Grey’s Anatomy 14×09: “1-800-799-7233” Review

First things first, in case you, too, were wondering what that telephone number is, it’s for the Domestic Abuse Hotline. That’s a pretty thoughtful episode title.

The episode starts where the midseason finale left off, Jo in shock after Paul, her abusive husband, finds her at Grey-Sloan Memorial. As I previously promised you, Paul isn’t here to harm Jo, necessarily. He brought his fiancée along with him. Now that Jo has filed for divorce and given Paul the opportunity to find her, Paul wants to hurry up with the divorce so he can marry his current fiancée. Jo is tuned out while Paul introduces his fiancée, and before she knows what’s happening, Arizona approaches and fangirls over Dr. Paul Stadler. Arizona thinks Jo should be more excited to meet Paul Stadler, but Paul tells her that Jo was his student. Once Arizona leaves, Paul asks if there’s somewhere private they can talk and sign papers, but Webber hollers over, reminding Jo that Alex is looking for her.

Meredith tells Glasses, who is hooked up to an IV to give a patient blood while the blood bank is locked up, to keep her posted on how he’s feeling. He says he’s really hot, but Meredith says it’s not just him.

Bailey asks if they can turn the AC up, but someone tells her that the hackers have cranked up the thermostat to 90°F. She tries calling Jackson again, but there’s still no response.

Maggie and Jackson arrive at the other hospital covered in blood, which is not comforting to the wife of their patient.

Frankie, Alex’s patient, seems to be doing worse. Alex says that the heparin should be kicking in by now, and Jo, who just showed up, says that she texted not to give frankie heparin. Alex and Amelia rush him to the OR. Jo considers tells Alex that Paul is here but decides to wait until after the surgery.

Samantha starts acting loopy and irritable due to the heat and dehydration. Webber calls her over and Sam admits she hasn’t slept in three days. Webber asks DeLuca to take Sam away from the ER. DeLuca is hesitant, but Webber tells him to ‘drop it’ because everyone has heard the two of them having sex in the hospital. Sam runs off and DeLuca chases her. Paul asks Webber if there’s anything he can do to help.

Owen overlooks patient transfer to Seattle Pres. He compares this time without technology to his and April’s time in Jordan. They update Bailey that neighboring hospitals are sending emergency shipments of blood from their blood banks.

As Glasses, drains more blood, he becomes loopier. Meredith refers to him by his last name, Schmidtt, and it excites him greatly. He rambles about how Specs would be a cooler nickname that Glasses. Or Bloodbank, now that he’s being a human blood bank. He stands up and tries to walk, but he passes out.

Casey Parker overhears Bailey on the phone and asks if anyone has tried overriding the security system. She remembers that his background is cyber security and tells him to help if he has any ideas. He replies “Yes, ma’am, on it.”

Covered in dry blood, Jackson and Maggie operate and comment a lot about how gross it is. Maggie says that being drenched in blood was the only part of Carrie that she didn’t relate to in high school. This causes them to discuss the past, and Maggie refers to Jackson as ‘the human superlative.’

Sam yells at DeLuca for how he gets in her head… and her pants. She wants to be a brilliant intern, but she’s been so distracted by DeLuca and sleep deprived. She tells him that he is not going to ruin this internship for her.

A nurse comes out to tell Webber that Meredith needs an assistant in the OR because Glasses passed out. Paul goes to scrub in to assist.

Alex, getting ready for surgery, glances over and sees Paul. Surprise! Obviously he is majorly thrown. Alex is called back to the OR, keeping their interaction brief. Once in the OR, Alex asks the intern for her name. She says it’s “Helm, like ‘hellmouth’ without the ‘outh.’” Alex tells Helm to go find Jo and bring her to their OR.

Jo runs outside and cries for exactly three seconds. Good for her, pulling herself together, but it seems like a waste of time to run all the way outside just to walk back in immediately after. Take a minute to breathe in the fresh air, at least! It’s 90°F in the hospital! When she’s back inside, Webber asks if the heat is getting to her. She just plays it off as if that’s the truth. He goes on to tell her that Dr. Paul Stadler is helping in the OR today, since they need the help. This stirs panic in Jo and she says no one can trust anything Paul says because he lies about everything.

