Well, okay, that's a cliffhanger for you. And we have to wait until January to see what's next? No fair!
Cons:
The overarching premise of this episode is that hackers shut down the computers in the hospital, leaving everything in chaos. Charts are lost, medical records inaccessible, the code-locked door to the blood bank impossible to open, heart monitors are flat-lining. This is a fun concept, but I found it slightly unbelievable that they'd be so totally unequipped for this happenstance. I'm sure that something as important as medical records would be backed up to an off-site server. Just saying. The premise itself was stretching my suspension of disbelief juuust a smidge.
We have some further development on the Jackson/Maggie relationship, and while I actually don't mind them as much as I thought I would, I thought the moment in the helicopter with the turbulence was a little much. There's already one improbable disaster going on down at the hospital. You're going to introduce another improbable thing randomly happening in the helicopter?
Pros:
I liked all of the patients in this episode - they all felt distinct to me. Alex has a boy in kindergarten, whose mother has a crush on him. You've got the old man and his daughter who recently met, the woman Meredith works on with the funny sense of humor. I liked all of them, which makes their various situations of peril all the more intense.
A quick list of aspects that I enjoyed:
- Arizona and Carina end up working together to deliver a baby, and it brings them closer together, despite the fact that Carina and Owen are still sleeping together. I hope these two can find their way to each other. I really like them as a couple.
- Richard teaches the interns about old techniques for treating patients before technology took over so many aspects of medicine. His "stone age" techniques help in many small situations where the lack of technology was putting them all at a loss. This was a fun way to make Richard feel relevant to the story.
- Meredith and the guy with glasses who Jo slept with (I think his name is Schmidt?) work together on a patient, with Meredith getting more and more impatient with the guy as the day goes on. Meredith opens up a patient because the tech has stopped working and she can't rely on the cameras, but then despairs when she learns she doesn't have access to blood. She ends up using Schmidt's O-negative blood to save the patient, which I thought was a fun and clever move.
- There's a scene of Ben prepping for firefighting that was probably unnecessary to the story, but he looked damn good so I'm not complaining about it.
One of the most intense and interesting conundrums in the episode is about Alex's patient. Without his electronic chart, the doctors are not sure whether he was administered a specific medicine or not. If he was, and they give him something else, it could kill him. But if he wasn't, and they don't give him more medicine, that could kill him as well. Jo rushes around trying to find the person who would have given the medication to the boy early that morning, but Alex is running out of time. It's a dramatic confluence, as Jo finds out, just as Alex is about to distribute the medication that he really should not be distributing... as Jo runs to find Alex and stop him, she steps out of the elevator - and runs straight in to her husband. Dun dun dunnnn!
We all knew this was coming, but I was not expecting this timing, or for it to be a cliffhanger. This is so mean! As the episode ends, we've got the hospital still under hostile takeover by hackers, we've got a little boy's life in the balance, and we've got Jo, face to face with her abusive, monstrous husband. I'm actually pretty eager to see how this plays out come January!
This wasn't a flawless episode, nor was it the most intense mid-season finale in Grey's history. But it was intense enough, and good enough, to keep me hooked as I always am. See you in a few months!
8/10
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