Grey's Anatomy: Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger (14x12)

This was a crowded episode of Grey's Anatomy. Let's get right to it.

Cons:

Maybe... too crowded? It's not like I had a hard time following along with the plot, but there was just so much happening, the whole ensemble was involved, every little character had a moment or a scene, and I had trouble figuring out what I was supposed to care about the most. For example, Owen has a little through-line about how he decides not to enter the medical contest, because he realizes that patents and grants and all of that aren't what he wants to spend his time on. This probably gets less than two minutes of total screen-time in the episode. We see De Luca and Sam continue their little flirtation, leading pretty much nowhere, and I just couldn't help but think that this could have been saved for another episode.

Bailey's plot thread has her sitting at home on bed rest, as she harasses Glasses (Shmidt? Should I learn this kid's actual name?) to help her with her project. There's sort of this weird thing where he thinks she's setting him up for some weird sex thing? I don't know. It didn't go far enough to be truly hilarious, and so it just kind of sat in this weird comedic black hole of nothingness.

Because of the fast pace and all of the moving parts, I didn't really understand why Alex and Amelia's project for the contest was not selected. We didn't get to see enough of some of these projects to understand why some were better than others. Maggie and Richard both just briefly mention theirs as an aside, and they both seem to get in. As does Meredith, as do Jackson and his mother, as does Bailey, as does Arizona... it seems odd to exclude them when there was an actual focus on their patient. Because we don't have enough information about each proposal, it feels almost as if the decision to exclude theirs is purely arbitrary, and serves only to fuel the angst.

Pros:

Despite the many, many things happening in this episode feeling maybe a bit overwhelming, I do love having a show with such a strong ensemble that we can focus on little moments here and there and feel totally comfortable with all of these various people. We just know them so well by this point.

Like April - she's in a very grouchy mood, and she's still sleeping with that one random intern. She's clearly suffering from a crisis of faith, and we don't need more than a few moments with her to check in on the progress of this and know she's still in a really dark place. We also get April's description of her booty call situation, as she hides from the intern during the day and then un-hides at night: "I'm like a sex vampire." That cracked me up.

And we have a wonderful moment where Meredith tells Jo that she wants her to be her partner on her new project. Jo has been pinching her arm to make sure she's not dreaming. She's having a hard time believing that Paul is really dead. Meredith tells her that she wants her to work on the project, but that she's happy to put any name on the proposal that she chooses. Happily, Jo decides on "Josephine Brooke Wilson," taking ownership over the name that Paul had taken from her. Again, we only get a few moments of this, but it telegraphs so much about where Jo is as a character, and how Meredith really came through for her in being a supportive friend and mentor.

Maggie is still dating Clive, which was a bit of a snore, as it's clearly just a setup for an eventual Maggie/Jackson thing, but whatever. Most of her role in this episode is going to dance lessons with Richard so that he can surprise Catherine for her birthday. The episode ends on this happy note. I think it was really smart to have one plot thread that got us out of the hospital and in to a different head-space. Richard and Maggie discuss the nature of grief, as Maggie is still having a hard time over her mother's death. Richard points out that the one-year-anniversary of her death is coming up. He knows how hard those reminders can be. This was a great way to show them bonding in a sort of father/daughter relationship, as well as addressing Maggie's grief and Richard's own past in a way that felt very organic.

Alex and Amelia's patient, a twelve-year-old girl with a relentlessly positive attitude and a passion for musical theatre, is exactly the sort of character that this show likes to tragically kill off. I'm hoping for a better result, though, because I actually really loved her, and her voice was ridiculously angelic. Of course things have got to get worse before they can get better, and the fact that Alex et. al. didn't get the grant money means yet another obstacle to success. But I guess that's what good drama thrives on? We shall see!

Arizona and Carina decide to give their romance another shot, which seems like an excellent idea to me. We still haven't seen much of Sofia, but hopefully if we play out this romance a bit more, we can see how having a kid around factors into things. I like the idea of them working together to decrease the mortality rate of mothers, and also working together to be happy individuals. I root for these two so much.

Catherine, as anybody who reads these will know, has never exactly been a favorite of mine. However, this plot thread about a better gender confirmation surgery for trans women was actually pretty great. Jackson's reluctance to get involved was based upon winning a contest, in part, and I think he realized that even though he set up this project so that he could compete, he needs to think bigger than that. I also liked the humor with him and his mom and the woman who had the idea for the surgery. It's never not going to be awkward to talk about sex with your own mother. And Catherine telling Jackson that she was disappointed because she thought he was "woke" was absolutely delightful.

So... yeah. I'm fairly confident that I've missed something somewhere in writing about this episode, because so much stuff happened. But I've hit the points that I felt were the most important, and I'm excited to see where several of these plot threads go. That said, last week was a Bailey-centric episode, and it reminded me that Grey's Anatomy can also be great when it slows down and focuses on a few characters at a time.

8/10