Grey's Anatomy: Hit the Floor (21x09)

Guess which romances in this episode I don't give a shit about? All of them!

Cons:

I don't even want to belabor the point because I'm just repeating myself, but in short? Jo and Link suck and don't work as a romance, and Link was seriously getting on my nerves in this episode. He's weird about the women he dates, he gets too intense about them. This is what ruined the Amelia/Link thing too, except that theirs was a relationship I did enjoy, and this one with Jo is bad and also is supposed to be endgame unless one of the actors wants to leave the show before the other one. I hated the implication that Jo had "never had a stable adult relationship before" because like... I know this show took a giant crap all over Alex Karev on his way out the door, but you cannot say their relationship wasn't a stable and adult relationship before that. Yeesh.

Teddy actually didn't bother me on her own this episode, like, she was being a jerk to Ben but Ben was being super incompetent so her being kind of snappish worked for me. But Owen continues to suck so fucking bad. I almost had to laugh at the moment when he admits to the random patient lady from his past that he has feelings for her. Like, Owen, keep your shit together, my dude.

Lucas and Simone? Nothing bad here, but just boring as usual. Blue and Amnesia Girlfriend From Past? Somehow both boring and aggravating. If I can't have Jules and Mika then I'd like some Jules/Blue or, you know, in my wildest dreams we kick Lucas to the curb and get some Blue/Simone because I like their vibes best...

Lucas's plot thread this week was about having a trauma response to being in a shooting, and he and Amelia have this conversation about the Shepherd family's specific trauma about this scenario... it bothered me that they didn't bring up the hospital shooting, because Bailey was actually involved in a shooting too and surely that could have been a point of connection? Oh well. The moment when Lucas says he's "not a feelings person" after he needs to take a break was really funny to me, because like... oh, you're not a feelings person? Whiniest, most cow-eyed character of the interns? Always angsting about something or other? KWAN is the "not a feelings person," he's the one with the reputation for being stoic. Jules too. Lucas is way too feelings-y, that's like his whole thing. I really don't give a crap about this character.

Pros:

Okay, despite being very grumpy about Link and Jo, I did think Jo's comedic dismay about the very youthful OBGYN doctor having to do her exam was pretty funny, as was Link shutting down his chitchat at the end. That was a cute little bit. And I liked Bailey being there to support Jo, and talking some sense into Link. She's the best.

I kind of like that Ben isn't doing a super good job fitting back into the hospital, I think it's interesting. He's trying to take initiative and fix problems where he sees them, but Teddy's got a bigger picture view of what's going on, and she's trying to remind him that he's still got work to do to earn his position here. It's a tension where I can actually see both sides of the argument and I'm kind of looking forward to where it goes from here.

I also thought it was interesting how the shooter from last year's mid-season finale was handled. This isn't a mass-shooter situation where somebody went on a rampage, this was a person committing a desperate crime out of desperate need, and I appreciate that the episode sort of sat in the nuance of that. You have Jules who has decided to turn inward after losing Mika, get a wake-up call in the form of the shooter's girlfriend, who talks about how her boyfriend has turned inward after a series of misfortunes and doesn't seem to think he can reach out for help.

Another major patient story-line is the teenager whose mother was a Winston one-night stand. Winston and Amelia have to grapple with potential complications of the surgery as it seems the teenager might have lost the use of her legs. They're able to fix the issue, but there's tension between them leading up to it. I like Amelia and Winston's complicated friendship. They have this family tie through Maggie but it's obviously quite fraught, and they butt heads professionally too. I'd like to see them get more scenes together moving forward. Especially if they ever circle back to that Amelia/Monica thing they started to tease, because it would be funny for Winston to be awkward about that...

It's a little hard looking over my thoughts on this episode and confronting the fact that the things I'm excited about are potential story-lines that might take off or become more prominent.... and the "cons" section is just full of every major romance arc the show has going for it. I think Meredith and Mr. Boring are due to come back next week, so I'll have another romance to gripe about then! Woohoo.

6/10