S18.E12: The Makings of You

[Bort]

Quote

Nick whisks Meredith away; Winston and Maggie care for Meredith’s kids; Amelia and Kai grow closer.

Airdate: 17 March 2022

[funnygirl]

Maggie and Winston care for Meredith's kids? Well you don't say! She's only been full-time doing that since Mommy got her new boyfriend. At least Scout has his daddy to look after him while his mother galivants with the other boring Minnesota doctor. 

Grey's Anatomy used to do a lot better with the characters work/parenting/relationship balance. Now being a parent is an afterthought. 

[taanja]

1 minute ago, funnygirl said:

Maggie and Winston care for Meredith's kids? Well you don't say! She's only been full-time doing that since Mommy got her new boyfriend. At least Scout has his daddy to look after him while his mother galivants with the other boring Minnesota doctor. 

Grey's Anatomy used to do a lot better with the characters work/parenting/relationship balance. Now being a parent is an afterthought. 

For Meredith? as it should be! (IMO)

[windsprints]

2 hours ago, funnygirl said:

Maggie and Winston care for Meredith's kids? Well you don't say!

I'm waiting for an episode description that says "Meredith remembers she has kids". Maybe they should do an episode where she has to watch everyone else's kids. It's Maggie's turn now I guess. Amelia had them non-stop during the pandemic.

[Avabelle]

Uh an episode that focus’s solely on the sisters. No thanks!

Never thought I’d get to a point where Maggie is one of the more tolerable characters but Winston is unbearably dull and I’ve no interest in her relationship with Ellis. 

[Anela]

I think I'm out. I have no interest in seeing Amelia get involved with anyone, after they destroyed what had been a healthy relationship, and I don't want to keep watching Meredith ditch her kids, for a new boyfriend. His daughter is in college, and now his "priorities have shifted" to sex as much as possible, with Meredith. Her kids aren't in college. 

[ams1001]

So Mer left her kids with a flu-ridden babysitter. Nice. Since they're fictional characters I don't feel bad hoping all three of them get sick just in time for Mer to get home and have to deal with it.

 

"Can I keep this box of mementos of her mother my mother so obviously hid away?"

"I don't see why not...." Uh, the "ask your mom" part should have come first. And stopped there.

 

Am I the only one surprised that Silver wasn't a vegan? Dude needs to learn to read the room. Not sure why I'm supposed to care about Nick's niece, though.

Edited March 18, 2022 by ams1001

[LexieLily]

Meredith doesn't protest her boyfriend's no-phone-weekend rule and her last email is to Amelia about the FDA and not to the adults watching her kids. Did she even know one of her sitters had the flu? The show no longer even pretends that Meredith cares about her kids. I don't care about Meredith and Nick and I certainly don't care about Nick's niece and her loser boyfriend.

Finally, we're hearing Zola outright express some feelings about everything that's happened to her life after Derek's death. Winston shouldn't have blown her off and told her to just be grateful for the time she does have with Meredith. But hey, he was present, conscious, and not having fever-dreams about his biological mother, so that made him the better sitter this week.

Kai being non-binary isn't an issue for me. What is an issue is how boring they are, how uninteresting as a whole the Seattle plotline is, and how the entire flirtation between them and Amelia makes no sense storyline-wise. The show systematically destroyed Amelia and Link for no reason and doubled-down by having Link see Amelia and Kai in order to force Link/Jo together when neither of them showed feelings for each other before now. Amelia's comments to Kai about being afraid to love every part of herself because then she'd be worthy of that love makes it sound like this is all a roundabout way of getting Amelia/Link back together, making Amelia/Kai and Link/Jo a colossal waste of time.

Edited March 18, 2022 by LexieLily

[Pepper the Cat]

OMG.  
So boring. Boring. Boring. Boring.

 

[DEL901]

What a dull episode.  Filler?  Laziness?

I was expecting Zola to mention Meredith not being around.  Of course they didn’t.  

 

[pieinmyeye]

The best part of this episode was no Owen, Teddy, or Glasses.

[ams1001]

8 minutes ago, DEL901 said:

I was expecting Zola to mention Meredith not being around.  Of course they didn’t.  

When she was talking about being afraid when Meredith might die and Winston said something like 'but she's here now' I was like..."she is? where?"

[CdrJanny]

Well, that's 42 minutes of my life I'll never get back.

