Grey’s Anatomy 14×18: “Hold Back the River” Review

Ben gives Bailey an unexpected present, which Bailey finds exciting… until she opens it, and it’s a case for her pillbox. He figures since she doesn’t want people to know about her heart attack, this cute box will hide the pillbox.

Meredith tells Jo that one of their liver-less mouses, Jimi Hendrix, has died. Each of their mouses has been injected with a different polymer to see which polymer could be comparable to Cerone’s, now that they can’t use it.

Amelia asks Owen about Germany, and tells him not to give up on Teddy so easily. Amelia calls Teddy on Owen’s behalf. We don’t hear Teddy’s side of the conversation, but Amelia’s responses are very short, and it seems to not go well. Arizona walks up and asks Owen how it went with Teddy, and he snaps that it went great.

Ben reports to Webber on the incoming patient from EMT. A 67 year old woman collapsed during an AA meeting. When she’s wheeled out of the vehicle, Webber sees his AA sponsor, Ollie. She promises she hasn’t been drinking.

Noah’s mom is given information on Amelia and Alex’s potentially groundbreaking idea of using ultrasound waves to shatter brain tumors. Alex undersells the risks, but Amelia tells her that it’s very dangerous, but it’s Noah’s one real chance at life. When she agrees, Koracick is extremely excited and compares it to melon balling.

Alex updates Kimmy and her grandmother that Noah’s mother has opted for the ultrasound technique. Kimmy can’t have it done on her own brain tumor until they’ve tested it on smaller tumors. Kimmy says that it’s still not a cure, and she’ll probably just be back here within the year with another tumor.

Webber sees to Ollie’s care, which Ollie can tell is below his paygrade. She tells him that her liver has lasted far longer than it should have, and that she has cardiomyopathy. Her liver is killing her heart, and her heart is killing her. He’s mad to find out that she signed a DNR eight months ago. Webber has talked to Ollie three times a week or more since then, and he thinks she should have mentioned this sooner. With AA, everyone has a sponsor. So when Ollie found out she had medical issues, she’d talk to her own sponsor about that, not Webber, to whom she is a sponsor. She says that she didn’t know how to sponsor Webber through her own death.

Arizona and Owen tend to a woman in the ER. Dayna threw up in Peggy while she was driving. Peggy swerved and crashed into a tree. Peggy and their baby are okay, but Dayna’s airbag didn’t go off, leaving her slightly injured. More than anything, she’s emotional. Arizona says it’s very common to have this kind of emotional release after an accident, once your body knows it’s out of harm’s way. Dayna laughs at that and says she has stage two breast cancer. She tells Owen that her doctor, Dr. Hanson, promised her that he’d cure her cancer, and that he has the success rates to back it up. Owen tells Glasses to call her doctor for her medical records. In the medical field, you never promise and you never use the word ‘cure,’ especially when it comes to cancer.

Jackson sees Maggie getting off of the elevator but has her stay on for a couple more flights so the two of them can kiss. Once they’re at their destination, they walk down the hall and see April. Maggie asks if it’s time for them to tell her about their relationship, and Jackson says he’ll try to talk to her later today.

April apologizes to Koracick for using him for sex. He tells April that she can use him for sex anytime. April says no, flustered, and Koracick realizes that April made up with God. He then says that God would approve of her using him for sex.

Amelia is nervous about doing this procedure on Noah. DeLuca looks at his mentor and puts his hands on his hips in what Amelia refers to as ‘superhero pose.’ She follows his lead, and even Koracick joins in.

Webber enlists Meredith and Maggie to take care of Ollie, since he’s too close. With the girls still in the hallway, Ollie asks Webber what he would do if his physician refused to listen to his request of no medical intervention. She threatens to expose him as a recovering alcoholic to every doctor he sends in. Webber calls in Meredith and Maggie, and tells Ollie that she can expose him all she wants.

