Grey’s Anatomy 13×19: “What’s Inside” Recap 

Maggie lays flowers on her mother’s grave while Meredith and Amelia watch from afar. Amelia asks why Diane wanted to be buried in Seattle, when she’s not from here, but it’s so that Maggie can visit her mother’s grave. The sister-in-laws compare the ways they have grieved in the past — Amelia had oxy binges, and Meredith disappeared for months. Unlike these two, Maggie has never had to deal with real grief before now.

Outside of the hospital, Riggs arrives for work at the same time as Arizona and Eliza who ‘carpooled’ together.

Inside of the hospital, Owen meets up with a man and pregnant woman with whom he is friends. They were both former patients. Owen rebuilt Leo’s hand, and he gave Jenna a new leg and saved her hip at the VA hospital. They are close enough with Owen to have went to each other’s weddings. Speaking of spouses, the couple asks about Amelia and if he and Amelia are expecting a baby yet. Owen asks about their own developing baby, and the woman tells him that Arizona placed a shunt last week.

Cut to Arizona and Riggs discussing the baby and the mother, who is 29 weeks pregnant. We learn that there is a tumor, and they are hoping that the shunt will be able to hold off surgery until the baby is bigger or after the birth. Amidst this medical discussion, Arizona tells Riggs that she and Eliza coming to work together wasn’t a carpool. She also feels compelled to tell him that they are keeping their relationship a secret. Riggs realized all of this this morning, which is why he had given the couple an out by commenting on their carpool. They look at the scan and see that the tumor has grown to be twice the size of the heart. Maggie stumbles into the room and is welcomed back by these two doctors. She sees the scans and asks what the dealio is. When they fill her in on the tumor, she jumps at the case with excitement, stating that it’s just what she needs right now. As head of cardio, Maggie is Riggs’s boss and can bump him off of the case. Arizona and Riggs calmly point out that it’s a big operation for her first day back from bereavement leave, but she still asks to be sent the charts.

Stephanie is called to the ER for a general consult of abdominal pain. She heads over to her patient and sees that it’s an intern, Cross. (I don’t think he has ever been important enough to be in one of my recaps, and I didn’t even know his name until this very moment, tbh.) Stephanie is mildly annoyed that this is her patient today.

While helping Alex staple packets for teaching NICU procedures to interns, Meredith says that she thinks Maggie might be okay enough for Mer to finally go out on that date with Riggs. Alex still doesn’t like the guy, but tells her that she should go if that’s what she wants. Meredith comments that Alex has been acting very much like a ‘grumpy old man.’

A new resident, Hannah, tells the pregnant couple how the surgeons will partially remove the fetus from the womb in order to excise the tumor. There is confusion when Arizona says that she and Maggie will be operating, and Riggs will not be. They ask if it’s an upgrade, and Riggs says that it is, as Maggie is the top cardiologist at Grey-Sloan. Owen hadn’t heard of the change, and asks Arizona about it after they leave the room. Riggs is the surgeon who knows everything about this case and procedure, and Maggie is swooping in at the last minute without the knowledge that is specific to this case. He thinks Riggs is the better choice for the surgery. Leo hears Owen’s complaint and asks Owen why the surgery was given to Maggie, if that’s really how Owen feels.

Leo and Jenna tell Maggie that they want to stick with Riggs and his original plan. Maggie informs them that Owen’s concern has nothing to do with Maggie’s surgical skills and has everything to do with the fact that her mother recently died. She assures them that she would not be back at work and on this case if she couldn’t work due to her pain. Jenna decides that she doesn’t need a doctor with a perfect personal life. What she needs is the best, which is Maggie.

Webber updates Bailey, and we see that he’s been working with Eliza. Bailey is happy that they’ve made this progress and that the trouble is now in the past. Webber isn’t fully over it yet, seeing as Bailey has yet to admit that she was wrong.