Snore

[Kristi800]

Totally agree that is was so boring. Was there even a show, or just ads? 

Meredith and Nick have NO chemistry. I didn't need a storyline about his niece and her whatever.

I like Kai, but I still really want Amelia with Link; is that too much to ask? I haven't seen Jonk in a while and I am not a fan. Baby Scout!

Glad that Maggie read the letter, but also that she burned it and realized that Ellis was horrible, and Mer should never have named her daughter after her. 

Edited March 18, 2022 by Kristi800
Not relevant

[JeanJean]

56 minutes ago, LexieLily said:

Meredith doesn't protest her boyfriend's no-phone-weekend rule and her last email is to Amelia about the FDA and not to the adults watching her kids.

I missed that part because I was switching between Grey's and Dr. Pimple Popper - watching a keloid be removed was more interesting.

Did he tell Meredith - someone who has kids - that she can't get calls on the weekend?

[Kristi800]

2 minutes ago, JeanJean said:

Dr. Pimple Popper - watching a keloid be removed was more interesting.

A REAL doctor!!!

[LexieLily]

3 minutes ago, JeanJean said:

Did he tell Meredith - someone who has kids - that she can't get calls on the weekend?

He said something about the cabin having a no-phones-except-for-emergencies rule (I think he was being facetious) and she didn't mention her kids but she mentioned the Seattle project and needing to email Amelia, then she was done with the phone.

[statsgirl]

All this episode needed was Teddy/Owen drama and more Schmidt and it would have hit the bottom of GA episodes.

I don't mind the idea of an episode focused on the three 'sisters'. But they picked the most boring parts of their stories, Meredith dumping her kids to be with Nick, Amelia and the non-personality Kai, and Maggie taking care of Meredith's kids and a fever dream of Ellis.

Meredith even ditched writing the paper on the research that she is supposed to head for a sex weekend.

2 hours ago, LexieLily said:

Meredith doesn't protest her boyfriend's no-phone-weekend rule and her last email is to Amelia about the FDA and not to the adults watching her kids. Did she even know one of her sitters had the flu? The show no longer even pretends that Meredith cares about her kids. I don't care about Meredith and Nick and I certainly don't care about Nick's niece and her loser boyfriend.

For all that Nick professes caring about his niece and wanting her to avoid bad decisions, he really doesn't have any idea of parenting nor does he care.

[LexieLily]

2 minutes ago, statsgirl said:

All this episode needed was Teddy/Owen drama and more Schmidt and it would have hit the bottom of GA episodes.

This one and the one where Teddy was cationic about DeLuca's murder are in the bottom five of the last few years, for sure.

[windsprints]

Dull overall but maybe it was setting up some changes: Kai saying they didn't want children & Amelia talking about how important being a mom was to her seemed like setting a reason for them to discontinue the relationship. Nick's niece going off to travel plus him talking about his specialty could be setting up him moving to Seattle. Grey Sloan has open spots for surgeons so they'll just bring him in. Easy move for him if his niece is off traveling the world. If they want Nick to be a long term love interest for Meredith they have to get him to Seattle some way.

I really hope something shifts and the show picks up the storytelling.

[jcbrown]

Good grief. What genius decided that the episode we needed was centered on Meredith, whatshisname, and his niece; Maggie and whatshisname ( who acquitted himself better than anyone else is this episode) and Ellis, an objectively terrible person; and Amelia and the tremendously boring what’stheirname.  That genius was wrong. This is not what I give a shit about, show. Quite the opposite.

[Avabelle]

They’ve all but canonised Amelia at this point. Everything that comes out of her mouth is so saintly. Even the spiel about not loving every part of herself. It’s supposed to excuse her decisions yet I just feel it’s yet another reason for her to paint herself as the saintly victim in everything. She takes no responsibility for any of her actions. While her and Linc had differences she completely bulldozed that relationship for Kai and now it’s obvious they’re circling back to Linc/Amelia that she comes across as even more flaky. I’ve no desire watching st. Amelia step back and pine over him when she’s the one who was over the relationship without a second glance. 
 

Edited March 18, 2022 by Avabelle

[DEL901]

I was surprised that no one (eg Maggie) expressed concern that Mer was keeping the letter fr9m her for years.  

[chitowngirl]

4 hours ago, DEL901 said:

I was surprised that no one (eg Maggie) expressed concern that Mer was keeping the letter fr9m her for years.  