Paul walks into Meredith’s OR, and Meredith is rude due to the stress of the surgery. He says he has twenty years of experience in general surgery, so she tells him to ‘get in here.’ After they get the patient more stable, Meredith warms and introduces herself. He says his name is Paul Stadler, and Meredith grows even colder than before, recognizing the name as Jo’s husband. He congratulates Meredith on her Harper Avery award. He starts to explain a surgery he submitted to the awards, but Meredith cuts him off, saying she knows who he is and she’s friends with Jo Wilson.

An intern comes in to replace Helm, but Alex tells him to go find Helm and Jo and bring them back. Amelia questions the search for Jo, but Alex doesn’t respond.

Maggie and Jackson, still covered in dried blood, update their patient’s wife post-op. He’s stable and headed to the ICU. Once out of earshot from the wife, Maggie asks if it’s bad that she’s equally happy that this man survived as she is that she can shower now. Jackson says he’s happier about the shower.

Paul tries to make conversation with Meredith about Jo. He asks if Brooke (Jo’s real name, if you forgot) was drunk when she told Meredith whatever she told her. He delves into Jo’s instability of the past, including her parents abandoning her and living out of her car in high school. He says that Jo couldn’t handle the stability of their marriage and she took off with a lot of his money. The camera pans up and we see Jo sitting in the gallery. Helm bursts in, finally finding Jo. Jo sends a text to Alex saying she’s safe in Grey’s gallery with Helm and will talk to him later.

Carina finds Arizona and tells her that Mrs. Knox’s delivery went well and she is loving her newborn baby. She notices Arizona is on her phone swiping through people on tinder (or a tinder-esque app. I am not well-versed in dating apps.) and she comments that online dating is like dating a mannequin and that you don’t know if you like someone until you look in their eyes and feel a connection. In the background, Parker breaks into the blood bank using a defibrillator from a crash cart.

Alex sees Meredith in the hall and tells her that Jo’s husband is here. Of course, Meredith already knows because he assisted in her surgery. Jo emerges and blurts out that whatever Paul had to say about her wasn’t true. She’s so desperate for them to believe her and you can see how scared she is that they’ll believe Paul. Meredith says, “You’re Jo Wilson. I know exactly who you are,” and hugs Jo as Jo cries.

April feels like she’s missing something, and then someone walks by with one of her sticky notes stuck to the bottom of their shoe. She dives for the ground. It says “Larry Keys, status post chest x-ray 14:09” which was apparently two hours ago. They find him in a wheelchair in a hallway bleeding through his trach. Arizona wants to take him to the OR but there isn’t time. Owen tells her to grab a crash cart. There’s too much blood and Owen can’t see what he’s doing. April shoves a flashlight through the trach opening so he can see how to put the breathing tube in safely.

Meredith asks Jo how she wants to handle this situation. She says she just wants to be divorced so she never has to see Paul’s face again. Alex notes that he should have killed him when he tracked Paul down in Vegas. Meredith advises that Alex not go anywhere near Paul while he’s here.

Bailey confronts Parker about using a defibrillator to open the blood bank. He starts to defend his decision, but Bailey was impressed and asks what else he can do.

After showering, Maggie and Jackson are stranded in their towels. Since they aren’t employees at this hospital, they don’t have the code to access the scrubs machine. Maggie says she already called downstairs and someone will be up with some soon. In the meantime, the two just have to wait.

Paul walks into a meeting room with Meredith and Jo. Paul wants to speak with his wife alone, but Meredith won’t leave Jo’s side. He signs the divorce papers and hands the pen over to Jo. She signs quickly and pushes them away. Paul tries to grab them, but Meredith snatches them up. Before leaving, Paul says he hopes this brings Brooke (Jo) peace. Jo snaps back that Paul is a monster and doesn’t deserve anything good. Paul leaves with his fiancée, and Jo tells Meredith that it isn’t over yet.

