What exactly is up with Derek and this mystery woman? I'll try and reserve my judgment for when I actually see it!

8/10