Someone drops the l-word, the residency program is still in trouble, and the episode ends with a shock on this episode of Grey’s Anatomy.
The episode opened with Jo settling back into her new schedule while Link had fun with a new unknown woman. Honestly, he needs that, so good for him! We then jumped to Richard and Catherine getting ready for their day. She left home early, so Richard unknowingly grabbed her cannabis smoothie from the fridge. Back in the hospital, Bailey is taking Pru on a tour of the hospital. When they get to the OR board (after a very cute moment between Amelia, Maggie, and Pru), Bailey realizes that the place actually does fall apart without her, and she needs to get to work with fixing the program.
It’s Nick’s first day, and he’s a little scared of how Bailey and Richard are going to treat him, which is to be suspected considering all the events of the past few episodes. So, when Richard walks into the attendings’ lounge and doesn’t really pay any attention to Nick, it’s not that suspicious. It’s not till he was rummaging for snacks and claimed that he hadn’t even noticed Meredith was in there that she realized what was going on. Richard is stoned. So, Meredith takes it on herself to keep him away from the rest of the hospital, and she gives her surgeries to Nick. We get a lot of insight on Richard in this episode, some of it relating back to Meredith. They talked about how Seattle is haunted and how there are too many reminders of everyone who had gone. Richard even says that’s how he felt after Ellis died. Later, Amelia comes to sit with Richard. She reminds him that he didn’t mean to get high, so he didn’t really throw ten years of sobriety down the drain. He tells Amelia that he understands how to fix the residency program now.
Jo and Link are obviously having issues at the beginning of the episode. Jo asks Link to babysit Luna while she hangs out with Todd right after Link had asked her to hang out with him. This sets Link off a little, but they seem to put it aside to work on their patient. Their patient is Simon, a synovial sarcoma patient, who has been Link’s patient for years. His wife, Kristen, is pregnant, and his cancer has unfortunately progressed to the stage where he only has a few weeks left. Now, he only wants to live long enough to see his baby. When Jo tells them this, Kristen wants to have the baby early just to let him meet the baby. Jo says that it’s too risky, but Link jumps in and says that Jo is just a student. This leads to a very intense fight between the two that ends with Jo finally telling Link that she had fallen in love with him and didn’t want to ruin their friendship.
Nick is working with Levi during his surgeries, and it seems to be a pretty good fit. When Levi gets overwhelmed, Nick even tells Bailey to shut up respectfully (probably not the best choice), but he helps Levi get through it all. Later, when Meredith confronts Bailey about her behavior lately, Bailey talks to Meredith about how much stress she’s been under. Meredith offers her help, and then tension in the room finally dissipates, at least a little.
While that “family” is coming back together, another actual family is hitting a road bump. Winston is in a mood for the entire episode, and when this gets in the way of their patient, Maggie finally loses it a little bit. When they talk about it, Winston tells Maggie what’s up with him. He talks about how his brother brings out the worst in him and he needs tonight to sort through it. So, Maggie agrees to give him tonight and plans to stay somewhere else.
Speaking of Amelia, she’s practically running around the hospital giving advice and being there for others like that’s her actual job. Teddy and Owen are in therapy to get insight on how to better assist Leo. The therapist basically just tells them to follow Leo’s lead, which is not Teddy’s forte. So when Teddy talks to Amelia about this, Amelia gives a very heartwarming speech about her love for Kai. It’s a wonderful moment between the two, and it’s a nice way to keep Kai and their relationship with Amelia in the storyline since they do live in Minnesota. Link stops Amelia before she leaves, and he says he could really use some Scout time, even though it is her night, so Amelia lets Link take Scout with him. Then, Maggie finds Amelia and asks to crash with her which Amelia agrees to. I’m slightly wondering if this means that Amelia has her own place now, but she could also have just meant Meredith’s house.
Then to end the episode and begin setting up for storylines in the finale, we learn that the cannabis smoothie was in Catherine’s fridge for good reason. She was drinking it for the pain. Catherine’s cancer is back.