Arizona walks into an elevator that Riggs is on, and starts explaining herself some more — she’s recently divorced and wasn’t trying to start a new relationship. Everything with Eliza is new. Riggs says he can relate with the death of his fiancée and stumbling across someone new. Arizona asks if that means that he’s dating someone. When he says that he’s not completely sure, Arizona asks him to keep her updated. Aww, blossoming friendship!

Stephanie asks Cross about his symptoms. He’s worried it might be Crohn’s, but ‘fatigue and night sweats’ are vague symptoms that are also associated with menopause. DeLuca shows up and Cross asks why Stephanie paged him. She says that Cross has ‘internitis’ and that humiliation is the cure. Being in medical school, learning about everything that could possibly be wrong with a person, interns often become a special kind of hypochondriac. She assures him that the pain he feels is nothing, and not the everything that he thinks it might be. She tells him that he’s just not special enough to be the one paranoid intern who actually has some rare illness. Cross insists that he isn’t paranoid, and Stephanie asks DeLuca if he would like to do the rectal exam. Both men say no, and Stephanie tells Cross to roll over.

Meredith doesn’t understand the big deal about Maggie doing the surgery instead of Riggs, and Owen suggests that Maggie should wade back into her work first. Jackson advises not to tell Maggie when and where she can operate, because he made a similar mistake with April. Owen says that he’s only worried because these people are his friends. Amelia asks if it’s Jenna and Leo, which Owen confirms and fills her in on the baby’s growing tumor. He also tells her that they had asked about her earlier, so she should stop in to see them. Meredith cuts in, back on the subject of Maggie, to say that Maggie is handling her grief in a healthy way. She leaves flowers on her mother’s grave and moves on with her day. Owen, suddenly worried about Maggie’s well-being and not just his friends, says that he’s concerned on her behalf that if anything went wrong, it would hit Maggie much harder after the loss of her mom.

After Amelia and Meredith agree to check in on Maggie, they are super awkward and give out negative vibes and say that this is an ambitious first day back. Maggie knows that Owen sent them, and says that they should be saying supportive things. Before her sisters showed up, Maggie hasn’t had any doubts in her ability to pull off this operation. She walks off, annoyed.

Bailey continues to refuse to say that she was wrong, and tells Webber that he should be admitting that he was wrong for not acknowledging that she is the chief. He points out that he gave her this position. To Bailey, Webber treats her as if she is his child, and not his boss.

In his CAT scan, Cross asks Stephanie and DeLuca to give him an MRI next. She complains that all of this is a waste of her time, but then she sees his scans, which indicate that he has diverticulitis. Hearing the despair in her voice before she says what it is, DeLuca was expecting something more severe, but the despair was about Cross being right about something being wrong.

Meredith and Jackson watch Maggie and Arizona’s surgery from the gallery. Jackson asks if Meredith is there in case Maggie has a meltdown, but Meredith is interested in the rare surgery, and the two compare it to a nesting doll. Down in the OR, Arizona asks Maggie if she is really okay to continue. Maggie looks up and sees a large crowd in the gallery. Maggie successfully removes the proportionately huge tumor from the fetus, but her pride doesn’t last long. The monitors start beeping as the baby gets bradycardic, and Maggie freezes. Arizona tries to professionally snap Maggie out of it, but Maggie says there is nothing to do. Arizona takes the lead and orders someone to push 10 cc of saline.

April gives the news of diverticulitis to Cross, and he’s disappointed that it’s something so average. He is told that Stephanie will be the lead surgeon operating. He says that he had had such a bad feeling about something being wrong, and, once again, Stephanie tells him that that feeling comes from being a medical intern.

As the baby’s heart rate drops, Meredith urges Riggs to jump in. He says to just wait, confident in Maggie. Arizona keeps asking Maggie to do something, and Maggie says that her plan is to give it a minute. This tumor has been inside of this baby during its entire development, so the heart just needs a little time to learn to beat without it, now that it’s gone. On cue, the baby’s heart regulates, and relief washes over everyone.

