Grey's Anatomy: You Can Look (But You'd Better Not Touch) (13x10)

Hmmm... what an odd choice for an episode. I don't think I hated it, or anything, but it was a little too preachy in some places, and... well, let's just take a look.

Cons:

The episode's plot can be stated very simply: Jo, Arizona, and Bailey go to a maximum security prison to help a pregnant 16-year-old inmate. She delivers her baby, and the baby is given to her mother, who is adopting her granddaughter. The mother won't see her pregnant daughter, and we never get to know what she did to end up in maximum security. Lots of commentary about the prison system, and medical ethics, etc. etc.

Not a bad idea at all. But I have some questions. Why on earth would you choose to do an episode like this as the first back after a hiatus? It's usually not a good idea to leave a cliffhanger (Alex about to take the plea deal and go to prison) and then drop us in to a brand new story without showing anything from the one you left off with. The fact that this episode focused on only three of our cast members was fine, in theory, but the timing in the season as a whole was really off.

Like I mentioned, there was a lot of commentary in this episode, and while I don't mind it when Grey's Anatomy has that "special episode" feel, I don't like it when they sacrifice some character traits for us to get there. It makes sense that Jo would be sympathetic to a pregnant incarcerated teenager, because she knows what it's like when life screws you over. But it doesn't really make sense that Bailey would be so judgmental. They have her character arc be that eventually she comes around and comforts the sixteen-year-old girl crying for her mommy while giving birth. Yeah, we know she's violent, but is Bailey really that cold?

The opening scene of this episode was infuriating to me for some reason. It probably wasn't really that bad, but my God, it pissed me off. The three doctors are in a car on the way to the prison, but we don't know they're going to prison, and they all keep talking about the patient, and how this is different and weird... and they basically talk in code about it so we can all be surprised at the end of the episode teaser when they're at a prison. I hate it when characters talk in unrealistically couched language for the sake of a script surprise. Ew. On top of that, Meredith's voice-overs at the beginning and end of the episode had even less to do with the plot than usual. They really didn't need to be there, honestly.

Okay, now that I'm typing this out, I realize that I have more problems with this episode than I originally thought. This girl is sixteen. Clearly, whatever she did was bad enough that the courts waived her juvenile status in order to try her as an adult. That does happen sometimes. Sure. But then there's the fact that she must clearly have a mental illness of some kind. And I don't mean because she did something bad. I mean because this wasn't a situation where circumstances drove her to a bad situation or something... she lived a cushy life, and then did something horrendous. We can suppose she probably killed somebody... I sort of guess maybe her father, or a sibling? But beyond that we don't know. The actress playing Kristin played her as a scared girl, which is what she is. So... why is she not being treated for her psychosis? She's a child, for God's sake. She got 20 to life, really? I can't think of what she could have done to deserve this. Ostensibly murder. Okay, sure. But that means she's sick, right? If there was commentary in here about the lack of proper mental health care for prisoners, they really buried the lead on that one. I couldn't follow the episode's logic at all.

Pros:

What made this episode not terrible for me was the pathos I felt for the pregnant inmate. Kristin is scared, and angry, and clearly dangerous, and yet she's a kid, and the actress played her that way. She talks about all her hopes and dreams for her child, how she wants her little girl to be "normal." She clearly knows she's messed up, and it's tragic to see. The scene where she's in labor, and she's begging for her mother, was really upsetting. Her mom is just downstairs, but refuses to see her daughter. She's just there for her granddaughter. This whole thing comes to a head when Arizona is filling in the mother on what happened with the birth. She ends the exchange by saying "if this one makes a mistake, will you leave her, too?" It might be a little on the nose, but after watching Kristin crying out for her mom, I felt like Arizona's righteous comment had its place.

I also liked the lawyer character, Amanda Joseph, who seems to be the only person that Kristin respects and listens to. It's a shame she wasn't in more of the episode, because I wanted to understand the bond they had, and why she was able to get through to this troubled girl in a way that others couldn't. I've recently gotten to know a public defender, and I know how much patience and fortitude you need to have to be able to do that job. It can be really thankless.

Another thankless job: being a staff doctor at a maximum security prison. I can't recall this character's name, but I really liked her. She handcuffs Kristin to the bed when she gets violent, and at the start we're not meant to feel much sympathy for her. But then we see her resources. Bailey is horrified to discover how little this woman gets to treat all of the inmates. No wonder she's a little on edge. In the end, she releases Kristin from her cuffs. It might sound like the very least she could do, but earlier in the episode Kristin did jump on top of her and break her finger, so... it's a complicated situation, to say the least.

We end the hour with Bailey, Arizona, and Jo driving away. Bailey tells Jo that Alex is taking the plea deal, and Jo gets out of the car and throws up, viscerally affected by the horrible news. I liked that we brought things back to the bigger story here, and I thought the way the three women interacted with each other was really important and special.

I guess that's all I've got. I admire what this episode attempted to do - it was cool to have a full episode without a single named male character present, and to introduce several new female characters who had some development. I also liked the commentary trying to come out, here. But as a finished product, it's hard for me to give too high of a grade. It was a noble effort, but not the greatest success.

7.5/10