Joana

I totally agree, it takes me out of her story as well. I generally like Amelia's character as such, especially over the last couple of seasons, but whenever they start beating us over the head with what a mess she is/was, I just can't relate. Perhaps it was explained better on Private Practice, I don't know, but on Grey's it just looks like a huge amount of info dump that doesn't necessarily align with the character's actual behaviour. I feel they've been doing it a lot lately and it's starting to annoy me - much like the seemingly neverending line of revelations about Jo's horrible, horrible, HORRIBLE life.

I don't blame them for judging Amelia when they realized she had faked a husband - that was really absurd and I guess totally something "the old Amelia" would do. But still, I have some doubts about how sincere Nancy's intentions were. IMO, she wanted to think she was making a real effort, but a part of her was secretly hoping Amelia would somehow slip and embarrass herself, like she had done so often in the past. Had she truly wanted to spend some quality time with "the kiddo" and catch up with her, she wouldn't have invited Kathleen as well, knowing how complicated her relationship with Amelia is.

I understand that they're not close and that she's a made a huge mess a couple of times too many for them to care about her any longer, and that's fine, but in that case - why invite her over for dinner, insist that she should come and then proceed to treat her like garbage? It was borderline sadistic. Of course, she could have simply refused to come no matter what, but then again, she once spent a whole season sucking up to Meredith who actively hated her guts, so desperately seeking approval is not out of character for her. "Do you see Meredith?" was such a strange thing to ask. Of course she does, they work together. I guess it was supposed to highlight some more how out of touch they are, not knowing Meredith and Amelia live together, but you'd think they'd show at least some interest in their nieces and nephew and ask how they're doing, and instead they just left it at that.

First off, "more Amelia" is definitely not the answer to the question about what this season lacked or needed. Still, as far as those -centric episode go, there have been worse. This one had some fun moments, at least. Was the outrageous awfulness of Amelia's family ever addressed on Private Practice? It was kinda weird to watch those characters I'd never seen before act like total, unabashed assholes, and my God, they were terrible. Especially that Kathleen person, who was basically a sad trope of a psychiatrist judgmentally diagnosing everyone in their sight. On the other hand, Amelia DID try to pretend she's still married AND present her fuck buddy as her husband (and a completely different person), so I can't totally blame them for thinking she's cray-cray? I dunno. I also wouldn't have blamed Link had he run away as far as he could right there and then. Good for Amelia that he didn't. They could be fine together. I liked Amelia's conversation with her mother in the park, even though it had a bit too much of a "This is Us" vibe. Still, she has a long way to go before she redeems herself (in my eyes) for not attending Amelia's wedding. Amelia crying on the telephone and pleading with her mother begging her to come broke my heart back then. That was not cool, lady. I figured the kid would be just fine, because if he wasn't, Amelia would be shattered and there's room for just one Big Hot Mess on the show, and that position is currently being occupied by Jo.

"Meredith makes a call that could jeopardize her career". LOL, no. Who are we kidding here? I was about to say that she could set the hospital on fire and it wouldn't jeopardize her career, and then I remembered that it... ACTUALLY happened on this show. And no, it didn't jeopardize that person's career. And neither did the tons of absolutely crazy decisions various characters (including Meredith herself) have made over the years. So, short of going on a random shooting spree and killing a bunch of people, nothing is going to ruin her career. And perhaps not even that.

What really gets me is that, at least based on her conversation with Link, the main issue for her is not as much that she's a product of rape (which would understandably upset everyone), but that her mom doesn't want to hang out with her. The woman she had never met and for all she knew could have been long dead or a junkie who had alredy forgotten she ever had a baby or simply some nasty piece of work who would have accused of ruining her life when she was young and slammed the door in her face. Not to mention that the woman actually has a very valid reason for not warming up to Jo immediately, because she was, you know, raped. That Jo flatly refuses to even ackowledge that, especially after all she's been through in her life is really mind-boggling and seems wildly out of character for her. But then again, Jo's entire backstory is one huge pile of retcons at this point, she bears no resemblance to the character we were first introduced to all those seasons ago, so we might as well have a new Jo v.53, because why not.

(Un)fortunately, the kids' tour around the hospital didn't seem to include a visit to the maternity ward, where they would have overheard Carina talking about vaginas as well.

