So...just another run of the mill filler episode then?
Er no.
Grey’s Anatomy entered a new era this week with a colossal episode filled with leaps in time and leaps in story, a myriad of symbolic connections, and grief. In what could only be described as a feature length presentation, She’s Leaving Home contained so much content that you could be forgiven for thinking ABC was wrapping up Grey’s permanently in two episodes time. Whether you call this ‘film’ episode 22/23 or 22a/22b or whether you really don’t care, we were treated to a powerful, enjoyable, and breathtakingly fast spin of the carousel through almost a year, which always intrigued, mostly entertained and occasionally required us to take a leap of faith.
I’m going to treat this as one single episode and call it 22/23 for simplicity...
If you told me today that 22/23 would be the last Grey’s episode ever made I’d believe you. I’d be very sad, but it would be perfectly plausible. It’s not, obviously, but the aura throughout lent itself to finality and conclusion. This was the point of course. The finality referred to exiting Derek Shepherd stage left, firmly and permanently, setting the centre stage for the show to continue, be that for two episodes, one season or many more seasons. Grey’s Anatomy has previously never covered ‘grief’ well, a subject rich in dynamic yet firmly avoided by the show. Don’t get me wrong...the initial breakdown is shown in devastating reality – Izzie lying on Dead Denny followed by Izzie lying on the bathroom floor, Mark sitting holding Lexie’s dead hand, Callie correctly identifying 007. But the moments pass all too quickly. It’s part of the tapestry of the show that characters die but the most important focus is moving the ‘alive’ characters past it as quickly as possible. Take Callie. Mark was the most important person in her life after Sofia and Arizona. (Okay, let’s not start a debate on that and just take it as true ☺). What a phenomenal story it would’ve been to see Callie really struggle with her grief over Mark, beyond deciding what to do legally.
Ironically the only death that permeates grief through the show is the murder of Derek and Amelia’s father. Neither character has ever fully moved on from this.
Grief is overwhelming. It is multi-faceted. It can ruin lives if it’s not embraced. There is a well-recognized cycle of emotions (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance) but in my personal experience grief involves almost every single emotion in random unexpected order, catching you unaware. It is individual. No two people go through the same experience. Its timeline is undetermined, it cannot be rushed but equally to wallow in grief too long is emotionally damaging. She’s Leaving Home attempted to take us on this journey and answer the most difficult question - how do you complete the grief cycle for the death of such a pivotal character yet move on so that the show can breathe again... as quickly as possible.
Answer: time jump a year. Well, almost a year... or about a year... or ten months or something in that region. After all Grey’s Anatomy has always taken a very flexible approach to time continuity. (Related tangent: I’m completely lost on Callie dating the cop timeline)
With the objective being to move Meredith through grief her journey is parallel to that of her mother’s. Having switched off Derek, rightly or wrongly without any of his other family present, she determines that the only way to cope is by running away. Knowing Ellis is to know Meredith and as much as she fights against it she continually proves to be her mother’s daughter. Or is she. Conspiracy theories have raged across the Grey’s community for years about the significance of Meredith’s voice over diary, especially in relation to Alzheimer’s. Could it be that Meredith IS Ellis? Okay, enough of that...
Freeze, fight or Flight?
It is unsurprising that Meredith runs. She’s run away before and we know she comes back. And eventually she did, aided by Alex being her emergency contact and accompanied by another baby Shepherd – and who didn’t predict that little bundle of joy. The time jump has also saved the writers the production pain of another on screen pregnancy. Hmmm....I do find this little point a bit lazy. This is the second time the show has ret-con’d a pregnancy (Arizona). Okay, so a time jump is the opposite of ret-con but it’s the same kind of ‘slight of hand’ production trick. Ellis Grey has lent her name to Meredith’s new daughter and this is significant. She understands Ellis, or at least her behavior, her motivations and emotions when Richard left her. She understands them and she recognizes them in herself. It is a very important day in a child’s life when the child understands the parent.
By naming her so Meredith has acknowledges this, but even more she recognizes the very positive influence that her mother had on her life. It has often been very difficult to see that relationship as positive. Who doesn’t remember “I wake up after five years and discover that you are no more than ordinary. What happened to you?”...but remember Ellis also said “you are anything but ordinary” and we generally remember this less well. Meredith has been on a phenomenal journey this season to both self discovery and family discovery. Could this have been possible without the death of Derek? Yes. Is it more powerful WITH his death? Oh most certainly yes. Perhaps Richard leaving Ellis was constructed in order to help tell the story of Derek’s departure but nevertheless the entire parallel story was powerful. Reminding us that Meredith is anything but ordinary tells us that this mother daughter relationship, though complicated was also powerful.
As a way of dealing with the death of her husband, running away also allowed us to short cut any other short term fall out. Meredith hasn’t been seen exhibiting all the other stages of grief. Perhaps they will come. Or perhaps the writers will allow her to move on through.
The final step of returning to Seattle and putting the ferryboats scrub cap on alerted us also to the final nail in the coffin for Derek Shepherd (pardon the pun). This episode was as much about Meredith as it was exiting Derek’s ‘ghost’ and it did not go unnoticed by me “the carousel never stops turning” metaphor not only moved Meredith forward but also the viewer. The writers have told us with gentle force that the carousel never stops turning for us. Derek’s ride is over. But for us it goes on and on.
And so much more happened during this epic feature.
