Grey's Anatomy: Sing It Again (16x20)

Okay Amelia and Link are actually the cutest, y'all.

Cons:

Teddy and Owen being all ooey-gooey and let's get married right now!!! Is just... nothing to me. It means nothing. I feel nothing. Especially after an episode that so heartbreakingly focused on Tom Koracick and his own personal tragedy, where Teddy was able to drop everything and support him. They are one thousand times the more compelling couple, and even if I still cared about Owen, the fact that Teddy hasn't been honest about her affair with Tom makes any potential of rooting for them just go down the drain for me.

I also somewhat hate it when the patients' lives are really clumsily tied in to the doctor's experiences... the woman who starts hearing songs and singing everything makes Owen realize "I would sing for you, Teddy." Like... what does that have to do with anything? Also, while I thought the devotion between the couple was really sweet, the singing actually did start to get on my nerves in a real way. Lots of second-hand embarrassment.

Station 19 already stole Ben from us... are they trying to snag Jackson too? Based on a brief moment here it seems like he was probably in an episode of the other show. I don't like the increasingly blurry lines between the two shows, because I'm not watching one of them and I don't feel like starting!

Pros:

The Richard plot is the main one this week, and it got me right in the feels. Just the image of him trying to fill out the worksheet while Meredith and Maggie (his daughters, basically) stand by and watch him fail... Richard has had his ups and downs over the years, but he has always been a pillar of strength and a mentor to Meredith, so watching her go through something like this, when she already had to suffer it with her mother... it sucks so bad. I even felt some feelings for Catherine, as she of course is suffering guilt for not being around to notice his behavior growing more and more erratic. She probably should feel guilty, to be honest, but of course nobody deserves to go through what she's going through.

I like how they're incorporating the hallucinations, too. When Richard was about to operate on himself, and at first they show him in a fully-prepped OR, I was panicked, thinking maybe he had come in and the other people in the room just didn't know the situation, and Richard was about to cut in to a patient. The reality is no less troubling, but they did good at faking me out with that stuff, much moreso than last episode.

Tom Koracick goes through a nightmare scenario, when his ex-wife, her new husband, and their eleven-year-old son show up. The son? The spitting image of his older half-brother who died. Because Amelia goes into false labor just before the life-saving brain surgery can start, Tom is forced to operate. He saves the boy, and maybe puts some demons to rest about being unable to do the same for his son all those years ago. This plot thread punched me right in the gut, and it also reminded me again of why Tom is truly one of my favorite characters on the show these days, which is not something I thought I'd be saying. I love how when he meets this little boy, the half-brother of his dead son, and the boy announces that he knows why Tom is shaken, Tom still manages to joke around with him and be kind to him. He's kind to his ex-wife too. I can't remember if we were told this specifically, but I get the impression that they split up after losing their child, which is a thing that can happen to many couples. I liked that they were kind to each other, that she didn't want to hurt him but also trusted Tom to save her son's life. And Tom leaving her with "Guthrie's a good name" was such a specifically sweet moment.

In smaller subplot news, DeLuca is around to keep Richard company, and he and Meredith end up having a nice chat. I'm glad he's taking some time to sort out his stuff, because I really do care about him and want him to be alright.

Also, Amelia goes into false labor, and she and Link freak out about all the stuff that can happen to a child, and how it is dawning on them both that Amelia giving birth isn't the finish line, but only the very start of a long, long process. I think they are genuinely cute together and will make great parents!

Levi is grumbling about Nico moving on, and Jo is yelling at him at work, so Levi thinks he might not be welcome in her home anymore. But Jo says she was yelling at him because she's an attending and she's helping him to learn. She likes that he's around - having someone else to commiserate with is the only thing keeping her sane right now! I am never going to be okay with the way Alex exited this show, but there's some satisfaction in seeing that Jo is going to be okay in the aftermath. And I love Levi and Jo sitting around and watching movies that have cute boys in them... that's darling.

That's where I'll stop. I'm soooo done with Owen, as you all know. But I'm compelled by Richard's situation and I deeply love so many of these characters. I really wonder where we are heading at the end of this season!

8/10