Grey's Anatomy: Skyfall (22x07)

I liked some things about this episode, I guess! I'm still tired of the same stuff though.

Cons:

It's not even that Link did anything wrong in this episode it's just that I've been so thoroughly sapped of giving a shit about him and about the Jo/Link romance that I couldn't muster up any emotional response to his distress. Like. The babies in the NICU, Jo on a vent... I'm sitting here yawning because I'm fairly sure Jo is going to wake up and be fine and then they'll give their babies sappy reference names to other characters and that'll be that. I'm also annoyed, in a distant sort of way, about Amelia's absence: giving the actor a sabbatical is great, giving the character a sabbatical is great, but when you see how harried Link is with juggling his wife and two new babies in the hospital, and then he's talking about coordinating childcare for Scout and Luna, you just go... where the fuck is Amelia? Scout's mother? They could have fixed this so easily with one sentence that says "Amelia is on a flight back to help with the kids" and then in subsequent episodes we can just say she's off-screen with Scout (and maybe Luna too). Without adding in that little detail it makes Amelia seem kind of awful, which I don't want!

I had kind of forgotten that Richard has cancer, like, the idea of him having to deal with another issue that should get him to finally retire but inevitably won't as the show keeps limping on through additional seasons... I'm already so sick of this. Maybe they'll kill him off. I can't imagine it, but maybe. I feel so jaded about my lack of concern for him, though, I've known this dude since I started watching this show in high school.

The skywriter plane guy dying felt really bleak, and I found myself wanting more from the story. I was really moved by the best friend and by the girlfriend and how they both had such earnest love and worry for him without being able to connect over that shared worry and then grief. I don't know why these characters would stick around for subsequent episodes since the medical aspect of the story is over, but I guess I'm putting this in the "cons" section because I felt unfulfilled by what we got.

I'm glad Winston's maybe got something going with a nurse because maybe that means he'll stay away from Jules but if Jules walking in and seeing them at the bar and looking all sad is any indicator, this story-line is still going on and we'll have to keep seeing the "tension" between these two. I hate it I hate it I hate it. Stopppp. 

Pros:

A very provisional inclusion of Owen and Teddy in the "pros" section here, as in this episode we see them acting more or less like mature adults. If Owen telling Teddy he's proud of her is a prelude to them reigniting their romance, then I'm shunting these two back to their usual home in the "cons" section immediately. But if this is part of a story where they actually move on and become exes and co-parents and that is all, then thank the lord for that. I have my doubts, but we'll see.

Ben and Bailey are the only relationship on this show that makes me believe in love lol. I loved the scene where Ben is calming Bailey down from a panic attack after a scare with Jo. Ben is the MVP, Bailey is such a good doctor and person and friend to her colleagues. I want them to be the main characters of the show at this point.

Although, actually, this is a rare case where I can put three of our four first-year-residents in the "pros" section. Jules is only banished because of the Winston thing, I'm waiting with open arms to let her back into the fold once she moves the hell on from that nonsense.

First of all, I'm all for Simone doing messy hookups with intern dude Wes. I'm not looking forward to more Lucas drama if/when he finds out, but in and of itself I think it's kind of perfect to have this going on. Simone is so begrudging with her attraction towards him, and he's got the right blend of cocky and sweet going on. I dig it, let them date.

Lucas, because he's not being annoying about Simone, has a good episode too. He accompanies Bailey's cancer patient, Katie, to her clinical trial which has to be done at another hospital due to a mix-up with the medication. There's a moment where the car breaks down and I was ready for high drama and angst, but actually this plot thread is more about Katie's emotional needs, and Lucas learning to think about people other than himself for once. By the end, the two of them have bonded over romantic comedies, and I actually have to give grudging respect to Lucas Adams for having the correct opinion that Sleepless in Seattle is a bad movie. And we see them driving off to the beach together at the end of the episode. Is there like... romance vibes here? I'm not sure. I wouldn't be mad. Keep Simone and Lucas apart and they instantly become much less insufferable. Lucas still had some of his annoying foot-in-mouth syndrome, but this episode acknowledged that flaw by having Katie put him in his place, and he actually adjusted his behavior instead of pouting about it!

And then you've got Kwan and Mohanty hooking up, Simone giving Blue bad advice to romance her and get her flowers, and then having to eat crow when it turns out Mohanty actually was on the same page as Blue all along about it being a hookup and nothing more. The moment at the end when Kwan tries to un-give her the flowers but then tells her to keep them... that was honestly sweet? I like the idea of there being feelings brewing under the surface for these two but not a lot of angst, like, they are both happy to have it be just sex for now and I think that's fun. Having "endgame" ships on Grey's Anatomy is a little complicated because it's essentially a soap opera, where you have to be prepared for any character to exit at any time and thus ruin their soulmate status, but if I could suggest how I want things to go, I would put Simone and Kwan as my endgame ship out of this batch of characters. They give off Meredith and Alex vibes, like, they're platonic and yet very intimate and woven into each other's lives. I never shipped Mer and Alex, they were definitely not a romantic bond, but I like the idea of a version of that type of bond, a real friends-to-lovers thing, and Simone and Kwan have always had better chemistry than Simone and Lucas. Actually maybe it's just that Kwan has good chemistry with most of the women he shares a screen with lol. (He played one half of a very popular relationship in the teen supernatural drama Shadowhunters, and him and his scene partner had some of the worst chemistry I have ever seen on screen, so I was surprised, and pleased, to find Harry Shum Jr. being good at playing romance and sexual tension here on Grey's!)

That's all for now. Overall I was invested in a lot of these plot lines and less annoyed by several key characters than I usually am. But considering that the main story involves Jo Wilson's life hanging in the balance and her husband anxiously bemoaning the shaky health of his wife and his two newborns, and I felt nothing about any of it... I can't exactly be too generous with my score here.

7/10