Freeze, fight or flight?
Amelia is told of Derek’s death by Owen in a scrub room. Everyone else knows, except Amelia. There are, of course, lots of issues with this. If my sister-in-law (and I have three) pulled the plug on one of my brothers without giving me the opportunity to say goodbye I’d be devastated. But this is Grey’s and it’s all about the drama. Whether or not they deal with this only time will tell (yes I know there’s a spoiler out there but I try not to read or watch them before writing). Where Meredith took flight, Amelia froze. This, unfortunately, is another common reaction to death. One way to deal with loss is to block it out. It is to her credit that she stays sober the entire year. She builds a concrete wall around her emotions and spends her time buried in work and spitting out dark humour which Stephanie for one doesn’t appreciate. That is until Owen returns (returns? We’ll get to that later). And the sight and sound of Owen forces Amelia to confront her feelings, gripping a handful of Oxy, and breaking down in his arms. This is an inevitable and welcome breakdown. I like that the writers have given her this time jump in order that we see her complete denial or avoidance of the issue. It lends credibility to her grieving. Caterina Scorsone does a really wonderful job with this emotional break, as she did on Private Practice, and her perceived move to senior cast is well deserved.
Freeze, fight or flight?
April went to war. APRIL WENT TO WAR! I know right! Is this a repeat of George? Did the Grey’s writers say “let’s send the least likely person into a war zone again”.
Of course the other people grieving at Grey Sloan Memorial (hands up who thinks it will be Grey Sloan Shepherd Memorial soon?) are April and Jackson. In order to bring some closure to this tragic baby story and to open up new story avenues for this couple the Grey’s writers threw a curve ball. April took flight to a war zone. By doing so she’s exhibiting a wonderful avoidance strategy so you might say she’s doing all three, freezing, fighting and flighting. I felt sorry for Jackson, a character who has had a very low key season and who almost comes across as a bit player now. Would it have cost April too much to have put in a phone call to tell him she was alive? I welcomed this intervention into their life and the creative opportunity this presents the writers to redefine April as a bolder individual, touched by the harsh and violent realities of war with more gravitas. I’m looking forward to her story now.
She wasn’t the only one going off to war. Conveniently for Amelia, Owen decides to do another tour in an attempt to get away. I know why the writers did this, however I wonder if Cristina was around she would’ve reminded Owen of his significant PTSD following his last tour. Would he really have gone?
He did go, however, and returned only to find Amelia right on the edge and positioned ready to catch her. The time jump allows their romance to pick up again quite faithfully.
In other news...
Callie’s mysterious dealings with the cop were explored more as they brought him back severely injured from another call out. Mysterious because I make no sense of the time line for this though it’s probably irrelevant. His return seems to be less about a romance with Callie and more about allowing Callie and Derek’s robotic limb work to come to fruition without the need to build a new story around the patient – thus limiting additional story time and characters. Of course the elephant in the room here is the fact that Callie’s own ex-wife could use a robotic limb but I’m guessing that’s a story for another day. Or at least I hope it is. This little segway was sweet and well crafted. It provided further closure for Derek and informed the audience that the robotic limbs now work.
Jo was finally given a storyline powerful enough to allow her character to move through the year with grace and maturity. Some of you will have had flash back to Arizona calling Lexie out back in I Saw What I Saw, season six, episode six; the moment when Lexie struggled to deal with the horror of burns. In a similar vein Jackson and Jo come in to treat a burns victim whose husband turns out to be rather lily-livered and whose roommate is an angel in disguise. The enduring message to us is the power within us to get up and do it every day, offering a parallel to Meredith’s story and allowing Jo to mature into her role as a doctor. I cried more for JJ than I did for Derek and perhaps that’s because JJ’s death was more poignant in the moment while in my head Derek’s been gone for much longer. Camilla Luddington’s performance was understated through very clear in what the writers wanted us to see – her progression.
However, and yes, I know, I’m going to say it again. Why do we need to be told that Jo lived in a car again? Tell tell tell. Why do the writers not show us this in the day to day?
Alex and Maggie sitting on a bench, k.i.s.s.i.n.g. Oh how I wish. I love these two together.
Richard and Catherine are getting married. I can’t help feeling that Richard is leaving. I hope, really really hope, that if he does it is to go and live with Catherine and not to die in the last episode. Please Shonda....let him live.
Bailey gets it on with Ben. And again. And again. And again? I lost count. This was an excellent piece of writing breaking up the timeline and showing us how ideas and thoughts evolve within a couple. The fact that the couple was Bailey and Ben was lovely. But too often Bailey features too far down in my reviews and I hope very much that her role is lifted in season 12 (if there is one ☺). Her brushing of Meredith’s arm in the elevator was wonderful. The location - the elevator, where so much has happened – was spot on and the direction was subtle.
She’s Leaving Home was an epic piece of television, a far more enjoyable episode than How To Save A Life. Written by the ‘specials’ writer Stacey McKee whose brief was huge, it moved us through a wonderful marathon of story and placed us in a strategic position to move forward. The time gap was immense but not uncomfortable. Yes there were leaps – April goes to war suddenly; no apparent impact with four attendings suddenly absent from the surgical schedule and three from the board room – but the departure (temporary?) from the normal format worked well.
And the version of Chasing Cars at the end was just wonderful.
Meredith is on the carousel and the carousel never stops turning.
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