Even that feels somewhat recycled. Back then, Arizona thought that April was just "having fun and moving on with her life" until she witnessed first-hand how she was acting (which was then bizarrely dropped and never addressed again). And now Alex thinks Jo looks fine, even though she's obviously hammered and giggling like a maniac to an old cartoon, until someone (who hadn't been a part of Jo's life for like a decade) tells him that she is, in fact, not fine. And really, if that's her "being fine", I'd really hate to see what she's like when she's not fine. I had high(-ish?) hopes for this storyline, but now it looks like it's not going to be any better than all that Paul nonsense.

Oh God, I see where this is going. Owen is going to get therapy and it will magically solve all of his issues in one afternoon, he'll have an epiphany about always being in love with Teddy and she'll love him again and they'll get together, and I HATE it already. Hate hate hate. GSMH must be a haunted place that makes every adult that enters its premises act like they're 13. Megan Hunt was the latest unfortunate victim. I really wanted to slap her hard when she went all Phoebe-stanning-for-Rachel-and-Ross-to-reunite, multiplied-by-700 on us. Just shut the hell up, lady. You don't know anything about the situation. DeLuca gets Richard Webber's Seal of Approvement. What a shocking development no one could see coming. So, Alex did a better job than Bailey and Richard by... not actually doing the job and having someone else do it for him instead? K then. And how did those interns even know how to do whatever it is they were doing and why were they dealing with some bureaucratic crap instead of learning about medical procedures? And why does Bailey think it's some kind of a genius move? I don't get it. What else I don't get: Jo. Her story still makes no sense. "My mother is a runner and she can't be in the same room with me even though she says she loves me". Like, what? 1) When did she say that? and 2) THAT is what you took from that entire conversation with her? Seriously? I get that she's deeply shaken and that her mind is a mess, but that's actually being detached from reality in a "you need to get on meds NOW" kind of way. I'm not sure it was supposed to play out like that. Oh, and "My baby brought me a penis" is not a thing someone would say and the "Catherine Fox Award" will always be ridiculous.

I can understand that she had built this entire fantasy in her head about some poor soul who could barely make ends meet and couldn't possibly afford to keep a baby, but spent every day of the rest of her life regretting that she had to leave her child behind. And then the reality seemingly couldn't be any more different - here she was, this woman, who looked like she had it going pretty well, with a nice house and a family of her own, who obviously moved on with her life and decidedly did NOT dream of reuniting with her long-lost daughter. It's perfectly natural that she'd feel hurt and angry. What bothered me, however, was that her anger intensified as her birth mother was telling her story, instead of the opposite. When the woman went at great lenght into how she wished the man who impregnated her had died a more painful death, it was obvious that whatever happened between the two of them must have been much more serious than a teenage crush gone bad; and Jo of all people should have realized that. Instead she doubled down and started openly accusing and blaming her mother, which felt way off at that point. Also, I found it really strange how unprepared was for the whole thing. Meeting her birth mother was obviously a planned decision, so it's weird that she apparently never talked to anyone who went through something similar (hell, Meredith and Maggie were there and both had useful stories to share) or read about people who had such an experience, so she could be ready for the possibility of the reality not matching her fantasy, as well as devising an appropriate startegy for talking to her mother, instead of simple "Hi, I'm your daughter you abandoned at the fire station decades ago, now tell me why you did it". If they wanted to have it played out exactly this way, perhaps it would have been better if Jo had somehow accidentally found out who her mother was, had no time to process it and acted implusively. In that case, her whoel behaviour would have made more sense.

It would have probably been a lot more powerful if they hadn't tried so desperately hard to make it as powerful as possible. I was actually pleasantly surprised that no character started reciting the stats about rape rates worldwide or gave a lecture on how terrible rape is, but of course, this is Grey's, so they have to do something completely ridiculous like that line-up of women. This show really does have the subtlety of a bull in a china shop. And really, the entire hospital staff abandoning their daily duties in order to cater to a single patient is such a tired trope at this point. I also didn't care about Ben's talk to Tuck in the end. I get where they were going with it, but it felt way too heavy-handed. Jo's scenes with her mother were definitely the highlight of the episode. I've loved Michelle Forbes since Homicide and she did a great job here. I also wonder if Jo talked to anyone before going to Pittsburgh. She should have, as her expectations definitely seemed a bit too high. What I didn't like is how, even after the woman told her the entire story of her conception, she still kept pushing the "You should have known/done better" angle. You'd think someone with her background would be able to relate a bit more. And speaking of, could they possibly make her backstory even MORE tragic? Not only was she an unwanted child, she was also a product of rape. Not only was she abandoned, but she was never able to be adopted. Not only did her foster homes suck, but they sucked so much she was better off living by herself in her car. Not only does the man she fall in love with it turns out to be abusive, but the abuse she endures is so bad that she has to run away and change her identity. And on top of it all, we now find out that she also had an abortion. It's all simply way too much now and I really hope we're done with those shocking revelations about her past. I hope she talks to Alex soon and opens up to him, and that this storyline will have a proper resolution, unlike the convenient, deus-ex-machina ending of Paul's storyline.