Once Cross is open on the operating table, April realizes that he has abdominal tuberculosis. Tuberculosis can kill you, and is transmitted through air, which is alarming to Stephanie and DeLuca. April, having already been exposed to this before, isn’t worried because she has the antibodies. April tells them that they won’t die… right now. Seeing the nurses and other OR staff seal off the doors further panics Steph and DeLuca, so April tells them to leave and to page Ben.

Seeing that her sister is doing okay, Meredith asks Riggs out for drinks. She says that it’s not a date, and that she wants to see if they even like going out together before she tells Maggie. If they hate each other, they have nothing to tell.

Bailey talks to April through a microphone in the gallery, asking if she’ll be okay to finish and close without her residents. Ben asks his wife if they need to quarantine. Cross had been walking all over the hospital, treating patients while having TB. Bailey says that they have a protocol for this, but doesn’t tell Ben what it is because she doesn’t remember. Walking by, Webber hears this, and says that he remembers the protocol. Bailey and Webber have a stare-down before Ben asks Webber to tell them what it is, and why the two of them are acting like this.

While scrubbing out, Ben puts up a QUARANTINE sign on the OR and tells Stephanie and DeLuca that Cross will be in an isolation room with heavy antibiotics and that the two of them will need to get PPD tests.

Jackson finds a sniffling Maggie at the beginning of a dark stairwell, and congratulates her on the surgery. She remarks that he had doubted her earlier. She says that she is not doing as well as everyone thinks — she is doing her job. She turns her grief back on Jackson and asks why he couldn’t do his job of keeping her mother alive. I probably should have been expecting that, but hadn’t.

When Cross wakes up post-op, Stephanie asks if he has left the country recently. He had volunteered in India for a month. DeLuca tells him that he had TB (which April treated), and that wows a groggy Cross. Steph apologizes for giving him a hard time earlier.

Bailey complains to her husband about how it seems that Webber likes to bicker. It occurs to Ben that he might just be lonely.

Webber compliments Stephanie on finding Cross’s TB, but she tells him that she didn’t believe anything was wrong with Cross. Cross knew something was wrong, and he got the help he needed despite Steph. She remembers how many doctors had dismissed her when she was a little kid with sickle-cell. Webber assures her that every doctor makes that mistake occasionally.

When Owen asks Amelia, once again, to see Jenna and Leo, Amelia says that they are Owen’s friends, showing once again that he and Amelia are split up, and she doesn’t have any hope that they can work out their differences.

Riggs tells Arizona about his date tonight. When he doesn’t say with whom, Arizona starts guessing. After listing a dozen doctors, Riggs’s face twitches when she says ‘Grey.’ The fact that his date is with Meredith kind of surprises Arizona. Mer had had such a great and full love story with Derek, and Arizona hadn’t thought Meredith would ever really date again. She vocalizes how much Meredith had loved her husband, and spooks Riggs out of his excitement.

Meredith is about to leave for her date, but Maggie comes home in tears. Riggs shows up and Meredith says that her sister needs her. Grief is a persistent thing that will always be there in some degree, so he argues that she is using Maggie as an excuse to bail. Meredith closes the door on him after saying that she has people to take care of, and that doesn’t include him. Walking back into the living room, Meredith puts on music and tells Amelia and Maggie to get up. It’s time to dance it out!

When their shifts at the hospital are over, Bailey tells Webber that she is willing to admit that she was wrong if 1) they go to dinner tonight to iron out their differences and 2) Webber admits that he is also wrong for still not moving back in with his wife. He says that he isn’t wrong, and Bailey tells him that he’ll be the one paying for dinner.

Jackson comes over to see Maggie, bringing Diane’s medical records. Diane had known that she was sick before she ever came to see Jackson for a diagnosis. He also brought photos that Diane had left for Jackson to give Maggie. After she found out that she was dying, Diane had decided to travel the world and take risks, making the most of her time. It’s nice seeing Maggie find a little peace in knowing that her mother had time to live her life fully before getting the sickness and “treatment” took over.  

Grey’s Anatomy airs Thursdays at 8/7c on ABC, part of TGIT.