“My mother always used to say that you could tell the difference between an intern and a second-year resident by their sutures. One of the more common mistakes an intern makes is tying their sutures too tightly, which causes tension. The more tension, the longer it takes the wound to heal. It decreases blood flow, increases scar formation, and even necroses the skin. So even though they may have technically closed the wound, they may have opened the door to even more problems.”
Episode two starts with another round on the interns’ life, we learn Simone lives with her father and grandma in Seattle (I’m guessing she lived here her whole life), Mika is living in a trailer in the parking lot (Alex Karev much?), while Lucas is living in the on-call room, with the disapproval of his aunt Amelia, of course. Nick is officially the residency director - and I LOVE this title on him - and he’s changing things around for both the interns and the attendings, sending emails to inform everyone of said changes, which makes Meredith feel bad because she OBVIOUSLY wanted him to talk to her in person. And I can’t blame her.
Schmidt is confirmed chief resident, and he’s clearly at his breaking point, and at one point in this episode we learn Taryn (Helm) is working as a bartender at Joe’s bar, and Schmidt begs her to come back.
In this episode, Simone and Jules have to face a mysterious case, where the patient is having short breath and a rash on his whole body, and consult both Chief Grey and Richard to help them. I think those two make a really great team.
To answer a question I made in the previous review, we learn Teddy and Owen ARE in fact, still married, although they spent probably 70% of the episode fighting. I get both of their points but, as always, I’m #TeamTeddy. We all know Owen is a capable doctor, I think 10+ seasons of him established that, but the law is the law, and although sometimes it can be stupid to call another attending to perform an ultrasound, all this wouldn’t have happened if he didn’t screw up everything last season. I hope, though, they can repair this relationship because, whether you ship them or not, the writers spent WAY too much time focusing on their storyline to just let them break up on this. There’s too much history to burn them like that, so I hope they’ll fix this, soon.
Same as I don’t like Owen and Teddy’s storyline, I’m not liking Maggie and Winston’s AT ALL. I really hope they would give them a decent storyline - as a couple - but they spent the episode fighting? About patients? And ORs? What was the reason?
In the next scene, we see Meredith, Richard, and Teddy talking about the mysterious case Jules and Simone are working on, and come to a conclusion it is, in fact, a mysterious diagnosis, because the symptoms don’t fit into anything they think about. So Meredith tells them to call all the other interns and start researching to find answers (another call-back to the past, in episode 1.01, Meredith and Cristina try to solve a case together)
Later we see Teddy discussing with Richard her relationship with Owen, thinking he sent Richard to her because she’s starting drinking every night, and explaining to him how her relationship with Owen went in the past few months…honestly, as I’ve said before.
Meredith and Nick finally see each other, and she asks him about the kidney transplants - while we all know all she wanted to ask was “how are you?” - she asks him if he likes the new position, and where he’s living now. Of course, she started with a professional question to end up with a personal one, it’s clear she doesn’t know how to act around him because she loves him but doesn’t totally understand if she can take a step toward him. It’s been two episodes since this all thing started but it feels like a whole season, and as much as I like it, I can’t wait for it to stop. Again, as I’ve said over and over again, they’re adults, they love each other…and if getting closer means taking risks…please do!
Anyway, they get interrupted by Jules, asking her for help for the patient she’s been treating, we learn they have to amputate the kid and Link says Jules has to do it. Can I just say I loved Adelaide Kane here?…she’s so good as Jules, she makes me feel all the feels, and in this scene, I felt the fear of a new doctor who for the first time in their life has no choice but to take a drastic measure to save someone's life.
In another scene we see Maggie and Winston fighting again because there are not enough senior residents and Winston has to postpone another surgery for the third time because Schmidt is assisting Maggie. And, as I’ve said before, I get that they want to create angst or whatever but…I don’t see a real reason to do it. I don’t agree with this at all.
Later we see Richard asking Nick for information about the way he’s changing the residency program, and Richard apologized to him for the way he acted when Mer told him she was going to Minnesota, and he also expressed his support for him and Meredith's relationship AND the way he’s running the program. I think it was very kind of him to apologize, and considering he has been Meredith's real father all these years, hearing him say he approves of them was a really sweet thing.
All this situation with Owen and Teddy finally got us something “good”: Mika learned how to intubate a patient. It’s nice to see them learn stuff and to see all the interns’ paths, and it’s something they didn’t focus on enough in later seasons (except for maybe some selected people). Talking about learning and solving, we switch to Simone running to Link’s OR to see Jules operating on the patient, and we see her learning how to operate following Link’s indications, while Simone tells them said patient hasn’t been vaccinated. Case solved...and I’m glad it was Jules and Simone (with Mika on another case) the focus of this episode. As I said before, I think they’re the ones with more potential than others.
Jo and Miranda meet each other for a moms-date at the park, with Prue and Luna, and we learn Miranda wrote a sex education program with a community clinic and she contributes to a women’s organization. I love the path they’re taking for her because she’s clearly back to her roots and I can see her a little bit more relaxed than she was as Chief. She says she’s not ready to go back to the hospital. I mean… we all know she’s gonna come back once Meredith goes away, but I think she deserves to do what she wanted all along: help the community.
Almost at the end of the episode, we see Maggie and Winston reprise their discussion about her leaning on him to make everything and the fact she pulls him away from cases her to have him close (as a professional). Thankfully they made peace, and he explained to her she has to consider the residents and teach stuff to them too, and she can’t lean on him forever.
Simone and Jules are definitely (or at least I hope so) the best friends of this new era, and Meredith is clearly pushing for it, asking Simone to help Jules get over the day she’s been through. And Simone brought her to the tiny souvenir store of the hospital to buy a stuffed animal to give Jules comfort since she’s not the “comforting type.”
While Mer and Nick are talking about the residency program in her office, Owen interrupts them to ask if he can be a teacher for the next 6 months. And if this is the direction they’re going to with him…I’m in. I like it. We can say he’s not the best character on the show, HE WAS at one point years ago, but he’s definitely not now. I think the teaching career could be good for him, he’s good at it, and as I said, he’s a good doctor. He was perfect with Mika in this episode so…why not? Even I am excited about it.
Talking about Nick and Mer - the most important thing here - they went over the same discourse about their breakup all over again, while in the last episode we saw him explaining how he felt, now we got her point of view on the matter. She felt numb, and she felt like she had lost him, that’s why she didn’t call him for 6 months. She said that when she saw him in the corridor, she knew she could feel something again, she wasn’t numb anymore…I loved this line so much because isn’t that what love is like? Igniting us? Making us feel something we thought we couldn’t feel anymore? Second chances are what this show, and this particular season, is about. And seeing Meredith feel something so intensely after the hell she’s been through is yet another proof of what this couple is. Anyway, he asks her to dinner, and she said he could take her to Zola’s presentation for the Pacific Northwest Scholars), and he accepts.
In this presentation we see Zola talking about her grandmother Ellis, her study in Minnesota, and the way she developed early Alzheimer’s symptoms. And not only do we see her grown up (she’s SO BIG!), but we also learn she’s afraid Meredith and Maggie are gonna develop those symptoms too and she’s gonna be alone for the rest of her life. This scene seriously broke my heart because not only I felt her pain but I also realized she never healed from Derek’s passing. Maybe she was too little, maybe she didn’t have time to process it fully but it’s clear she’s afraid to be “abandoned” again, involuntary.
What did you think of this episode? Did you like it? Let me know in the comments!