Parker tells Bailey some of his ideas, and she tells him to tell the FBI agents. He says he can’t because ‘hypothetically’ he hacked a federal server and his conviction ruled that he could never manipulate servers that way again. Bailey says that that wasn’t on his application. She then asks if any of these ‘hypothetical’ charges involved children, sex, drugs or robbing poor old people. When he says no, she hands him a pad of paper to write down what she should tell the FBI.

Paul and his fiancée, Jenny, are stopped by an eager Arizona (who was ordered by Jo to stall Paul). Arizona says she is having problems with her fetoscope and needs his help. Once Arizona drags him away, Jo approaches Jenny, saying they need to talk. Jenny says that Paul is right about Jo being crazy. Jo just asks her to listen for a minute. She talks about how it started, and how she thought it would be the only time, and how he would apologize and blame her at the same time, so persuasively. She says the last time he did it, she woke up to him kicking her in the back so hard, he broke her ribs. Jenny gets a text that Paul is coming back, and Jo gives Jenny her her cell phone number in case Jenny changes her mind and wants help.

Bailey follows Parker’s notes and fakes her way through conversation. The FBI agent says that they’ve found the hacker’s IP address, and Bailey sneaks out to consult with Parker. She comes back and says that they should be able to hack them back. The agent is uninterested because he wants to find the hacker and arrest them. As chief of this hospital, Bailey is more concerned about the patients. She takes Parker into her office, signs into her laptop and tells him to get to work.

Maggie asks Jackson how many times he thinks they would have unknowingly been in the same place at the same time when they both lived in Boston. With how easy Jackson’s life was, Maggie asked how he even learned to work hard enough to become a surgeon. Being an Avery, becoming a surgeon was just a given. He says that that pressure is why he said ‘Thank God we come from different families’ in the last episode. Before things get too awkward, someone comes in with their things. Jackson sees that he has 27 missed calls from Bailey.

Meredith offers Jo a place to stay, in case she doesn’t want to be alone after all of this stuff with Paul. Paul comes back with Jenny and tells Jo that Jenny told him everything. Jo tells his that Jenny didn’t tell her anything, worried that Paul will hurt her for this later. He turns everything around on Jo and says that she is the monster here, not him. He rants about how she ruins lives and Meredith calls security. Jo is scared that Paul knows where to find her now and says she wishes he was dead.

Parker manages to hack their server and gets back control of Grey-Sloan. Bailey is so impressed, but then questions him on why he would have done something so stupid as hacking the DMV. Parker says that his old license referred to him as female and the DMV where he was living wouldn’t change it.

Glasses talks to his patient and apologizes to her for passing out in the OR. Confused, she says that he is a hero.

Alex asks Frankie how he is, and Frankie just says he’s thirsty, which is a very good sign that that’s his only complaint.

With the new contest Jackson anonymously is funding, Amelia asks DeLuca if he’d be interested in being her ‘new Edwards.’ After he agrees, she asks him to find out which intern wrote a paper on pupillary response in comatose patients. Sam, standing nearby, blurts out ‘It was me!’ excited that Amelia read her paper. Amelia welcomes her to ‘Team Shepherd.’

Webber finds April and compliments her on her out-of-the-box work today. He goes on to say that Bailey put him in charge of the competition, in a way, but isn’t feeling it. April asks if he wants help, and he says he’d need someone who can do everything for it: pick judges and deadlines, schedule presentations, etc. Webber is clearly passing it on to April to give her something to be excited about again. She accepts and both parties are happy.

After work, Jackson asks Maggie if she wants to get a drink. She says it wouldn’t just be a drink and things are complicated. As they’re discussing it, a man named Clive From Tinder walks up. Maggie made dinner plans with him. He asks if she wants to postpone, but she says no and leaves with Clive.

In the morning, Meredith gets to work and in the ER there is an unconscious Paul. He’s a victim of a hit-and-run. Meredith whips her head around at Alex and Jo and asks what they did.

OH MY. We’re all in agreement that Jenny ran her husband down, right? Tun into Grey’s Anatomy, Thursdays at 8/7c on ABC!