When Ellis died, did Meredith even know/remember she had a sister? Wouldn’t she have opened and read the letter, wondering who Margaret is?

[NoReally]

11 hours ago, JeanJean said:

watching a keloid be removed was more interesting.

And less barf-inducing! 

[taanja]

I actually liked this ep. LOL

Meredith is still my favorite. I laughed that not one of the (ghost) children mentioned their mother - or if they did -- it was like an after thought!!!  Mere doesn't miss them and they are obviously so used to her being gone -- they didn't think to mention her or ask anything about her! 

The little actress they picked to play Ellis the child looks very much like Kate Burton - the actress who plays Mere's (and Maggie's) mother. The little boy looks more like Mere -- so they didn't  make either of Derek's kids look like him at all. Oh the irony! 

I even liked Maggie's fevered vision of Ellis. She is an adopted child so I can understand her feelings of abandonment and the -- why did you give me away? question that would have plagued her all her life. Why did you keep Meredith and not me? Why didn't you love me?

I didn't even mind the side story of Nick and his niece. 

Mere gets a lot of shit for never being with her kids but when was the last time Amelia was shown with Scout (<That's his name - right?) or even mention that fact that she has a kid?  She - like Meredith-- seem to live perfectly well without the kids bogging them down

Just saying.

[iMonrey]

Quote

Kai being non-binary isn't an issue for me. What is an issue is how boring they are, how uninteresting as a whole the Seattle plotline is, and how the entire flirtation between them and Amelia makes no sense storyline-wise. The show systematically destroyed Amelia and Link for no reason and doubled-down by having Link see Amelia and Kai in order to force Link/Jo together when neither of them showed feelings for each other before now.

Ditto to this whole thing. First of all, I get the distinct impression the only reason Kai is on this show is to check some kind of woke box. Which is fine, but they destroyed two of the best relationships to shoehorn the character into the story. Kai could have been a patient at Greys, or a new doctor that got involved with someone who wasn't already involved with someone else. They didn't need to break up Amelia and Linc or ruin the great friendship Linc and Jo had. 

At this point, even if the endgame is still supposed to be Amelia and Linc I don't want to see them back together. The show blew it.

Quote

I was surprised that no one (eg Maggie) expressed concern that Mer was keeping the letter from her for years.  

When Ellis died, did Meredith even know/remember she had a sister? Wouldn’t she have opened and read the letter, wondering who Margaret is?

That's the other thing. Clearly Meredith boxed up this stuff, when she came across an envelope marked "Margaret" did she not even bother to open it and look at it?  Because she read Ellis's entire journal and eventually gave that to Maggie when she first met her. Hard to believe she just stuffed a bunch of other junk into a box like "Oh well, more of her things, no need to look it over, I've read the journal."

Edited March 18, 2022 by iMonrey

[JeanJean]

21 minutes ago, taanja said:

The little actress they picked to play Ellis the child looks very much like Kate Burton - the actress who plays Mere's (and Maggie's) mother.

I noticed that too!

[LexieLily]

16 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

That's the other thing. Clearly Meredith boxed up this stuff, when she came across an envelope marked "Margaret" did she not even bother to open it and look at it?  Because she read Ellis's entire journal and eventually gave that to Maggie when she first met her. Hard to believe she just stuffed a bunch of other junk into a box like "Oh well, more of her things, no need to look it over, I've read the journal."

Based on all the things we've learned about Ellis over the years, I find it hard to believe she would have ever written a letter to Margaret/Maggie like that in the first place. 

[funnygirl]

28 minutes ago, LexieLily said:

Based on all the things we've learned about Ellis over the years, I find it hard to believe she would have ever written a letter to Margaret/Maggie like that in the first place. 

These writers don't know Grey's history or what continuity is. 

[RedbirdNelly]

there was a lot of fan waving you had to do with the letter--that it was ever written by Ellis, that it was in a loose box (more believable--they find it in a box that was sealed up a long time ago so no one realized it was there), that Ellis stayed involved enough with Maggie to know her name (given the times when open adoptions were rare and what we know of Ellis's cold nature, that was really unlikely). 

I agree this was dull--the previews for this episode looked boring and it didn't disappoint with that regard.

I don't care about Nick's niece and it's not like she was dropping out of high school. 

They need to get everyone who is a main character in Seattle and start writing some interesting stories. 

