Grey's Anatomy: Jukebox Hero (13x11)

This episode suffered in that it was trying to juggle too much, but there were lots of individual factors that I quite enjoyed.

Cons:

The subplot of the episode is Meredith running around to different jails and court houses, looking for Alex. As the episode ends, we see that Alex has been asleep in Meredith's bed all day. The thing that annoys me here is that this was the subplot, and that we still don't know if he took the plea deal or what. There seems to be no real reason to keep the audience in suspense on this one. Shouldn't this story be our focus?

The main medical story involved a woman in labor in a cab, who gets in an accident with her husband driving the other car, rushing to meet her at the hospital. In the end, baby, mother, father, and cab driver are all okay. While this plot thread allowed for some interpersonal relationship stuff to come out between the doctors, I thought the setup itself was contrived and cliche to the extreme. Now, with Grey's, I often forgive a lot of cheesiness. But something about this whole setup had me rolling my eyes. It would have been more interesting to just have the woman give birth in the taxi, instead of throwing in the whole car accident element. Also, there was this whole thread about Arizona feeling guilty, since she told the pregnant woman to put her feet up on the dash, which made the accident worse. It was pointless and felt like the kind of thing that Arizona would be better at dealing with. She had no way of knowing they'd get in an accident. Her guilt felt pretty pointless, and the payoff was weak: she and the father of the baby both comfort each other over their culpability, as Arizona tells this new father that it's okay he nearly killed his wife and child. The cheesiness was not supported by enough substance in this case.

As I mentioned above, the crowded nature of this episode meant that some things felt unsatisfying. We have to juggle Meredith looking for Alex, Ben trying and failing to comfort Jo over the whole Alex thing, another medical case where two kids come in injured after fighting in a hockey match, Owen looking for Amelia while Stephanie hides her at her place, and Eliza Minnick struggling to make inroads into the stubbornly defiant allies of Richard Webber. This last plot thread worked pretty well, but what with that and the medical cases, I felt some of these elements didn't get the focus they deserved.

Pros:

Eliza Minnick is ready to swoop in and start making changes, but the attending doctors are all rebelling on Richard's behalf. Bailey tries to step in and have a talk, but everybody fails to show up to her scheduled meeting. In the end, this comes down to a conflict between Richard and Bailey, with Richard saying that Bailey's method of change is underhanded, and Bailey saying that they need to move forward and try new things.

I like Minnick. Or rather, I find her obnoxious, but in a way that I think I'm sort of supposed to find her obnoxious. Like April or Arizona. At first, these characters were grating, but now they feel like family. Minnick feels like a character that belongs on this show. Her frustration is palpable, and justified. She might be the bad guy from the perspective of most of the ensemble, but she's been hired to do a job. These people are stopping her from enacting change, and it's not like she has a personal or professional reason to want to defer to Richard anyway.

The passive aggressive battle between Minnick and the others is comedic gold, underpinned by an understandable gravitas. April, Jackson, and Richard are having secret conference room meetings, switching surgeries so Minnick can't sit in on them, and shrugging their shoulders benignly when Minnick tries to call them on their crap. The best scene is when Richard is changing something on the board, and Minnick says that Bailey put her in charge. Richard smiles and graciously concedes control, slipping the dry-erase marker in his pocket as he walks away. Minnick is just flummoxed. So perfect.

In the end, though, Minnick gets the upper hand when she thanks Arizona for "being on board" with her teaching methods, since Arizona had Leah take the baby and perform procedures on her. It was a chilling moment, undercut with the sexual tension between the two women, the fact that Arizona is unquestionably on Richard's side, and the fact that Minnick's methods, while obnoxious, appear to be effective.

One last thing about Arizona: she ends the episode telling DeLuca how much she misses Alex, which feels like a low blow. It also colors everything about Arizona's actions in the whole episode before it. She's struggling on after losing someone she loves and trusts.

Of course, the Meredith/Alex hug at the end was a thing of beauty. It was just like Alex to be sleeping in Meredith's bed all day. Meredith was so funny in this episode. Even though she was trying to find where he best friend had been incarcerated, she actually brought a lot of levity. And I loved her mix of delight and anger upon learning that Alex had been right under her nose the whole time.

I've mentioned the problems I had with the pregnancy plot thread, but there was one element that worked really well. The cab driver, only mildly injured, continually asks about the fate of the pregnant woman. He wants to know how everything turns out, since he feels invested. Ben keeps telling him that there's no update. The episode ends with Ben telling him that he saved a life - one of the kids injured in the hockey fight. Earlier, the cab driver had alerted Ben to the kid's strained breathing, which meant that they caught a life-threatening lung collapse. The cab driver got to leave feeling a sense of accomplishment. I don't know what it was about this whole thing that I liked so much, but it was just adorable and delightful.

I'm annoyed about the Amelia/Owen angst for the most part, but I simply love the idea of Stephanie hiding Amelia away, caught between the two of them. Owen figures out pretty quickly that Stephanie knows where Amelia is, and Owen begs her to just tell him if she's safe and sober. As contrived as their relationship woes seem to be, the scenario is wrought with just enough genuine angst to make me like it. And Stephanie's handling of the situation was great. On a side note, I just heard the actress playing Stephanie will not be coming back next season, as she pursues her career. I'm really bummed, since Stephanie is a favorite of mine. But I'm also happy for the actress, because I think she's incredible, and could really go far.

I guess that's all I've got. While there were many solid things to enjoy about this episode, I mostly come away from it feeling annoyed at the lack of resolution to the whole Alex plot. What's the narrative purpose of keeping us waiting for so long?

7/10