Deanie87

I agree and I would love to see something like this happen (if they remember those details.) Again, I don't think that Paul would work as a regular, but if AZ had some brief questioning of Jo or it became an issue with Alex while she was defending him, that would be great. I'm just trying to figure out a scenario where Alex knows he's there and doesn't go immediately ballistic, trying to have him removed from the hospital if nothing else.

I just can't imagine any scenario where a character who has done the things that Paul is supposed to have done could ever, ever, realistically join this show as a regular. I am not even sure how he could stick around longer than an episode or two, given that Alex, Meredith and DeLuca know him for what he is. I guess they could go for a "he said/she said" situation but that would mean that regular characters (Bailey, Richard, Jackson, etc.) choose to believe a stranger over Jo. That would really not go over well. Unless it turns out Jo was lying this whole time, which...yikes. I can't think of a worse message to send, especially now, and that would mean the end of Jo. She would never recover and I can't see TPTB wanting to send her off that way. So my guess is that Morrison will be around for an episode or two at most, unless there is some kind of flashback at some point.

Or he picked Jo precisely because she had no support system. What better target than someone without family and who looks at you like a savior, at least for a little while. I think that having Paul around for more than one episode would be preferable, but given that so many people know about him now, I'm not sure how that would work.

I don't think we were supposed to side with her at all, otherwise they wouldn't have left it so ambiguous. Most characters who throw a punch on this show are clearly meant to be cheered on, but I don't think we were supposed to root for her here. She and Alex have that in common, at least. If the had followed up on why she freaked out sooner, the story would have been 100% better. Instead it's been 4 years. I get why people don't care anymore, if they ever did, but I am looking forward to it finally playing out. If, for no other reason, than to get it done and over with. Hopefully that means that he'll finally get a real storyline that goes somewhere. It's been nice to see him have a life outside of being the third sister.

Yeah, I felt a little bit let down too. The last 5 minutes were kind of thrilling, but it was so soapy. Jo runs into to Paul and then the camera lingers on her face for like 30 seconds and she doesn't say anything or really react, just the way that soap operas always cut to commercial after a bombshell. Knowing that Paul showing up was most likely going to be the mid-season cliffhanger, I"m not sure what more they could have done, but the entirety of the Jo/Alex "storyline" over the past two years has been based on and building to this moment, and I just felt a little "meh" about it. Hopefully, that will change once they pick back up in January. I agree with the AZ/Carina orgasm and vagina talk. I have a feeling that this is going to be the Krista/Stacy McKee tradeoff. Krista will bring some continuity to the plot and the characters, along with some lightness, but the dialogue is going to be littered with the "Grey's speak" and childish sex talk. Not that it has ever really gone away, but it seemed to lessen somewhat amidst all of the doom and gloom of the last few seasons. If they are going to go with Maggie/Jackson, I wish that they would just do it already instead of hinting around about it. Rather than promoting anticipation for them to finally get together, it seems to be promoting dread. As always, I love Richard and I want him to be around until very last episode. I would sacrifice almost any other character for that to happen.

I think that knowing who Gretchen is, it is irresponsible at best, for him to get ever more serious with her knowing that she is going to be an influence on Olivia. Then again, considering Boone's behavior around the wife's new boyfriend/husband and the company he keeps with the rich producer, etc., Boone has issues of his own. Maybe Gretchen would have taken the "step-mother" role seriously eventually, but that seems like too big of an unknown to invite her to live with him so early.

I don't remember her ever saying he was a police officer, that was something that was speculated about. She said he was powerful and charismatic but never mentioned his profession. It wasn't until Alex looked him up that we knew he was a doctor.