[Anela]

1 hour ago, taanja said:

I actually liked this ep. LOL

Meredith is still my favorite. I laughed that not one of the (ghost) children mentioned their mother - or if they did -- it was like an after thought!!!  Mere doesn't miss them and they are obviously so used to her being gone -- they didn't think to mention her or ask anything about her! 

The little actress they picked to play Ellis the child looks very much like Kate Burton - the actress who plays Mere's (and Maggie's) mother. The little boy looks more like Mere -- so they didn't  make either of Derek's kids look like him at all. Oh the irony! 

I even liked Maggie's fevered vision of Ellis. She is an adopted child so I can understand her feelings of abandonment and the -- why did you give me away? question that would have plagued her all her life. Why did you keep Meredith and not me? Why didn't you love me?

I didn't even mind the side story of Nick and his niece. 

Mere gets a lot of shit for never being with her kids but when was the last time Amelia was shown with Scout (<That's his name - right?) or even mention that fact that she has a kid?  She - like Meredith-- seem to live perfectly well without the kids bogging them down

Just saying.

At least she mentioned that she loved her kid, and wanted to get back to them.  I didn’t want to watch, because it’s all about moving forward new relationships, that was it.  Except for Maggie.  and Scout doesn’t only have one parent left.  I always hated that Ellis wanted nothing to do with her family, but this strong, independent, pioneering woman fawned over Richard.  He mattered, nobody else.  If she couldn’t have Richard, she didn’t want any of it.  It’s like in another show, where the most driven female character just exclaimed one day, “we’re happy! We have boyfriends!” 

I stopped watching when they ditched two characters suddenly, two actresses, and started watching when I had grey’s running when I wasn’t feeling well, and saw Linc stand up for Amelia, to her shitty family.  Also saw teddy throw Owen out, but that didn’t last long.  Now Amelia is off on a new fling, and they’ve made him a dolt who slept with his best friend, somehow thinking it would be no big deal.  I just have no interest in any of it.  These people just left a guy who had terrible mental health, sitting on the ground, alone, out of it.  

[statsgirl]

1 hour ago, taanja said:

Mere gets a lot of shit for never being with her kids but when was the last time Amelia was shown with Scout (<That's his name - right?) or even mention that fact that she has a kid?  She - like Meredith-- seem to live perfectly well without the kids bogging them down

We saw Amelia being the primary care-giver for all four kids while Meredith was sick with Covid and Maggie was living in a hotel room so that she could work. We've also seen Amelia with Scout or wanting to get back to Scout this season. Unlike Meredith's kids, Scout has a living parent who he spends time with. And Scout spends a lot of time with Linc because they use Scout and Luna to try to tie Jo and Linc together.

40 minutes ago, Anela said:

 I always hated that Ellis wanted nothing to do with her family, but this strong, independent, pioneering woman fawned over Richard.  He mattered, nobody else.  If she couldn’t have Richard, she didn’t want any of it.  It’s like in another show, where the most driven female character just exclaimed one day, “we’re happy! We have boyfriends!”

The insane personality of the show decrees that while it's about professionals and set in a hospital, the stories are all about relationships so of course Ellis has to be awful to her daughters and crazy about Richard.  If ever a woman should not have had children, it's Ellis, who always put them last behind her work and her men. Something Meredith herself has inherited.

I'm still pissed off that Meredith ditched writing the article (the boring slog part) to Amelia and Kai and went off for a sex weekend, although not as pissed off as that she left her kids when she's been leaving them all season.  No wonder Zola is so attached to Derek.

[LexieLily]

10 minutes ago, statsgirl said:

I'm still pissed off that Meredith ditched writing the article (the boring slog part) to Amelia and Kai and went off for a sex weekend, although not as pissed off as that she left her kids when she's been leaving them all season.  No wonder Zola is so attached to Derek.

Zola is going to be a teenager/tweenager soon, if she isn't already, and for the vast majority of the last two/three years she's been raised by a revolving lineup of Amelia, Link, and Maggie. Even Alex cared for her back in the day almost as much as Meredith. What happens when Zola has her first big problem at school, or gets her period, or has a question about boys? More than likely she'd go to Maggie or Amelia over Meredith.

[Kristi800]

2 hours ago, taanja said:

They need to get everyone who is a main character in Seattle and start writing some interesting stories. 

And no failed Station 19 crossovers.