The Neuro Team monitor the heat being applied to Noah’s brain. They lower it so it won’t get to hot, but lower temperature means it will take longer. After a while, Koracick suggests they stop for now, before damage occurs. Amelia wants to do another round, but Koracick doesn’t budge. Amelia runs out into the hallway and throws up, comforted by DeLuca. Koracick tells Sam that they won’t know if it worked until/if Noah wakes up.

Owen yells at Glasses for not obtaining Dayna’s medical records. Dr. Hanson wouldn’t release them. Arizona intervenes and tells Glasses to make sure Hanson knows that it’s emergent and for Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital. Once Glasses is out of the room, Arizona yells at Owen for ‘double dipping’ with Amelia and Teddy within 24 hours. Looking at Dayna’s scans, Arizona notes that Dayna has no fractures or internal injuries. Owen asks her to keep looking, and Arizona notices that Dayna does not have breast cancer.

Ollie tells Meredith that Webber is going to need a new sponsor, and that change is tough on drunks. Maggie tells Ollie to not give up hope, but Ollie’s hopes include moving on from this life to whatever is next. She says she doesn’t need hope — she needs acceptance.

April apologizes to Owen for her behavior lately. Owen forgives her because ‘she’s a good person who doesn’t deserve to be crucified for one bad move,’ obviously also talking about himself.

Arizona tells Owen that Dr. Hanson had been referred to Dayna by a friend in the same situation (inconclusive mammogram in need of a second opinion). Owen says that two cured cancer patients through chemo would be a miracle. Arizona speculates that maybe it was just a misdiagnosis, but Owen thinks something weird is going on. Owen looks Dr. Scott Hanson up on the website for the American Society of Clinical Oncology, and he isn’t listed.

Ben comes home from work and takes a shower. He complains about being beaten up and exhausted. Bailey is hoping for sexy time with her husband, but he falls asleep immediately.

Maggie wants to tell Webber the truth — they can’t go against Ollie and her DNR wishes. Meredith interrupts and says to let Ollie rest for the night and get hydrated. When Webber goes to check on Ollie, Maggie makes sure that Meredith is on the same page as her and knows that they have to respect what Ollie wants. Meredith, who has previously witnessed Drunk Webber, wants to make sure Webber has the support he needs before he has to go through this. Catherine is in Boston, and Meredith tells Maggie to try to contact her.

Meredith checks in with Jo and the mice. Jerry Garcia, one of the mice, has died. There’s still three mice remaining.

Alex and Amelia check on Noah, who still hadn’t woken up. They worry that he never will and that they did the wrong thing by recommending this course of treatment.

Sam and DeLuca wake up in an on-call room. Sam thinks it’s ‘gross’ that they slept there, but DeLuca says he doesn’t think it’s that bad. Sam quickly realizes that DeLuca has been staying at the hospital instead of an apartment. He says he’s between places due to his sister sleeping with all of his roommates. Sam tells DeLuca to move in with her.

Arizona and Owen go to Dr. Hanson’s office undercover. They pose as a married couple in hopes that he’ll ‘give more away’ to them this way than as confrontational doctors.

Bailey sees Webber looking glum and asks if he’s okay. Catherine had asked her to look in on him. He’s upset over the possibility of losing Ollie. She’s been his Person™ for twenty years.

April apologizes to one of the interns for the way she treated them. April apologies is a big thing in this episode. He says that he didn’t take her behavior to heart because it seemed like she was having a nervous breakdown. She then approaches Schmidt, who promptly apologizes to April for no real reason other than being nervous.

Meredith and Maggie give Ollie her options, which she already knows, but they do it for Webber. She says that she’s already come to terms with her pending death and is at peace with it. The only reason she’s been hanging on is Webber’s stubbornness.

Maggie talks to Jackson about Webber. She realizes she’s going to have to be the one to tell Webber that he needs to let Ollie go. Jackson says he understands because he had to watch Maggie go through the denial when her mom was dying.

