Grey's Anatomy: Fight the Power (17x05)

Oh, poor Bailey...

Cons:

I want to be very careful and precise on how I talk about this, but I do think that the messaging in this episode was very blunt and somewhat poorly scripted. We had Bailey and Maggie talking about their experiences of being underestimated, of having to work twice as hard and become exceptional just to be considered worthy of notice. And then we had Jackson and Richard, spouting off statistics and talking about systemic racism. Both of these conversations were good, in that I agreed with the message and agree that it's an important one. But I can think of so many times during the course of this show when important messages were delivered through the heart and soul of the characters that we already knew and loved... as compared to this, which felt like our black faves delivering prepared remarks to us in a Very Special Episode. It wasn't godawful. It was just... not as smooth, not as personal, as I wanted it to be.

Fuck Teddy Altman. I feel like I need to say that every week. I'm so happy that Tom seems to be doing better, and that hopefully he's not on the verge of death, but Teddy's speech, talking about repairing their relationship, just made me mad, because what the fuck has she done to earn any measure of forgiveness at all? I want Tom to be okay. And I even want Owen to be okay, despite my general dislike of him. But at this point, I don't know that I'm ever going to be actively rooting for Teddy's happiness again.

Tentatively, I think Jo switching specialties could be a fun avenue to explore, but I want to put in an early qualm, too... pediatrics was Alex's specialty, so I want Jo to be able to forge her own path without doing a thing because her ex-husband did it. Also, this show's treatment of kids in general is so uneven. Amelia and Link having a whole gang of children to look after is the most consistent kid content we've ever gotten from this show. Meredith has three children, and throughout most of the show you'd never know it! So if we're doing a pediatrics story with Jo, and if perhaps she decides she wants to be a mother, which I would honestly support, I hope they give it the gravitas it deserves.

Pros:

Bailey-centric episode for the win! I mean, it was a really depressing one. Bailey's mother, in a nursing home, gets Covid, and dies. Add to that the fact that she has Alzheimer's and is in and out of coherence in her final moments... get your tissues ready. This was rough to see. I have to give big kudos to Chandra Wilson's performance here, because let's face it: we don't have an emotional attachment to Bailey's parents. We don't know them. But we know Bailey, and it's her mother, and the sadness and compassion I felt for her created a real level of investment in this story.

As much as I'm not on board the Teddy Altman forgiveness train, I am glad that Tom is going to be okay, and I did like that moment when Owen told Teddy to go, basically acknowledging that she's too emotionally invested. And then I also liked that Amelia came in to help, and as she explains to Link... Tom was her teacher, he fixed her brain, and he slept with her, the first person after Owen, which helped to save her as well. I loved Link's somewhat flummoxed reaction to that news! Super funny.

Schmitt is seriously one of my favorite characters... am I detecting some romance potential between him and the new optimistic recent immigrant doctor? Probably just reading into things, but I want him to be happy! He and Jo have one of those surprising friendships that just makes sense onscreen when you see them, even though you never would have expected it. I like their wacky roommate antics. It's comforting to know that Jo has someone in her corner right now.

While I maintain that some of the social messaging in this episode was a bit heavy-handed in terms of how the dialogue was written, I still think it's so important that a spotlight is being turned on the real issues at hand here. I think my favorite moment was the camaraderie we saw between Bailey and Maggie, while they reminisced about their mothers, and their experiences growing up in a racist education system. Some of the dialogue may have been a bit on the nose, but one of the things that makes this show good, is that there are multiple black main characters with rich, developed lives and backstories, who have genuine relationships with each other. Sure, I thought Jackson, Richard, Bailey, and Maggie were all used as mouthpieces to discuss racism in this episode. But that's not their primary function on the show. They aren't carted out of the back room to make a special statement and then put right back into obscurity. They live and breathe and have lives within the universe of the show, and a big part of those lives are impacted by their blackness.

Am I contradicting my earlier complaint? Maybe so. Really I think it comes down to me thinking that the dialogue was a bit blunt and not the best Grey's has done in terms of integrating the personal, emotional stories with the bigger social messages at hand. That is what I would definitely consider to be a nitpick, though.

So there you have it. Tom is on the mend, Meredith is still out of it (I hope Ellen Pompeo got some good time off from shooting early in this season... headlining a show for nearly two decades means she deserves it!), and Bailey's mom loses her life. I think there are probably people out there who are less than thrilled about having a Covid-centric season of Grey's Anatomy on the air, but frankly I'm impressed thus far with how it's being portrayed.

8/10