Shellie

There are too many people on this show whose name starts with A. Gets confusing. Even Jackson is Avery.

Oh, OK, I did not know that.

As a big Joe Walsh fan, I really wanted to like his appearance in this. Before the episode began, I assumed he'd have a cameo as "poker player #3" during the midst of the show, but when Rossi invited Morgan to come play poker, I feared it would be some dumb tag at the end, and it was. Why does Rossi have good friends who are rock stars? Wouldn't we have heard about this before? Why would they fly from wherever to DC for a poker game? Would Morgan really call Joe "Mr. Rock & Roll Hall of Famer" during the game? Would anyone actually say "ain't no sunshine on these cards"? I can only imagine how many viewers were completely confused by that scene, not knowing who the guest actors were and what in the world the point of it was. At least a couple people were probably wondering if the sunshine guy was Lenny Kravitz.

This stuff I can believe, but for me it's the general appearance details that would be different from one person to another that family members would notice pretty quickly. I'd think a brother would notice and especially parents, who have watched the child grow from infancy to age nine. Then he disappears and returns at age 19, and suppose it's a different person altogether. Wouldn't someone (especially a mother) be wondering things like: What happened to that little birthmark that was on the back of his neck? What happened to the noticeable mole on his right ankle? What happened to that scar above his eyebrow that he got in a sledding accident? Weren't his ears kind of a different shape before? Weren't his eyes kind of a different shape before? Wasn't his nose kind of a different shape before, and bigger too? How come his teeth are so much straighter now than they were when he was nine? Didn't my son have two dental fillings and this one doesn't have any? His eyebrows were dark brown and now they're light brown? This ain't my kid.

The main thing I have trouble with in this show is the concept that close family members (especially parents) won't know if a missing person who returns is really that person. It's a point of disbelief I'm never able to set aside for the sake of fiction. Maybe if 30 years went by, but not nine or ten.

Was anyone else bothered by the clanking of the chopsticks? I've never heard chopsticks clank against plates before. I kept wondering what they were made of, but even if they were made of some nice material like porcelain, I wouldn't think they would get banged against the plate like that. It sounded like the sound effects of silverware.

I really liked that episode also. I was very impressed. But I never liked it that Penny applied for a position at Grey-Sloan and was hired and is in the show all the time now. I couldn't buy it that she would apply there or not know that Callie was friends with Derek and Meredith. And she and Callie have zero chemistry. I have no idea why Callie likes her so much. And I also don't know if it's the actress or what, but the character seems so bland and dour.

I really liked Elsbeth at first and got a big charge out of the character. She seemed a bit like a Columbo type (although weirder) . . . appearing to be incompetent but actually extremely savvy. I especially liked the episode in Season 4 where she good-naturedly dismissed Josh's advances. "Do you like the ballet?" "No." "Me neither. How about dinner?" "No." "May I ask why?" "No." It was the episode with the penguins that dampened my enthusiasm. There was too much Elsbeth and she seemed practically psychotic once we got inside her head.

I'm considering northern Illinois as more than what's due north of Chicagoland. Most of the land west of DeKalb and over to Clinton and up to Galena and back east to Rockford and over to Harvard is farms. You only have to drive 20 or 30 miles west or northwest out of Lake Zurich and it's farms everywhere. I sure wish someone on the episode would have explained that. One little comment would have sufficed. Last night, three of us were sitting around wondering what in the world loose meat sandwiches are. I envisioned a pile of shaved ham.

This is truly baffling. Zach's reaction too. He was looking out the window, marveling at the empty countryside as though they were on Mars . . . when MOST of northern and central Illinois looks like that. If somebody traveled across Illinois to Iowa and didn't ever see a 'Welcome to Iowa' sign, they'd never know they had left Illinois. Surely this family has been outside of Chicago once or twice?

I was thinking that Alicia's reaction to Eli's confession wasn't about "what might have been" with Will, since Eli's action didn't affect that in the long run. Instead it was about another betrayal. The running theme of this show seems to be betrayal and that nobody can be trusted. And ironically, Alicia betrayed Will, which he totally didn't deserve.

I think her inability to have sex because Jackson was on the couch was stupid. Who cares? Is the master bedroom right off the living room? Does their bed squeak really bad? Is she required to make a ton of racket? They can't do it quietly now and then while they have a guest on the couch? I also can't get past the idea that with her salary and Ben's "buckets of money" that they don't even have a guest room, or maybe a home office that doubles as a guest room, or something. I didn't like the way Ben finally told Jackson he had to leave and sounded half-hysterical because he hadn't been able to have sex in weeks or whatever.

As MizStaken also said on the previous page, there's nothing wrong with being a songwriter. I would think someone like Will would totally understand this. It makes me think of Bryan Adams, who was a successful songwriter before he was a star, and has continued being a successful songwriter for other artists. . . there are dozens of recordings of songs he never recorded himself. I imagine there are many other singers who became mega-stars and have similar stories. https://www.acc.umu.se/~robert/write.html

I can understand that Jackson doesn't want to go to a hotel, but I don't understand why Ben and Bailey don't have a guest room and their guest has to sleep on the couch. Between the two of them, you'd figure they gotta be making about a half a million a year.

This is important. I think Derek has made it clear all along that family is very important to him. I don't know what season/episode it was in which he said to her something like, 'I have a big family and I want that for you too.' It would have been much better storytelling to have Meredith remember those very words from him that you quote from 1x02 and make the call to Amelia. But GA isn't really about great storytelling at the moment. I agree with those who've said they understand why Meredith didn't call Amelia, but that Amelia is right to be upset. I think it was in character for Meredith, but I think she was wrong.

I was thinking Derek would feel sad if he knew she was going to move out and sell the house.

This is how I handled it too. A friend called right after the show but he had only seen the last hour and he was totally confused. He described some of it and I was confused too. Then I read recaps this morning and commentary and thought, ugh, what a mess. If we thought the last episode was lazy writing, this is over the top. Let's just not really address what happened, and skip forward a year and start over.

I feel like this too. During HIMYM's run, I didn't watch any of it in real time until the last few months, when I was really curious how it would all unfold. I had started watching it late at night in syndication the year before so I wasn't entirely invested in the story, but I still felt like the end ruined the entire series. I never watched any of the episodes in syndication after that. I had just wrapped up watching seasons 1 through 8 of Grey's on dvd (though I stopped before the plane crash episode as I didn't want to see that), most of which I'd seen before, but it was fun to watch all those episodes in a row. I'm glad I did it before this happened because I think I would have felt like you do . . . that it would make the relationship seem pointless and doomed.

I just found this forum the other day while looking to see what other people thought about this episode. I had also thought about HIMYM and how they wrecked the ending. Originally I was mainly ticked off at how lame this episode was and how many holes the plot had, even going back to the episode before from Meredith's point of view. Also how it's just one more Grey's unceremonious dispatch to the Great Beyond. But when I compare it with HIMYM, there's a bigger picture. It's the end of continuity. The show began with Meredith and Derek. We spent all these years with that as the main love story. Then blam, he gets hit by a truck and the story is over. That's a stupid ending to the story. It's no wonder so many fans are aggravated.