To dreeeeeam the impossible dreeeeam! That’s me the moment Teddy and Owen finally ended their cold war after what has seemed like 50 arduous years of fighting, resentment, fleeing the state of Washington because of felony charges, the silent treatment, butt dials during sex while having an affair, and more fighting. What a time, what a life. Of course it was always going to be Bailey who knocked some sense into these two. Bailey is Hospital Mom, and she saves us all. Except for, like, when she has MRSA and kills a bunch of people with her hands. Whoops! But other than that, we need her guidance in all the ways.
When Owen appeals the suspension of his medical license, an assessor is sent to shadow him for the day and decide on his case. If Owen loses this appeal, it will be another six months before he can try again. Another six months without a medical license will kill his marriage. He knows it, Teddy knows it, the guy who runs the coffee cart outside the hospital knows it. We all know it! Nothing goes as planned with the assessor, but things really look hopeless for Owen when a trauma comes in and he bucks protocol in order to save the guy. When Bailey asks why he would risk getting his license back like that, Owen starts ranting about how he saved the guy’s life and he’d do it again. He didn’t lose his license because he’s a bad doctor or because he didn’t follow the rules — it’s because he fundamentally disagreed with those rules. He’d do it again. He’s very righteous about it. Bailey has to remind him that everyone understands this. Everyone knows that he has always been doing what he felt was the right thing. WE GET IT, DUDE. She lays this truth on him: “Have you tried apologizing for all of the things you got wrong instead of constantly defending all of the things you got right?” Food for thought, Owen Hunt!
So that’s exactly what he does. He finds Teddy and finally apologizes for being an ass all this time. He apologizes for blowing up their life and never talking to her about it and for making them fugitives and for flirting with his hot surf instructor. That last bit seems less important than the others, but still, he’s clearing the ledger. Teddy is moved! Teddy is so moved that she, too, apologizes for being a less-than-supportive partner this whole time because she knows he never did anything with the intention of hurting their family. She loves him. Oh, and also, the assessor cleared him and he’s getting his medical license back. She’d like him to be her chief of trauma again. Can you even believe what we are seeing? Teddy and Owen maybe won’t be fighting for at least one entire episode! It is a miracle.
Here’s hoping Grey Sloan Memorial hasn’t maxed out on miracles, though, because they’re going to need another one. There’s something up with Catherine Fox. Of course it takes the entire episode and two separate patient stories to inspire a conversation about it, but still, we should be worried.
Catherine’s headed to the hospital to perform a surgery on a patient with Peyronie’s Disease, in which scar tissue develops on the penis and causes painful, curved erections among other terrible-sounding things. While, yes, this story line does include funny penis stuff like Kwan fainting in the OR when he sees all the blood that comes out once Catherine cuts into the penis, the point of it all is an emotional a-ha moment for Catherine. Dicks will do that to you, you know? Her patient, Gerald, hasn’t told his wife anything about his condition or the surgery because he fears she’ll see him differently. Lo and behold, while Gerald’s recovering from his successful procedure, his wife, Gloria, shows up at the hospital to make sure he’s okay. Of course she knows about the surgery. She’s always known — she pays the insurance bills, after all. She just wanted to give him the space to tell her when he’s ready. Now that she knows he’s all right, she heads out, and Gerald will never know. Catherine, clearly hiding something from Richard, must see all this work Gerald’s gone through in order to keep his wife in the dark out of shame and pride, and now she sees the other side of it — that his wife doesn’t care about anything but Gerald being okay. Because she loves him. Catherine tucks this little life lesson away.
Meanwhile, Richard is back on Natalia’s case. Her craniotomy was a success, but now they need to get more PET scans to see if her esophageal cancer has spread further. Oh, friends, of course it has. She’s at the point of no return. There’s nothing they can do for her except to manage her pain. She has maybe days, maybe hours. It is, as we say, a gut-punch. Much like Gerald, Natalia doesn’t want the doctors to tell her husband Elliot. She wants him to remain hopeful for the last moments they’ll have together. She wants him to keep planning their big trip to Italy. But again, like Gerald’s story, Elliot knows. Of course he does. Natalia apparently has a tell when things get worse — asking him to get her hot chocolate — plus, uh, coughing up blood usually isn’t a good sign. Elliot will keep up the ruse for Natalia, too. He sits by her side and they talk about their plans and look at places to go and he holds her as she gets worse, until she finally goes. I don’t know about you guys, but here I was, sitting through what was mostly a mediocre Grey’s Anatomy episode only to be completely leveled by this montage. The sobs! I love a moving Grey’s patient story, and Natalia and Elliot were exactly that. Plus we got a great little scene between Jules and Richard. Jules is upset that they aren’t doing more to help Natalia. Their job is to heal, to fix, and shouldn’t they be doing everything they can think of to save her? Richard tries to calm her down and explains that this feeling of “powerlessness” is the worst part of the job (I mean, probably all of the doctors at Grey Sloan repeatedly almost dying is bad too, but okay, we’ll go with this). To know when continuing with treatment would only hurt the patient is part of the gig. “The best surgeons, the best, learn how to live with the worst part of this job,” he tells her.
Richard takes his time with Natalia and Elliot, and that lesson of powerlessness with Jules, and he goes to see his wife. He knows there is something wrong, because of course he does. So, he asks her. Finally, knowing that it’s silly to keep this from him — and wouldn’t she want her husband by her side for this? — she tells him what they’ve been dreading: Her cancer is progressing. Now, Grey’s has played the “Catherine’s cancer is back” card already, so it’s hard to believe that they’d use it again and let her survive again. Or maybe this will just be Catherine’s deal now, every other season she has a cancer scare! Who knows! Still, something tells me we might need to prepare for the worst.
The OR Board
• Schmitt finally finds enough self-worth to go ask Nurse Carlos out on a date. I hope he has a fun, sexy time for a while — he deserves it!
• Wait, I laughed so loud when Jo, who went to get Nurse Carlos intel for Schmitt, informs him that Carlos doesn’t like vampire movies. “I know you’re scared of vampires!” she explains to Schmitt.
• Maggie and Amelia get a nice little scene: Maggie thinks she’s beginning to overstay her welcome at Amelia’s place and is feeling a little awkward about their relationship now that Meredith is gone, but Amelia assures her that they’re still very much sisters, even without Mer around.
• The Boston sisters story line didn’t do much for me (those accents were A Choice), but I did love the reveal that the urn they’d been carrying around of the fourth sister had been full of cat litter for 15 years, after one sister lost the real urn in Reno.
• Very much here for the smug moment Lucas gets after he has to drag a passed-out Kwan from the OR, when he tosses back Kwan’s condescending line from one of their first meetings: “Just sizing up my competition and liking my odds.”
• Ohhh baby, the tension between Lucas and Simone after her big engagement is bubbling at the surface. Lucas is tending to his wounds by way of an internal-medicine doctor named Cara, who is apparently very loud during sex. Simone is pretending not to be jealous. She is doing a bad job at it.
