Gladrags

I'm imagining the national reaction would be more like what Margaret Atwood depicted in "The Handmaid's Tale": people just waiting and watching TV to see what happens next. Ohhhhhh, now I really miss The West Wing. :(

I can't see how Alex would still be seeing patients - aren't the patients in the clinic as worthy as surgical patients of a doctor who can give his full attention to his work? Bailey must not think much of the clinic's patients ... Meredith's manipulations in Maggie's love life - or lack thereof - is annoying at best. You're right that she should just come clean with Maggie, and also tell Riggs that she's really not interested. At least, that's the vibe she's giving off. At least then it would be warranted. LOL Doubtful Amelia and Owen will be happy for long; it just isn't in the cards, given where they work. LOL But any drama for all four of them will likely be self-inflicted; Amelia and April never seem to think they deserve what they have or what they want. Or at least stuck with intern work or administrative work. Yeah, that made me LOL as well. Alex's favorite dead guy! Heh. There's really not much about Meredith and Riggs that's cute or romantic. They have as much chemistry as two neutrons.

Amelia's right -- This is painful to watch. Meddling Meredith is at it again ... April's mom can't come stay with Harriet, but I bet Jackson's mom can. Oh, boy!

Both Jo and Alex are to blame for their poor communication. Jo is so immature and messed up that she can't speak a coherent sentence when she's under stress, and Alex, both historically and in this episode, never lets anyone get a word in edgewise. She tried telling him more than once that DeLuca wasn't trying to hurt her, but he wouldn't let her finish a sentence; she kept tripping over her tongue, babbling incoherently to get him to listen. I'm pretty much over Jo and her secret, past wounds, yadda yadda yadda. She needs to grow the f up and figure out a way to move on that doesn't involve running, lying, whining, or whimpering. Oh, I do. He didn't have to beat DeLuca to death to get him away from Jo, even if he was trying to force himself on her. A punch or two would have done the trick. But Angry Alex is and always will be a douche (his words) who acts before he thinks, lets his douchy temper get in the way of rational thought, and wildly overreacts.

You asked for blood baths; I gave them to you by pointing out the deaths that occurred in season finales, or as a result of occurrences in season finales. I guess deaths don't count if they don't happen to series regulars? Well. Dead is dead. Blood baths are blood baths, no matter who they happen to.

Start off with Denny at the end of season 2; George at the end of season 5, along with Izzy flatlining; Reed and Charles - and six or seven extras as well as Gary Clark - at the end of season 6; Lexie at the end of season 8 and all the associated carnage, including Mark dying early in season 9 as part of the same story arc. And while no one literally died at the end of season 9, Meredith's and Richard's lives both hung in the balance, and poor little Heather Brooks died the next season when she also was electrocuted trying to find Richard. Nevermind the disasters! Crazed gunman, tunnel collapse, plane crash, wild storm, pedestrian gets hit by a bus, mall explosion ... No wonder this year's finale felt like a breath of fresh air.

A season-ending episode where everyone is happy? Or almost happy? Or almost everyone is happy? Nevermind. LOL I'm just glad no one died. Except for maybe poor DeLuca. I bet he never gives a drunken woman a ride home again. Oh, and maybe Ranting and Raving Owen is dead. Who was that mellow redheaded guy? The rest ... meh. I liked Amelia's dress. Good for Bailey, telling Ben she trusted him right before he sliced April open. I'm glad April, Jackson and baby have a shot at being a happy family. I felt bad for Richard - he's always looking so perplexed these days. If that was Callie's goodbye after years and years on this show ... then shame on TPTB. My favorite line was from Amelia, talking about Maggie (paraphrased): Every time I tell her the world is on fire she hands me a marshmallow.

From the season 2 Thanksgiving episode: George (to his obnoxious brothers): "You shot Dad in the ass! Are you happy now?"

Last night's episode, I believe, was the first time I have ever been glad to see Catherine. LOL Poor Richard looked so forlorn among his idiot co-workers, and I felt such joy for him when the elevator doors opened. Maybe I was just glad to see at least two happy characters for a few seconds. Stephanie ... is a bull-headed, self-involved jerk. Of course, you could apply those words to more than half the characters on the show.

I wouldn't wish Meredith on anyone at this point -- not even Owen, my least favorite character. The woman is seriously deranged. ETA: Mer did make me laugh when Penny hugged her. How entertaining that the only person she didn't bite the head off of in this episode was Penny.

