Can you feel the cold chill and rogue gust of wind of the approaching season finale storm? Contrary to popular belief there isn’t always a calm before a storm. It’s all dependent on the type of approaching weather system. This particular storm is preceded by a very chill wind. It’s a duplicitous, deceitful wind, where nothing is as it should be.
A darkness descended on Grey Sloan Memorial as personal and professional relationships were stretched and then veiled in a cloak of chicanery, misunderstanding and rage. With patient stories echoing the deceitful drama I Wear The Face, written by Karin Gist, directed by Chandra Wilson showed us the two faced, the sleight of hand, and the rising panic within. There will be no need for plane crashes, sink holes and shootings come finale. I fear the approaching human earthquakes will torture us all the way through to season thirteen. Finally the sugar coated early season is a thing of the past as we get down to the business end of the season. After Meredith was pulled from her grief up to the light and hand held through dating by her various wing men/women, the skies were darkening for others this week. April, Jackson, Owen, Nathan, Stephanie, Penny are all on notice to pack their galoshes and foulies in preparation for the ferocious storm ahead. I’m excited. Are you?
Grey’s Anatomy constantly seeks to ensure that characters and storylines are well balanced. The heart of the show is clearly Meredith but the soul lies in the inherent goodness of the surgeons. Mistakes are always forgiven, character flaws are always mitigated, reputations are always restored. ‘Bad eggs’ are introduced as patients or patient’s families or the surgeon’s families but never the surgeons themselves. Grey’s has it’s own yin yang, contrary but complimentary characters. And so it is during “I Wear The Face” that we see a balance restored using a tried and tested Grey’s formula. Riggs and Hunt are headed for testosterone show down of epic proportions. The screen sizzles the moment these two appear together and as the weeks go on the fate of Hunt’s sister becomes more and more a mystery as both now tell a different tale. Before “I Wear The Face” Owen was seen slowly losing control, unable to cope with the appearance of his former friend and brother-in-law, who himself held dark secrets. They each tell different stories, and, in the race of who came across as the most unhinged, panicked, dark Owen was reaching for the tape first. Until now. It turns out Riggs is a cheater or at least that’s what Owen believes and by default Meredith. This is the balance restored. We like Riggs. His character was introduced through compassion and modesty. He walked in with a sick child, a strong friendship with April and very little ego. In a show full of surgical egos his is probably the quietest. We were preconditioned to like him. The more angry and seemingly disproportionate Owen got the more likeable Riggs became. And then the writers introduced the oldest Grey’s trick in the book. Cheating. Long time readers will know what I think about that (here’s a quick reminder) and once again cheating is used as a device to restore character balance. Owen's anger is seemingly justified as we find out Riggs has a chink in his shiny perfect armour. It maybe that he is a cheater, or perhaps it will turn out that they were already separated, or perhaps it will turn out not to be true. Whichever way it goes we should remember that in Grey’s, cheaters are always redeemed. Always. And Owen should remember that because he’s one too. At a risk of repeating myself - unlike in the real world, on Grey’s Anatomy cheating is normalised, it is the one aspect of the show that wanders down the soap opera lane. However, despite this over played curve ball the increasing and near explosive tension between these two characters is compelling viewing.I can feel the shiver of drama raising hairs on my skin. Though I might ask Kevin McKidd to dial down the face a bit…he looks truly terrifying in the “when I say we hate him, I mean it” moment.
The other device that gets a good airing this week is Penny. I really hate calling her a device but it does seem as though she is. What appeared to be a settled character last week had all the hallmarks of being a hammer from the tool box this week. It was not handled well. This was a case of let’s take three marginal, moderately liked characters, manufacture trouble, jealousy and bitterness between them and force the viewer to feel sorry for those seemingly hard done by. It did not happen. I finished the episode with zero compassion for the irrational and self centred Stephanie, tearing my hair out at another lack lustre mediocre performance by Camilla Luddington’s Jo (though to be honest if I was Luddington with her script I’d put in a performance worthy of boredom too) and wondering what on earth Sara Ramirez’s Callie has done to deserve such a production line romance. The whole story arc was awful and only mildly restored by the creation of an interesting dynamic between Callie and Penny to carry forward.
Three cheers for the angry and somewhat manic April Kepner. She was fierce. This, This, THIS is the story I really want to look forward to, if they have the guts to go the whole deep and dirty way. I suspect that will be too unpalatable for Grey’s (this is not Scandal after all) but this new fierce April Kepner is downright scary. Facing the barrel of a gun held by Catherine Avery, April has turned the tables and bought herself some power. I want to see the deep and dirty Shonda…please don’t hold back….we’d pay good money to see April tearing Catherine Avery apart in a court room. Unsurprisingly April and Arizona broke the silence with the beginning of a reconciliation. Neither of them are surrounded with allies at the moment and I fear both may need them before the season’s end.
Richard and Catherine, *gossip/spoiler* possibly the only potential candidates for the “last couple standing” award at season’s end provided some normal domestic banter and squabbling on one side of town while Amelia, Maggie and Meredith did so on the other. The lack of children or the appearance of children continued in the sisters’ household, though apparently such domestic concerns do not worry the writers so perhaps they really shouldn’t worry us. Therein lay a little light relief.
I Wear The Face certainly brought out the deep and dark within a few characters. The heartwarming moments were drowned out by the perception of deceit. Was any of the duplicity real? Did Penny play the other residents? Did Amelia really sink Stephanie? Is Riggs a cheater? Who is telling the truth? Can April and Jackson recover from the mother’s meddlings and find peaceful neutral territory? It had the drama, which grabbed my attention but too many obvious story devices made it rather formulaic.
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