Grey's Anatomy: Collide (23x01)

Twenty-three seasons, what else is there to say about hospitals and doctors and drama? Well, there is new stuff to cover, and there's also... new stuff to bemoan.

Cons:

This whole plot where there's going to be a VIP section of the hospital, and Richard and Catherine are all in, but Meredith is against it... I guess it's just stupid to think that Meredith isn't correct, here. Drama with a new chief is going to feel so tedious and just stoke my bad feelings about Richard and Catherine even more than usual. Ugh. Why does Meredith always get screwed over by her colleagues and supposed friends?

When Jo walked in the door at the end and said she quit her job, I nearly swore at the screen. Are we going to do ANOTHER story about how Jo isn't certain of her place in her career / is dealing with bad mental health stuff? I just don't want to watch it. I don't want to watch her and Link's boring marriage. I don't want to deal with Link's opioid addiction stuff. I just can't be bothered with these two.

Simone and what's-his-face are boring, Winston and Jules should still be illegal... I don't know. A pregnancy story-line for Simone could be interesting in theory, I do really like Simone, and her fraught relationship with the concept of motherhood would be good to see. But it's going to be a whole thing, with the guy she's hooking up with, and then Lucas, and the love triangle drama will frustrate me to no end!

I saw a lot of people really excited about the Amelia/Toni stuff and like... yeah, I'm totally on board for this relationship and I'm excited to see more, but I gotta be honest, I'd sort of forgotten the whole thing with Amelia hooking up with someone else, and I'm not sure we've earned the "I'm so in love with you" moment at this stage. Feels fast, and feels kind of inorganic to me? I don't know. Maybe I'll change my tune with time.

Pros:

I love Bailey taking on a new challenge with grad school, she really does remain one of the shining lights on this show, and seeing her wrestle with the injustices and broken systems in health care is something I'm genuinely looking forward to. The tension between her goals and what Catherine Fox is up to could potentially make for some interesting TV, if they can avoid making me hate Catherine for being so tone deaf to everything.

Also along those lines, I did really like Meredith in this episode; she tried to play the middle and keep everyone happy, but when she saw the suffering of her patient, she sat with him, apologized, made a game plan, and then spoke her mind to the people in charge. She's honestly a legend for that.

Kwan is still my fave of this class of residents. I love seeing him grapple with his loss of career; I would be so bummed if he exited the show so it's thrilling to see him here. Learning French is such a fun idea for what he's trying to do to fill the time. And I loved that Simone covered for him and helped him to assist his instructor when she was in distress. The comedy beat of Richard coming in and Kwan hiding behind the door was honestly pretty funny.

The big disaster of the episode is that two planes crashed into each other on the runway at SeaTac, due to a mistake made by Air Traffic Control. This is Grey's being openly political about a real problem, and we love to see it as always. I loved that the blame was put on the broken system and not the man who had made the mistake after being way overworked due to staffing issues. And yet, at the same time, that man is never going to recover from the knowledge that someone died because of his error. The pilot, her very first day as a captain... the internal decapitation thing was honestly so scary to me, that shit is a legit nightmare.

As usual with this show, there are characters and arcs I cannot imagine caring about, and then there are aspects that I quite enjoy following! Kwan is a hero in this regard, and whenever Meredith shows up I'm still invested, and Bailey is honestly still so great, along with Ben of course. Really holding down the fort. What a joy it was to not have to type the words "Owen" and "Teddy" in this whole dang thing...

7/10