Oh goodness. There are a lot of things about this that I really goddamn hate, but... plenty I loved, too!
Cons:
Jo and Link. Look, I'd honestly love to feel differently about this. It sucks to have a character like Link, who I used to greatly enjoy, turn into someone that I just don't want to spend time with anymore. I liked Jo and Alex, and I liked Amelia and Link. I have never once thought these two worked as a romance. And when they had their big love confession and kiss in the rain moment, I honestly felt nothing. Total numbness and boredom. Plus, Link seemed like such an insensitive jerk about Jo flirting with her patient, Sam. Just grow up and get over yourself, dude.
Simone and Lucas is great and I'll compliment the drama later, but I still think Trey should have... existed as a character more leading up to this point. It was such a non-choice, such an obvious conclusion. I would have liked a bit more wedding shenanigans, and a bit more of an understanding of who Trey is as a person, in order to enjoy this more fully.
Meredith and Nick... I knew I was going to be annoyed about it, and I was right. At least we see Meredith having her own goals and passions in Boston, but my god, that whole apology to Nick, and wanting to build something with him, was just so joyless and boring to me. I just don't think he's an interesting character, and I never, ever have.
For the most part, I am all for Bailey getting that award, but it did feel sort of weird from the outsider perspective, like... the people who are not personally friends with Richard Webber or Catherine Fox or Miranda Bailey have to be sitting there like... wait a minute. They just arranged this whole nice little surprise for their personal friend? The Catherine Fox award is named after Catherine Fox, a woman who is married to Miranda Bailey's long-time friend and mentor. I'm not saying she doesn't deserve this accolade, of course she does! I just couldn't help but think of the people who aren't in this clique, wondering how fair this really is.
It remains to be seen what will come of Teddy, but yikes, if they actually kill her just when she was starting to become vaguely tolerable to me (due to reduced interactions with Owen), I'll be pissed. So unnecessary, Grey's.
Also: sorry, but Richard maybe having another relapse and drinking again is just boring to me at this point. I feel like whenever they run out of things for Richard to do in the story, they either bring back Catherine's cancer, or they have him drink again. Enough already.
In the category of things I wish we could have seen, I was a little sad that we didn't get some sister time with Amelia, Meredith, and Maggie. Especially as a wrap-up on this season for Amelia, who has been undergoing these feelings of abandonment.
Pros:
Jo learning ASL, yay! She's simcoming, which basically means she's signing and speaking at the same time, meaning her grammar has some issues, but it's still so cool to see that on the show, and I hope it continues.
Despite my feelings of clique-i-ness with the whole Catherine Fox award thing, I did think it was enormously sweet and empowering that Bailey got the award for her work in training people on abortion care. This show has never been afraid to go political, and it was such a nice capstone to a season where Bailey had to suffer so much harassment and pain. I did think about Addison, though: surely the award should have been jointly granted to her as well, for the same reason? Meredith giving that speech, Ben showing up last minute to support his wife, Bailey's surprise about it all... very moving and sweet, indeed.
It could be a cool way to keep Meredith connected to the show with intermittent appearances, this idea of her new breakthrough in Alzheimer's research, something that flies in the face of all understanding in the field, including Derek's research. She's going to be off doing science things, trying to get funding and keep hold of her reputation as she shakes things up, and she can pop up once or twice a season to update us on the chaos of her life. I like this for her. Drama, but not drama we need to be constantly paying attention to. I can imagine her working hard and becoming even more of a legend, and taking care of her kids, and living her life.
Also, in the interest of being entirely fair, I will clock one moment of Nick that I did enjoy. When Meredith tells him that the guy he found at her house is the kids' tutor, who also happens to be gay, his response is a frankly adorable, childish, "really?" Which I thought was sweet. Glad that Meredith hadn't randomly started dating someone new so quickly after settling in Boston, although to be honest whoever else she might have picked would probably be more interesting than Nick! Sorry!
I was surprisingly cool with the way they did the Maggie/Winston thing? At first I was annoyed, like, great. They're just going to fall into bed together and perpetuate the confusion and pain? But then they talked at the award event, and they had this gentle conversation about the potential for their future. Should they get divorced? Is that the best thing for both of them? I like how earlier, when they were on the plane, Winston defended himself and Maggie to Amelia, saying that it wasn't either of their faults alone that their relationship had taken this turn. That's some nuanced understanding of the situation, and I enjoyed it.