I'm really glad that they are finally back together, although I think that resuming the engagement might be a little premature. The kitchen scene was well done, but I was screaming in my head "she's gonna pull a Kelly Taylor" and sure enough, she did. To illustrate my main problem with that, I will show my age and quote/paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen. "I know Kelly Taylor, and you ma'am are NO Kelly Taylor." Kelly was super annoying, but Gretchen is just nearly unredeemable to me at this point. So her rant about how she deserves better and shouldn't need other people to tell her that she is worthy just fell flat. It's not that I think Jimmy or Boone are vastly morally superior to her, but they both seem to have at least a tiny bit of self-awareness that Gretchen doesn't have. I don't know if I'm supposed to cheer her on, or sympathize with her or what, but I just don't. It may be my age/generation (see my Bentsen/Quayle quote above) because I have browsed this show's forum on Reddit (which I believe skews much younger) and nearly everyone there hates Jimmy and completely relates to and sympathizes with Gretchen. I will try not to think too much on that. Her self-destruction hurts other people constantly, now including a completely innocent little girl, though much of the blame goes to Boone there, and I did love that Olivia thew his hand off her in disgust. We are all Olivia in that moment. So believe it or not, I still do root for them as a couple and am hoping that with the two of them together next season, things will get better. They don't exactly bring out the best in one another, but at least they are entertaining when they are together and have a certain warped sweetness about them. They really do have great chemistry and they just seem right for one another somehow. Aya Cash gets most of the accolades, and she deserves them, but Chris Geere as Jimmy is the one who really brings the emotional punch to their relationship for me (and I think that he is vastly funnier). I appreciated that Jimmy truly understands how wrong he was, and also told Gretchen that his leaving wasn't about her but about him, but he also stuck up for himself when he needed to. Their fight outside of the hotel was really well done and I understood where they were both coming from. I liked how everyone was together this episode and the show truly works much better when they all interact. Yay for Lindsay finally becoming a semi-functioning human being (I love how she can't remember the actual names of things like hamburger glove, trash grouch, etc.) Yikes to Vernon, though, and I shouldn't have laughed at how meh they all were on Tallulah ("is she though?") but I did. I found myself zoning completely out whenever Edgar's storyline was on and I simply do not care even one bit about the comedy show or any guy on the show who wears vests and hats (and now that includes Edgar). Anyway, I have enjoyed the last couple of episodes, but I am glad that the show is working toward its end.

Gilead is one of my all time favorite books, I literally start tearing up when I recite some of the passages, and I read it when I was a much more ambitious/patient reader. I suggested it to my book club (it was my first selection) and I thought they would never speak to me again. But the format lends itself to rambling, so is Housekeeping also along those lines? Is there any plot to speak of? I keep picking up Lila as well, and putting it down in favor of a British mystery where someone gets killed in manor house.

I've been watching from the beginning, and I have always felt that there was something "happening" between Louisa and Spiros, especially on Spiros' side. I'm glad that I wasn't imagining it, but yeah, if he is married with a family how is that going to work? I can understand Louisa wanting to feel sparks with Hugh but just...not, but I can't imagine her having an affair with a married man. So something must be up. I very much dislike Larry's girlfriend, so I love how rudely he shuts her down. He does give in to the seduction (who could blame him?) but then does feel disgusted afterward.

Awww, this was pure cheese and I ate it up. I didn't even get annoyed at the interns. I thought that the Izzie stand-in was really the only one who looked like her, but the other two had more similar personalities. The Izzie should have bitched a little bit more at Alex LOL. I really appreciated the music and the callbacks, especially the two people joined by the roller coaster. Get it, roller coaster? It would have been funnier if they had been thrown off of a carousel that never stopped turning. And the ending was perfect. As much as I would have been happy with Meredith, Alex, Bailey and Richard stuck in an elevator reminiscing, I also appreciated that the current storylines were either cemented (Jo and Alex are good and happy) or moving forward (DeLuca and girl, AZ and Sofia, Ben the fireman). It sucks that there is only one more episode until January.

Thanks that's exciting! As much as I am all about some Fab 5 nostalgia, I am glad that stories will be moving forward too. Reading some of the cast interviews it sounds like they are excited about this season too. Or they've gotten great at promotion lol!

I would have liked to be a fly on the wall as Krista watched the last few seasons. They barely made sense in real time but I imagine that watching them back to back just made it worse. As annoyed as I was about how much the Jo/husband/marriage crap has been going on, I am now very glad that they weren't able to really get to it last year. I'm still nervous about it, but I have to believe that Krista will do a better job with it. She has done a much better job with already.

Ben is going to the firefighter spinoff. But do we know if he will still ever be on Grey's? I like Ben, so that stinks. Jo said in one of her first episodes that she went to college/medical school on a scholarship. Maybe they'll retcon it and have the husband pay for some of it (like maybe the scholarship was for college but then he helped pay for med school.) And yep, she's in the running for CR because there is no one left LOL.