You're not alone! I thought she looked much better with longer hair.

And don't forget that there's an Amelia-centric episode coming up! I've warmed up to her quite a lot over time, but somehow I was never really able to get into her addiction stuff (possibly because I didn't watch PP) and there's been too much of it lately. And they've just (hopefully!!!) ended her clusterfuck of a relationship with Owen, about 3 seasons too late, and they're already pairing her off with someone else? Come on.

OK, I seriously don't get it. A mentally ill woman who desperately needs routine and stability in her daily life in order to be functional suddenly takes a very long trip, apparently on a whim as the show never bothered the give an explanation as to why actually did it and shows up completely unannounced, and all of that is somehow supposed to mean that she's fine? HOW? This must be the most random storyline on this show over the last few seasons, and God knows we've had tons of those. Speaking of random, Papa DeLuca. Again, what was the point? I still hope it all somehow leads to Andrew eventually returning to Italy, for whatever reason. The shows portrayal of surgeons as actual celebrities is seriously laughable. You'd think it was revealed that Kate Winslet was the love child of Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson. IRL, no one would care that some surgeon, no matter how accomplished, had an affair and gave birth decades ago. Please make it stop. I did like Jackson remembering that GSMH is a teaching hospital and being shown as a good mentor. I think this was bugs me about Maggie the most. She's so unlike her predecessors on the show. We saw Cristina's development under the tutelage of Burke and Teddy, and in turn we knew how good they were since they passed their knowledge onto her and shaped her into the brilliant surgeon she'd eventually become. We get literally none of that with Maggie - we're just told she's oh so amazing and we're supposed to believe it.

That's the episode that "features a lot of Teddy", right? I was wondering how could she be possibly connected to someone from Jo's past, but now it's pretty obvious that person will be a patient treated by her. It's just that, shouldn't she be on maternity leave by then? Or is there going to be another time jump in the meantime?

I kept wondering why it was such a big deal. OK, having the entire world know that you used to cheat on your wife can't be pleasant, but still. I've always been under the impression that his affair with Ellis was basically a public secret in the hospital circles, no? And anyway, it happened decades ago, the people directly affected by it are dead now, Catherine knows, as does Meredith, obviously, he has no other children to be embarrassed by daddy's past and the other who might care about it should either be dead or retired by now. The whole thing is at this point more of an interesting tidbit than some huge scandal. Again, I get why he would be uncomfortable, but it looked more like drama for drama's sake. IMO Maggie's adoptive father had it even worse and I really hope she called him to explain what happened in that interview.

This might be an unpopular opinion, but I don't think Contacts did much wrong in this episode, except that "I love you" after 3-4 months of dating might be a bit soon-ish. I mean, I wouldn't want my mom to know I was just about to have sex with someone, either, and that's obviously not because I'm afraid she'll find out I'm straight. There was no reason to think that he was shame-spiralling or whatever and HAOG's "tried and true gay" act is starting to annoy me. Dating a person who is completely inexperienced in romantic and sexual affairs comes with a price and if you can't handle it, it's perfectly within your rights to pull out. But if you do decide to stick through it, at least try to understand your partner's perspective instead of freaking out whenever they do something you think they should have done differently.

Meredith dreams about Amelia mocking her mother's Alzheimer's? I sure wouldn't want to be inside that woman's head. I guess we now know where Maggie gets her petulance from. I really dislike the way Richard has been written for the last few episodes. Some things are too good to be true and Amelia and Owen breaking up FOREVER is one of them. I'll believe it when I see the closing credits of the series finale and they're still not together. But I'll try to enjoy it while it lasts because this is probably the most I've ever liked Amelia since she first appeared on the show. And I'm really glad they put an end to the stupid "Amelia is Leo's mom" retcon, because it was never supposed to work like that. Papa DeLucca is a horrible actor. His character is also annoying, I don't really care about the baby in the bag thing and I never thought I'd say this, but at this point I'd gladly trade Andrew for his sister. The only good thing about that storyline was that adorable little lamb!

