Grey's Anatomy: I'll Follow the Sun (19x07)

I'm not angry, I'm not even surprised, I'm just... disappointed?

Cons:

It feels like Grey's has been equivocating about Meredith's exit for a season and a half now. Is she moving away? No. Yes. No. And now, definitively, yes. And yet Meredith undercuts the solemnity of her own exit during the goodbye party, saying she's sure to be back from Boston soon anyway. That's the vibe I get from this. It's not that Meredith is really gone, gone. I have a strong suspicion that when it comes time for Grey's to hang up its hat for good, Ellen Pompeo will pop up for a final send-off in style. It's just... it's annoying that this is supposed to be a semi-permanent goodbye, it is the ending of Meredith Grey as main character of this show, and it's so... unceremonious. So little time is spent on her. The episode is full of other subplots, mundane and profound alike, and Meredith really didn't have a lot of time dedicated to her. People's exit episodes usually get a lot more gravitas to them, and it feels really cheap and disappointing and just... underwhelming in the extreme, that this is all Meredith gets for hers.

The biggest problem is that Nick fucking sucks, I hate him, I hate that this is the note we go off on, Meredith leaving with her kids, Nick trying to run frantically to the airport to tell her he loves her... like, I hope she says no. I hope she stays in Boston and Nick goes the fuck away and doesn't bother her anymore. The end of that. My blood was boiling during the scene where he was snapping at her about how she thought he was to blame for everything because he didn't say what he was supposed to say on her timetable. Shut the hell up, dude. That's Meredith Grey you're talking to, you're not worthy to be in her company!

In other subplot news, we check in with a lot of characters in a brief sort of way, and I'd just like to lodge the familiar complaint that I don't like the idea of Link and Jo being romantically entangled, so I hope they knock it off with that. And I'm sad about Maggie and Winston's relationship drama, although I'll admit I'm a little more intrigued with it this week than I have been so far (more on that later).

Pros:

So, despite the fact that I'm disappointed with the lack of gravitas surrounding Meredith's exit, there are things about the framing that I enjoy. I like that Meredith got to say that she chooses herself and her kids, and she's not going to beg someone to love her. That was a nice glow-up from the "choose me" moment with Derek, which, while I think it still works as romance and drama, is famously a line that Ellen Pompeo hated because she felt it was disempowering to women. I also like that her exit is more or less drama-free with her friends and family. She gets a going away party with a mishap with the cake, since Link brought the wrong one by accident. She gets farewell toasts from Bailey and Richard, the final two OG members of the cast left on the show. Zola gets to watch her Aunt Maggie's history-making surgery. The two little ones go to say goodbye to their old daycare buddies. They get on a plane, they're off for a new life, and Meredith is happy. For all I could have wished for more pomp and circumstance, this is what I want for her. I want her to be content, going off to start a new adventure.

Teddy didn't annoy me this week because she didn't have scenes with Owen, merely spent the episode chasing Richard down about potentially becoming the new Chief. Richard tells her it's a thankless job, but it's hers if she wants it. I anticipate this could be insufferable moving forward, but for the moment I don't particularly mind it!

Maggie and Winston... I'm still a little annoyed that their relationship has to be full of tension, I kind of wanted them to be our one solid and happy example amidst everyone else's drama. And Maggie's behavior is still troubling and irritating to me. But this episode actually had that get called to the forefront. Winston has been stewing that Maggie said she didn't respect him for being willing to give up his chosen career path for the sake of their marriage. And now we see Winston throw that back in her face, but in a very understandable way - he doesn't respect her for her coldness. For her inability to see that his priorities in life might be different, and that doesn't make him weaker or lesser. I'm actually excited to see where this goes, because I think it's a lesson Maggie really badly needs to learn. I'm prepared to eat my words, though, this could end up being really annoying, really fast.

And then the interns. It's super cheesy, but the idea of them moving into Meredith's house is honestly pretty perfect. It keeps a legacy going in a way I find really neat. Let's just do it, let's dive in and let these characters really be the focus. I want to get to know them and love them the way I once loved our original gang of baby doctors. I don't know if that's possible, this show has definitely lost a great deal of its original spark, but I don't know, I'm willing to be pulled in! I loved Helm teaching Mika how to do a certain stitch so she could get a win after her car/home got towed. I loved Blue being cocky and then losing out. I like the tension between Simone and Lucas. There could be a lot of promise here!

We had two big medical cases this week. One, Maggie successfully performed a partial heart transplant on an infant (whatever, just go with it, it's fake), and it was the one moment in the whole episode when I teared up, when Amelia was talking about her kid who died right after being born. We also have Meredith's very last surgery as official employee of Grey Sloan being performed on the beloved children's author we met previously. Unfortunately, she dies on the table. I kind of like the melancholy note that this brings. Meredith expected to go out on top, but luck isn't always with you. And the conversation with Simone was a nice touch. A real passing of the torch, and a softening of the bitterness of this tragedy. This author got to write her final book, and get her words out there one final time.

I guess I'll just end this review by saying I'll be sticking around. I don't know how to feel about Meredith's exit. In so many ways this episode just felt like another standard run-of-the-mill Grey's episode. It didn't have any of the gravitas or intensity or passion I would have expected from saying goodbye to our leading star character. I wish I could go back to the way this show once made me feel, when we had so many of our old favorites around us. I still enjoy tuning in for new content, and there are still characters who spark joy in me. But mostly the experience of watching Grey's Anatomy these days leaves me feeling a little bit numb. Hopefully the intern characters can continue to grow and give me more to love, and hopefully we can give my boy Schmitt some more interesting story beats sometime soon too. I love that kid.

7/10