I loved, loved, loved the original interns as a group, and even though the show has been without them longer than it was with them, I still consider them the heart of the show, so I am really looking forward to this episode. Frankly, I would be thrilled if it was just the five original characters sitting around reminiscing, but I know that's not gonna happen. And I know that many people would hate that too!

But what does an abuse survivor look like? What does an abuser look like? I have thankfully never been in that situation but I doubt that everyone handles it the same way. I agree that the husband part of the backstory doesn't make a lot of sense, but as horribly inconsistent as Jo has been written, her having been abused in some way has always been apparent, at least to me. She has hinted about it from the beginning and she clearly had issues with violence (which sadly isn't out of the ordinary for kids having been through the foster care system, etc.) The writers have done such a poor job with Jo already, and its really disheartening to read comments (here and other places) from people who think she is lying about it all for attention, that Alex almost going to jail is her fault, that she is too pretty to be an abuse victim and, of course, those hoping that husband will come back to kill her. And lots of girls and young women watch this show, so I really hope that they are responsible about it. In just the few episodes of this season, I find her to be much more similar to the character who was originally introduced than the whiny girl who pouts because Meredith the Head Cheerleader is mean. She mentioned that she got scholarships. I agree. I remember a few seasons back when Jackson had this terrible monologue about "poor me, I'm so rich and good looking that no one takes me seriously." Ugh, I hated it and I'm glad that they kind of backed away from all of that. I like it when he is a bit more embarrassed by his name and wealth and when he uses his good looks in a cocky way (I vaguely remember him taking of his shirt to get a surgery or when a bunch of them did surgery some place else and all the women accused him of flirting, etc.) I really like that Jackson and its part of why I wish they would rekindle his friendship with Alex because it allows him to kind of be funny about it. I hope that the doctors get competitive with each other again and that this is kind of where Jackson is going with whatever his proposal to Bailey is.

Ugh, I don't know and its pissing me off. I stopped watching regularly sometime last season, but tuned in again when I just happened to catch the episode where Frank and Bonnie bond over their unhealthy and murderous love for Annalise and slept together. I never cared about either of those characters before, but for some reason I found that scene so touching and dysfunctional that I was completely back in and blinking heart eyes at the two of them and hoping that they would go on some kind of romantic murdering spree together. Frank shirtless and beardless didn't hurt either. Cut to this season where Frank is mooning over stupid Laurel and Bonnie is allowing man-child Asher to call her Bon-Bon without her stabbing him in the throat. C'mon show, what gives? I gave you a second chance, don't do me like that. Also, this weekend, In Touch Weekly (shut up) told me that Bonnie and Frank are dating in real life!! But sadly, I don't think that they go around murdering people out of weird loyalty for their MotherBoss, so I'm not as interested. Luckily, I do love Connor and Annalise bonding over ice cream and Doing the Right Thing. That, Michaela's boss, and the Smits/Erb combo are enough to keep me watching, but I desperately want Bonnie and Frank to succumb to their self-loathing and low self esteem and crawl back to one another. Is it SO wrong that their misery and dysfunction gives me so much joy?

I was a little disappointed in this episode simply because I had high expectations for the guys on the boat. I agree that it seemed weird that all of these guys, who at best had little in common and little screentime previously and at worst were, you know, involved in a near fatal beating/lawsuit/near felony prison sentence, are all laughing it up on a boat that got bought 2 minutes before. In the end, it just seemed like an excuse for awkward exposition about Jackson/Maggie, Ben and his new spinoff and setting the stage for Owen to hook up DeLuca's sister. Per usual, we got no insight into Alex whatsoever, he just sat there and played Greek Chorus to everyone else. Oh well, at least he looked as horrified as I do about the prospect of him sleeping with Meredith. That's something I guess. I liked that Jo is getting pro-active about her situation and I really liked her scenes with Meredith. As much as I appreciate that Krista Vernoff is trying to reset the show and perhaps change some stuff that isn't working, I am having a harder time with some of the retcons that I thought I would. I hated the "Mer hates Jo for no reason" storyline and the "Jo is the worst doctor on the planet" storyline so I figured that I would be thrilled to put all of that to bed, but its not working for me as much as I had hoped. Let's be honest, if Jo gets Chief Resident, its only because she is literally the only one left. And I'm ready for her to just take the boards and become an attending already. So now I am kind of wary of how the domestic storyline will be dealt with. I would love to just ignore all of the basic inconsistencies and outright contradictions of her past, but I'm not sure that I'm going to be able to. I can handwave the name change/college entrance stuff if I have to, because I doubt any of it is going to really get explained, but its been going on for so long and its such an important and topical issue that they really need to be careful with it. Beyond that, I"m glad that things seem to be going well for Alex and Jo and I'm a sucker for their banter ("I love you." "You smell like fish guts." Adorable.) I could use a real heartfelt conversation about how Alex felt about being lied to and the fallout from the DeLuca beating, but that seems like water under the bridge at this point. I am not a fan of Maggie either, but I don't think that the she gets any more hate than many others (Amelia, Jo, April). Part of it is that I don't particularly care for the awkward, stammering characters whether it is George, Lexie, April or Maggie. George and Lexie could be funny at times, but that was way back when the writing was much better. My bigger problem is that in the last few seasons, the writers`1 re-positioned the show to be about Meredith and her Sisters and those characters who don't fall into that orbit get the shaft constantly. Amelia and Maggie get way more to do than characters who have been there three times as long and it annoys me. I know more about how Maggie's family than I do Alex's or Arizona's. I know more about Amelia's past than I do about Richard's and I never watched PP. So that is my issue.