Dr. Hanson gives Arizona a breast exam, while Owen is in the corner, trying to avert his eyes from his ‘wife’s’ bare breasts. The right breast is clear, but he sees a solid lesion in the left breast. Owen and Arizona look at the screen, assuming they’ll call his bluff, but there really is a lesion on the monitor. Arizona looks at Owen with teary eyes and says, “I have breast cancer?”

Alex and Koracick have been paged to Noah’s room. They’re expecting bad news, but they soon hear Noah’s laughter. He’s awake! The procedure worked.

When Owen and April get back to Grey Sloan, they have April give Arizona a breast exam. There’s no trace of breast cancer. Dr. Hanson fakes the ultrasounds, and then poisons these healthy women just so he can make money off of their chemo treatments. Arizona, still shook, wants to destroy Dr. Hanson. Owen, who has already been angry all day, leaves to take his anger out on someone more deserving than the interns.

Maggie approaches Webber, sitting on a bench. He says that if she hasn’t found a way to give Ollie more time, he doesn’t want to talk to her. She says that he reminds her of herself when her mother was dying. She worked hard to find any way to keep her mom alive. If she could do it again, she’d just be there with her mom, and let her mom have the ending she wanted, rather than the experimental trial that she made her do.

Continuing with her apologies, April tells Jackson that she lost God and she got scared and angry. Jackson never believed in God the way April does, and when God seemed to leave her, it felt like Jackson had won. Jackson says he wanted to help her, and she said that he did. He took care of Harriet when she wasn’t able to. She thanks her ex-husband and he gives her a hug.

Alex overhears Koracick and Amelia discuss options for Kimmie. Koracick wants to do chemo/radiation to try to shrink her tumor to hopefully help her survive to summer. He says he’ll then take his four weeks of vacation time to take Kimmie and her grandmother to New York and hit every Broadway show they can (I AM CRY). Alex is confused on why they’re not considering the procedure they used on Noah. Koracick ways that that procedure was way too risky and unrefined. Kimmie’s tumor is just too big. They’ll need a lot more practice on smaller tumors first to perfect it. He estimates that it’ll be years before they can use it on Kimmie, but Kimmie doesn’t have that long left. Alex desperately pleads them to still do it. It’s Kimmie’s only hope. When no one budges and tension grows higher, Alex slams Koracick into a table. Alex pulls himself together after that and picks up his mess.

Arizona shows Dayna her Grey Sloan ultrasounds and that she doesn’t have cancer. She doesn’t tell the women that Dayna never really had cancer, but when they say they need to call Dr. Hanson, Arizona says Owen is talking to him for them right now.

Owen walks into Dr. Hanson’s office. Hanson says that his office is closed right now, but that doesn’t stop Owen. He phrases everything as if he’s interested in the process, but he’s being menacing. He backs Hanson into an exam chair and starts to hook him up to a chemo IV bag. He stops only when we see police lights flashing outside of the office.

Amelia stares out a rainy window. Webber asks her what’s wrong. She says she needs to get away from her head, and that she’s feeling ‘the need’ badly right now. He brings Amelia with him to Ollie’s room for an AA meeting. They open with the Serenity prayer. “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can’t, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Jo rushes Meredith to their lab to see that one of the mice has a growing liver. It’s 60% of normal size so far. The mouse, David Bowie, was the one not injected with a polymer. They never needed Cerone’s polymer for this.

Bailey calls Ben home, saying it’s urgent. When he gets home, he’s angry to see that she was lying. She says it is urgent that they celebrate that they are both alive and well, and that they celebrate naked.

After work, Jackson and Maggie are leaving together, but Jackson has to go back for his keys. He leaves Maggie in the lobby, where April finds her. April apologizes for the way she acted at Maggie’s game night. Maggie says that April was the least of her worries that night, since she found out Clive was married. April decides to beat Maggie at this game and admits to sleeping with the douchey intern and Koracick, and ‘jumping’ her ex-husband. Maggie is not happy to hear this last thing, and glares at Jackson when he returns with his keys.

Dammit, April, you will not sink this ship for us.