Because Mark being involved fucking made for lots of drama, that's why. Arizona didn't want kids; Arizona didn't like Mark. Callie, who likes to overreact, overreacted to Arizona going overseas by getting drunk and sleeping with her BFF. Arizona returns, and the three of them have to (eventually) act like adults. Callie getting knocked up with a turkey baster wouldn't be nearly as interesting to anyone, LGBT or not.

I thought we'd all managed to get over the irrational notion that Penny was responsible for Derek's death? *smh* Bailey's self-righteousness was annoying in this episode. Sometimes it's funny, but not this time. Ditto. It was worse than any screechingly irrational 1970s soap opera courtroom scene. Every divorced couple I know swaps the kids on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, alternating each year. You gotta wonder about an episode where Jackson and April are the only voices of reason.

Something else that struck me about this episode: I remember how Bailey (and others) would -- rightly -- admonish Izzy about getting too close or too involved with patients. Yet Bailey violates this caveat time and time again. Heck, she violates it with just about every patient. Just another skewed moment in the alternate universe that is Grey-Sloan Memorial Hospital.

Oh, how I've grown to hate that phrase ...

There's no way Bailey should have been involved in Ben's fate in the first place. She was right to pass it off onto Richard, and he was stupid - not to mention unprofessional - to force her to discipline her own husband. I had a hard time getting past that. And Bailey defying the DNR was no big surprise - the hospital management has always been of the "do as I say, not as I do" variety. Yes, Callie taking Sofia across the country would suck for Arizona, but Arizona's knee-jerk reaction smacked of some sort of payback for Callie being happy with a new partner. Suing for full custody is such a huge leap, when Callie's plans don't seem to be set in stone just yet. I'm still holding out hope for Jackson and April. Call me a sentimental old fool.

The blanket thing was a nice change from Meredith's usual raging bitch outlet for her grief. Millions of women (including me) have lost their husbands without becoming self-involved harridans. I got that impression about Stephanie from the character's first appearance on the show. She was a Yang-in-training.

I thought the same as many of you about Catherine - this is her attempt to get Jackson and April to reconcile. If she tried in a more motherly, nurturing and positive way, they both would think she had something up her sleeve.

My initial thought on this episode is ... Owen really is an insufferable person. I stopped caring about his anger, trauma and angst five or six years ago, but that's all we seem to get of him, year after year after year.

I should hope so. That was all kinds of out of line.

Or like Meredith herself blamed Penny ... but of course that wasn't ridiculous ...

I had to read this thread through to remember what happened, that's how much I thought of the episode. Utterly forgettable. The reason for Owen's violent and irrational hate for Martin? Anticlimactic, to say the least. Oh, yeah, and Owen is a lunatic. Alex realizing that April is pregnant? Yeah, right; he's about as aware as the desk April was sitting behind. Meredith making a bad decision that resulted in a patient's death? Well, yeah, that's never happened before. I really don't care about Jo and Alex, but now I care even less, since obviously they don't care, either. Maggie and DeLuca are still having sex. No news there ... Callie, Arizona, Richard, Bailey, Stephanie? Has anyone seen them lately? Golly, so similar to Penny and her attending physician when they were working on Derek. No doubt the self-involved Meredith will never get the irony. Perhaps the woman's son's co-workers will all gather in the ER to blame Meredith. You know - the way Meredith's co-workers did with Penny. That bump you felt was an anvil whacking you on top of the head. Especially since she didn't kill Derek.

That was terribly unexciting, eh? Other than April's little bombshell, nothing much happened we didn't know about or figured out anyway. I did love Arizona arriving with every type of liquor under the sun, though. That's my kind of friend.

I liked Gwen, the ex-housemaid; her enthusiasm was infectious and her reaction to Thomas exposing her employment at Downton was gracious. Not that Thomas deserved it. Tom's brother certainly was memorable. I'm surprised he hasn't had more relatives coming out of the woodwork. Lord Sinderby's butler was something. To paraphrase Seinfeld: I don't know what he was, but he was something.

Regardless of the silliness of the action, at least there was some. I was beginning to wonder if it really was February. Line of the day goes to Dixon, speaking to Ava: No one would pay $5 million for you. LOLOLOL

LMAO! Grandmotherly love ... Carson's always been a snob and a little bit cruel, remembering how he treated his one-time showbiz partner. But his behavior was over the top in this episode. I still haven't adjusted to the British pronunciation of valet. Thomas should have been fired back in 1912 when he framed Bates for stealing from Robert's collection of whatever it was he was collecting. Thomas has always been a one step forward, two steps back kind of person (and don't forget that he locked Isis up in that shed in the first place), and the years of malicious behavior seem to have had a cumulative effect with Carson. His outing Gwen disgusted Robert, and the rest of the family as well. So I don't find it odd at all.