At first I thought the woman was Melissa Leo from Homicide, but with the tiny closer look I don't think it was. Clarke Peters has been showing up on a lot of the British shows that I watch.

Maybe so Megan can then die at the end of the episode? More parallels to MerDer and then either Owen finally gets his kid or we add another layer to the Mer/Riggs blended family. It would also explain why Riggs isn't on the guys' boat trip. I care to the extent that a Mer/Riggs romance will keep the Mer/Alex at bay, at least for a little while longer. Plus, I kind of like Riggs and with Ben leaving, they need to keep as many guys on the show as possible.

I wouldn't say that Alex tried to force himself on April, or that Jackson broke it up. April approached him, they started making out and Alex got mad when April wanted to slow down. He was a complete dick about it, but that's a lot different than Alex forcing himself on her. And Jackson didn't find out about it until April told him later. Either way, I think Alex would be terrible with both April and Amelia. April couldn't handle his asshattery or darkness and I'm not sure that Alex would want to get involved with a former addict, given everything he went through with his dad.

A Billy Bragg song!! That was my favorite part of the episode. Unfortunately, they played it at the lowest volume possible, unlike nearly every other song in the show which usually overpowers everything.

The fact that two characters can't have a scene together without prompting questions about whether or not they are going to hook up is testament to the past writing on Grey's. My only disappointment is that nothing has been mentioned about the blatant sexual undertones of Jackson fixing Alex's collar and Alex wondering about silver spoons and trucks being backed up. Not to mention the seductive way that Jackson said limousines. I mean, its CLEAR that something is going on there and I will have no choice but to root for it wildly.

I don't know how I feel about this. On the one hand, its such a cliche for Gretchen to have some deep, dark, secret in her past that makes her the way that she is, but on the other hand, it just makes her seem like a bratty, entitled, selfish bitch...just because. And I'm really bored with all of that and frankly, pretty bored with Gretchen too. Her POV has been explored in much, much more depth than any other character on the show to increasingly diminishing returns for me. Jimmy's family was an abomination, which explains his pretension and flaws pretty well, Edgar clearly has issues with PTSD that inform his character, and even as bad as Lindsay is she at least has a foe in Becca, which while it may not explain all of her behavior, makes some of it understandable. Gretchen just seems kind of spoiled to me. In earlier seasons, her parents seemed kind of controlling, so I get a certain amount of rebellion. But they don't seem horrible and they had the wi-fi password in CROSS STITCH in the guest room! That was adorable, I mean how bad could they be? Certainly not bad enough to warrant her treatment of them and her sister, and I am very reluctant to blame all of this on her illness. I get that she is one of the main characters, but I'm tired of her centric episodes that do nothing but make her seem like a spoiled, destructive brat. They have a limited number of episodes a season, and I wish that they would share the wealth with other characters, or at least give me something to root for. She isn't even good at her job anymore and is fast becoming my least favorite character, which really sucks.

Dre was too busy being concerned about how HE was affected by Bow having PPD. Ugh, he grates! I know that he cares about her and eventually he was worried about her for her own sake, but I really wish he didn't have to go through the whole self-absorbed man-child routine first. Speaking of self-absorbed, the baby plot still isn't working for ME, despite Jr.'s adorable skin to skin method.