Grey's Anatomy: Only the Strong Survive (22x01)

Welp. Sometimes I wonder what the hell I'm even still doing here.

Cons:

I had sort of willfully forgotten the sad state of the romance arcs in Grey's Anatomy these days, to the point where I really don't give a flying fuck about any romantic subplot, and in the cases where I do care, it's because I want them to break up because I think they're terrible together. Let's run these through really quick.

Jo and Link - I know they want me to care, I know they want me to feel something about Link's brush with death. And Jo is a character I have so much fondness for, I want the best for her, so for her sake I don't want her to suffer a terrible loss, but godddd are they boring. There's just no passion or chemistry between them. I had forgotten they were going through a bit of a tiff with Link being anxious about the new babies. There's this really telling moment where Jo says "he's been my best friend for twenty years" and also talks about him being her only family, and it just pinged to me as the show needing to remind the audience why the stakes are high for Jo here. This deep lifelong friendship between the two of them is something that we never saw, we just get told it exists over and over again in the vain hope that one day it will feel true. And it doesn't.

Teddy and Owen spend most of the episode focused on, you know, saving lives and shit, but there's this dumb moment at the end where Owen does his sad angsty face and is like "do you think we'll ever go back to how we used to be, being best friends?" and I just wanted Teddy to be like "no, bye, let's leave this TV show together and spend years in intensive therapy somewhere away from Seattle where Dani won't have to watch us be terrible and boring anymore." Sigh.

Also Simone's intern fling is going to be really insufferable. This dude seems like a lot. I'm glad she held to the breakup with Lucas, but on the other hand I just know it's going to be more tedious back and forth with these two and I'd rather them be boringly together than angstily and irritatingly apart. So. Also, there's the Winston/Jules thing which I had fully blocked from my memory and it made my blood boil all over again to see it. Stay away from her, dude! I beg of you!

And let's talk about Monica. Pretty early on in the episode I was like... Link is going to be fine, this is all a big fake-out and we're supposed to be worried about someone else and we won't even realize until it's too late. Monica was the only candidate who fit the bill, since I knew they wouldn't take Richard out like that. Not to be rude, but if Monica had just vanished from the show and was never talked about again, I doubt I would have noticed. She was a cool idea for a character but she never had a lot to chew on, and everything that was there got cut off at the pass. The sort of mentorship vibe with Schmitt, sure, but then he left. The vibes with Amelia, the hooking up with Winston... it all came to nothing! Why have this character just kinda putter around on the edge of the story without giving her much to do, and then try to convince us that her death is premiere-episode-worthy juicy drama? It's so annoying.

Pros:

There were a few plot threads in here I liked. For one, Meredith helping the new interns who haven't even had their first day yet was pretty fun. The young woman who got injured is named Dani and I always have an egotistic soft spot for fictional characters with my name, so I'm excited to see more of her. And I like seeing Meredith in the mentorship/elder statesman role back at Grey Sloan, to where this baby intern was like "oh shit she's like a Big Deal" lol. That was fun.

As annoyed as I was with Teddy for being so mean to Ben last season, and as annoyed as I was at Ben for not knowing how to be a bit more professional and play the politics game a bit better, I did actually like the resolution of this plot point. Teddy recognizes she went a little hard on Ben, that she's reacting to his recklessness and his drive to react on instinct, because it reminds her of herself, and now she's this different person in administrative mode. Ben gets to stay and finish his residency at the hospital, yay! Also I'm glad Ben and Miranda were reunited early in the episode and they didn't do angsty married separation for them, they're like the one established married couple on this show I really believe in.

I also kinda liked Richard being curmudgeonly and refusing to be babied and helping out around the hospital; the stuff with him and Jo was the most emotional I felt in a Jo scene all episode, because ultimately I believe in their found family vibes more than I believe in Jo's relationship to her literal husband. Speaking of emotional moments regarding Link's fate, I once again had 100% more investment in Amelia's reaction than in Jo's. I loved the way she's trying to stay calm and then getting frazzled and gets pushed out because she shouldn't be treating family. I wish she hadn't said the thing about not wanting Scout to lose a father, though, it made it seem like her panic was for her son's sake only and not for her own affection and friendship with her former partner. God, if you're gonna kill Amelia's potential lady love interest anyway, why not just put her back with Link. Remember when they were like the best and most fun couple on the show? Sighhhhhh.

Kwan and Adams had my favorite subplot, as they somewhat comedically fumble through their evacuation of a patient. Kwan trying to be like... a pal, to Adams in asking about Simone, made me smile. I continue to love Kwan more than any of the other characters from this batch of interns, he's such a weirdo in the best way. Also, despite how annoying and frustrating Monica's death was, there was some great acting from Jules as she's put in the enormously stressful situation of having to save a child's life in sub-optimal conditions while her boss is sitting against the wall slowly dying without her knowledge. Great performance from her there.

I guess we're back. This show is like a family member that I don't get along with but can't quite bring myself to cut off, either. I've known Meredith Grey since I was in high school, I can't say goodbye to her no matter how much I want to throttle half of the characters on my screen.

5/10