This! The way Maggie acted, you'd think the woman claimed she had performed the surgery herself. Of course she's perfectly entitled to write about her experience as a patient and she was in no way "stealing Maggie's thunder" or whatever nonsense. Besides, when everyone from your own father to a colleague you have an uneasy relationship with tells you that the article was actually complimentary towards you, maybe it's time to take a step back and question your perspective. But no, not Maggie. That's why I didn't really like the speech Richard gave her. She didn't need a "Stand up for yourself" talk, she needed a "Grow the hell up already" talk.

That was really terrible. Jackson thinking that Koracick took advantage of April while she was "emotionally fragile"? Uhm, dude, remember what YOU did with April in that hotel toilet while she was emotionally fragile during your boards? And besides, the entire notion that a woman can't decide for herself that she wants to have sex in order to make herself feel better (regardless whether you think it's a sound choice or not) is really insulting. As for Richard, I know some people have a irrational dislike for their spouse's former sexual partners, but he's really taking this too far. There's absolutely no indication that either Catherine or Koracick are interested in continuing their fling. And remember when he thought that Catherine was a cheating whore? I so regret he hadn't told it to her face, the smackdown she would have laid down on him would have been epic.

Amelia has always been strangely insistent that Owen is in love with Teddy. How she reached that conclusion I'm not sure, since I think it was pretty much established that she barely knew (of) her before Owen's sister reappeared, but there you go. Anyway, if they were ever going to be the endgame, that ship has sailed after their big fallout in Germany. I'm very much convinced now that Teddy is going to be Koracick (which I approve of, they're good together, so far at least) and that Owen and Amelia will stay together. Which, booooo. Amelia deserves better. And I've said it before, but for a show that has absolutely no problem splitting up actually popular couples, they're bizarrely fixated on Owen's and Amelia's gigantic dysfunctional mess of a relationship.

Well, in a way it is kinda hilarious that it was the record-breaking, much anticipated (I suppose?) episode, and yet the moral of the story was "Life is too short, so go ahead and buy the blender of your dreams!"

On second thought, if Daddy DeLuca is here to take his son back to Italy for whatever reason, I'm ALL for it.

OK, what the hell was Maggie whining about the entire time? That article sounded like a fluff piece written for some women's magazine, so how could it possibly stop a serious medical journal from being interested in and writing about the actual surgical procedure? A party turning into a complete trainwreck is such a tired trope. I did appreciate the irony of an actually mentally ill person acting like the most rational individual there, though. I'm not sure it was intentional. Still, I call BS on Alex's mom being there in the first place. Jo knows the woman's history and she didn't find it odd that a) Alex never told her she was coming and b) he wanted to take her to a party full of complete strangers? Like, seriously? Yeah, yeah, she couldn't reach him on the phone (another lame cliche), but there were dozens of people there she could have called that could have located him, so she could check with him what was going on. It was so far-fetched. Also, I get that Alex was stunned to see her, but all that time it never occurred to him to ask her why she came? I enjoyed Bailey's interaction with Catherine until the blender nonsense came up. I don't know what's worse - Bailey getting so excited about a blender of all things, or that she with her surgeon salary and patent money was too cheap to buy one. Was that supposed to be some moment of growth for her? Still, I found the episode mostly tolerable (Owen getting punched in the face is definitely one of the highlights of the season!) until the last 5 minutes ruined EVERYTHING. Damn it, I was cheering so hard for Amelia to finally break free from Owen and she was juuuuust about getting there, and then the stupid NotBetty returns to hand Leo back to them, and of course they're going to stay together now. And I've already lost all the interest I've ever had in Andrew DeLuca, so words cannot express just how much I DON'T CARE about Daddy DeLuca.

Oh, Deanie! You were missed! It was so much worse the previous week. A child GOT SHOT. So, you can imagine. And of course, he was treated by Owen, who was facing the prospect of losing his foster child. So, you can imagine how that went down, too. And the week before, Alex only showed up to arrange a wedding ceremony for a dying patient and her fiancé, that every single doctor attended, even though the vast majority of them had nothing to do with the case.