The plane thing was kind of ridiculous, over the top turbulence making all the doctors fear for their lives momentarily. It's the kind of thing we know for a fact Grey's is willing to pull, but I didn't really think the plane was going to go down, not with so much else the episode was trying to grapple with. But I did begrudgingly kind of enjoy Amelia and Winston holding hands, that was a nice little beat. And Bailey gets MVP once again for knocking the drink out of Richard's hand.
Back at the hospital, we've got all sorts of stuff going on. I continue to be impressed by how much the new crop of characters and their drama appeals to me.
First you've got Yasuda and Helm, going on an adorable date to Simone's wedding, kissing and giggling and problem-solving together when the flowers don't arrive for the ceremony. I loved seeing how sweet they were together. I'm sure next season will bring them their fair share of drama, as Helm is now Yasuda's boss, but seeing Mika running at full capacity, having enough sleep to do her job well, and seeing Helm so happy at the successful start of this new romantic relationship, and new chance at her dream career, was such a balm! They're pretty fun.
Simone leaves Trey at the altar, of course. Literally she's already started walking down the aisle when she decides she can't go through with the wedding. That's pretty rough. We learn how much she's doing all of this because of her long-dead mother, and when she learns that her mom met her dad after being engaged to someone else, she realizes her intended husband isn't the man for her. She and Lucas immediately fall into bed together, he literally helps her out of her wedding dress, which is just the kind of juicy soap opera goodness we love to see on this show.
Of course, things go bad when Trey shows up after getting in a minor car accident, and punches Lucas in the face when he realizes that he was a factor in Simone leaving. Simone talks to him and says, basically, that regardless of Lucas, marrying Trey isn't what she wants. I liked that they addressed that what Simone did hurt people. Trey and his family, Lucas... they all got caught up in Simone's indecision and struggles. It's a rough move, doing what Simone did, but the alternative being marrying someone you don't want to be with is, of course, worse.
Blue was a serious highlight for me of this episode! First there was his utter bad-ass moment of helping save a kid, and then bridging the language barrier (the mother and son spoke Spanish), and stopping CPS from getting involved. It turns out that the little boy Enzo ingested drugs that were left behind by a prior visitor to the hotel, not given to him by his mother. And then after that, he has a much less bad-ass moment, where he intubates Max when she suddenly starts to code, specifically violating her DNR order. It ends up in a situation where it's too late to go back and un-do what he's done, so they keep her alive, and Jules, with her medical proxy, is now going to be in the position of making decisions for her. Luckily, Max wakes up and they explain that she had a temporary thing going on and that she won't have to keep being intubated. Basically, Blue did a bad thing, took a huge risk, and it did pay off... but Jules's anger is completely justified. And what Blue did was a serious violation of medical ethics.
This is the kind of twisty dilemma that we love to see. It gave me early Grey's vibes for sure, Blue reacting with too much emotional instinct, his feelings of tenderness towards Jules, his own feelings about his mother coming into play... and Jules hating him for his decision but also loving him for saving her favorite person. I'm very into seeing where this goes from here.
And then... oh my god. Despite how much I will be annoyed if they kill Teddy, I will admit the very end of this episode hyped me up in a way Grey's hasn't managed to do in a very long time. Sam, the patient who has been flirting with Jo, ends up suddenly in distress and rushed to the OR. Teddy is the only attending in the room, and along with Yasuda and Lucas, and they're getting ready to do a life-saving emergency surgery. When suddenly... Teddy collapses. She's been having tooth pain for a while, but that's been our only hint that something was wrong with her at all. Our other attendings are scattered to the winds: at Boston, or making out in rainy alleyways, or whatever. So as Yasuda drops to the ground and starts trying to tend to Teddy, Simone shows up and along with Lucas, the two of them try to save Sam on the table. Owen is fetched by someone, and runs into the operating room to see a patient bleeding out on the table, the floor drenched in blood, and his wife on the floor, entirely nonresponsive.
Drama! I don't like Owen, but even I'm not heartless enough not to feel for him as he collapses to the ground and tries to wake Teddy up. What the heck is going to happen from here? I was getting Schmitt flashbacks, seeing that patient on the table, an attending coming into the room to see what his students hath wrought in his absence, but like... what were they supposed to do? This is some juicy stuff, and I'm looking forward to seeing the aftermath of it all whenever we get back to this show. Given the writer's strike, we may have a longer wait time than usual, but that's not the writers' fault!
In all, these final two episodes were truly a mixed bag. I am so annoyed about Jo and Link. I still strongly dislike Nick. But the drama that I enjoyed most was the stuff with our younger crop of characters, and I think that bodes well for the show's longevity!
7/10
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