Grey's Anatomy: I Ain't No Miracle Worker (13x03)

I wish Meredith wasn't being so annoying right now. Because I do love her a lot. Setting that aside, I quite enjoyed this episode. In many ways it felt like a classic Grey's Anatomy hour.

Cons:

So, I've been expressing my annoyance with the love triangle plot over the last few weeks. Before, Maggie was the one annoying me with all of her complaining. But now, I'm just flummoxed at Meredith's behavior. Why isn't she just telling Maggie the truth? She has to know it'll come out eventually, and that the longer she waits, the worse it's going to be. Sigh. Meredith should be smarter than this.

Pros:

On the flip side, I'm actually buying in to the chemistry between Meredith and Riggs now. This was the first episode where Riggs' charming self actually seemed to click in my mind with Meredith. I could see them making a real go of it. The best part was when the two were discussing miracles. A woman came back from the dead, and Meredith is sure that she's brain damaged, or, as she puts it, "gorked." Riggs says that he has a "miracle dream" where his dead love is returned to him. Meredith admits that she has a dream like that about Derek. As she exits the room, she ends with another affirmation of her pessimism: "She's gorked."

Arizona is back. I missed her a lot. She's the optimist in all of this, sure that families can come back together. She saves a mother and her baby, but she's forced to do it without Alex by her side. Arizona is pissed as hell at Alex, but she misses him too. Andrew offers to move out of Arizona's place, because he thinks that everybody is angry with him. Arizona gives Andrew a hug. I was surprisingly emotional about that. Nobody has any reason to be angry with Andrew, and yet he's sort of right. The majority of the hospital has closer ties to Alex. There's this weird sense that they're going to be on Alex's side in this thing, even though he was dead wrong. Arizona's affirmation that she wants Andrew to stay was really sweet. It seemed like just what he needed in that moment. Of course, I'm also rooting for Alex's rehabilitation. He promises to do his time in the clinic, and do everything he can to come back and get to work. It's who he is. It's who Arizona trained him to be.

April is going stir-crazy with little Harriet. She comes to the hospital and keeps making excuses to stick around. I loved this little comedic thread, especially the moment when Alex and April both lament being left out of the action. They stand outside an OR and egg on a group of doctors inside, angrily demanding them to cut the guy open already. I think they both need to get back to their real jobs soon, for the sake of their sanity.

Ben and Miranda had surprisingly delightful little plot. Tuck gets in trouble at school, and Miranda is hesitant to discipline him. She says she's tired of always having to be the bad guy. Ben asks Miranda to let him be the bad cop: "deputize me!" Bailey agrees, and Ben scares Tuck up real good, telling him he'll go to jail if he fights, and showing him pictures of Andrew's messed up face. Tuck is very apologetic and meek, and Bailey is impressed, as she indicates to Ben: "what is wrong with us that we waited so long to deputize you?" This is awesome. This is a plot thread that could have been turned into pointless drama. Like if Bailey didn't let Ben be a part of raising Tuck. Or if Bailey had been angry at Ben for handling it by himself. Instead, they let this plot thread show a strengthening of their family unit, and there were some really funny moments to boot!

So, the thing that made this episode so great, and what gave it that classic Grey's Anatomy feel, was the central medical story. A family all comes in to the ER with injuries after a massive car accident during a funeral procession for the family's patriarch. The dead man's wife and two adult children, along with a host of other family members, are all injured, although mercifully most of the injuries are slight. The cause of the accident was the family's estranged daughter, who came back for her dad's funeral and inadvertently landed them all in the hospital. Things get very strange when the dead man's wife suddenly goes into cardiac arrest. Amelia and the others try and save her, but she dies. However... she then comes back to life! And, despite Meredith's predictions, she's actually perfectly fine. No brain damage! The brother and sister reunite and reconcile with their estranged sister, who just had a healthy baby due to Arizona's surgical skills.

The thing that was so great about this plot thread is that it told a convincing story on its own, but also pulled in various regular characters and gave them something to grasp on to. For example, Amelia is the one who yells at the two siblings that they need to forgive their sister. She is undoubtedly feeling the pangs of her own screw-ups, and feeling thankful that she has a family who supports her no matter what. It's this bickering set of siblings that causes Amelia to sit Maggie and Meredith down and force them to be better sisters to each other, too. Meredith has been brushing Maggie off when she talks about Riggs, for obvious reasons. It looks like the secret will live on, but at least Meredith will try and be a better listener.

Also, Stephanie gets swept up in the strangeness and awesomeness of her job. She's more shocked and awed than anybody at the Lazarus Syndrome displayed by the temporarily dead woman. I like seeing her so enthusiastic.

I got a little misty-eyed when the brother and sister came in to see their other sister and meet their new nephew. Arizona had told the pregnant sister that her family would forgive her no matter what, but Jo was skeptical. This ties in to Arizona's optimism even in the face of tragedy. She is angry at Alex right now for what he did to Andrew, but she's not without hope that Alex will pull himself together. Jo, on the other hand, has had the opposite response to everything that has happened recently. Seeing Alex go berserk on somebody like that brought back a lot of feelings about her own past with abuse and violence. She remarks to Arizona that not all families are like that - not everybody can forgive or be forgiven.

I think that's all I'll say. I was impressed by this episode's ability to balance so much. I never felt overwhelmed by all the different plot threads. That seems to be a special gift of this show. We had pretty much every character of note doing something this week, from April being bored, to Jo doubting the sanctity of familial bonds, to Stephanie waxing poetic about medical marvels, to Meredith and Riggs getting closer, to Amelia bragging about married life, to Owen looking after the pregnant sister with his typical kindness, to Bailey and Ben and their family drama, to Arizona's return to the hospital, etc. etc. And on top of that, I got a good feel for the family that made up the central plot. I felt a real sense of how their family dynamic worked, and how hard it must have been for them to lose their father. Any episode that can shove all of that into an hour without it feeling crowded is going to be a good one in my book.

9/10