I felt so bad for Mer's father, forget his name. He stood by while his wife had an affair with a married man and then she zipped out to Boston (pregnant) with his daughter whom he never got to see and he gets crap for leaving them? He then lost his wife to hiccups, become an alcoholic (but not due to the pain Ellis inflicted on him), and then lose a daughter in a plane crash and Meredith could barely talk to him when he was dying.

Zola should be at least 13 by now, right? Is this reverse SORASing?

[taanja]

1 hour ago, LexieLily said:

Zola is going to be a teenager/tweenager soon, if she isn't already, and for the vast majority of the last two/three years she's been raised by a revolving lineup of Amelia, Link, and Maggie. Even Alex cared for her back in the day almost as much as Meredith. What happens when Zola has her first big problem at school, or gets her period, or has a question about boys? More than likely she'd go to Maggie or Amelia over Meredith.

Seeing little Ellis - she is about 6-7yrs old? maybe? so that means Derek has been dead at least that long. Zola was just a little kid - I bet she barely remembers him and the boy and little girl do not remember him at all. 

All those kids know is Meredith and the situation they finds themselves daily -- lots of different babysitters (and I assume a nanny?) They don't behave (on screen) as if they are dysfunctional or whatever -- not yet anyway. In other words - they don't know any better.

I feel the audience cares more (about the children) and is more offended by their "situation" than the characters are.

as to Amelia-- sure last year when Mere had COVID she helped but this season? She has not once (has she? been shown with her own kid. The kid may have a father but that doesn't mean he doesn't deserve to see his Mother once in a while.

Anyway - I obviously have NO problem with Meredith's neglect! 

[statsgirl]

5 hours ago, taanja said:

 as to Amelia-- sure last year when Mere had COVID she helped but this season? She has not once (has she? been shown with her own kid. The kid may have a father but that doesn't mean he doesn't deserve to see his Mother once in a while.

Their morning after,  Kai asked Amelia to stay longer and Amelia replied no, because she was longing to get back to Scout with every cell. Being a mother was that important to her and she hoped that it wouldn't put Kai off. In the last scene, as Maggie is telling Meredith and Amelia about the letter, Scout is sitting in Amelia's lap.

Zola asked Winston if he thought that her birth mother ever wondered about her.

I doubt that they would show Meredith's kids being dysfunctional  -- she is "the sun" after all.

[KaveDweller]

10 hours ago, chitowngirl said:

When Ellis died, did Meredith even know/remember she had a sister? Wouldn’t she have opened and read the letter, wondering who Margaret is?

It seemed like a forgotten box. Did Meredith actually ever go through all of Ellis's stuff when she died? Maybe she just pushed stuff into a closet and never even looked at it.

Although wasn't someone else living it that house when she and Derek were in the dream house? Alex maybe? You'd think that person would have gotten rid of all Ellis's old stuff.

[windsprints]

1 hour ago, KaveDweller said:

Although wasn't someone else living it that house when she and Derek were in the dream house? Alex maybe? You'd think that person would have gotten rid of all Ellis's old stuff.

Alex bought the house from her and lived there. She didn't live in that house for years, including the year when she left Seattle and had Ellis. I can't see how that 1 box was left behind all that time and left in a closet that is in use. It's not like it was shoved in a corner in the basement.

2 hours ago, statsgirl said:

The morning after Kai asked Amelia to stay longer and Amelia replied no, because she was longing to get back to Scout with every cell

It contrasts how Meredith was in a similar situation. After being stuck in Minnesota on Thanksgiving Meredith chose not to go home to see her kids the next day when the weather cleared. Instead she went to the cabin with Nick.

Amelia spent time with Scout on Thanksgiving and I think other episodes this season. She's talked about Scout and we know that she co-parents with Linc. Since she arrived in Seattle she's been shown caring for Meredith 's kids (as has Maggie). Amelia may be flaky in terms of relationships but I can't recall anything that showed her not trying to be nurturing to the children in her life. We're never going to see day to day interactions with any characters' kids & I don't think people expect that. I can't recall any scene where Meredith put her kids first, not just in this episode, but in years and years (if ever). TBH in any scene with her kids she comes across as so cold.

 

[LexieLily]

3 minutes ago, windsprints said:

Amelia spent time with Scout on Thanksgiving and I think other episodes this season. She's talked about Scout and we know that she co-parents with Linc. Since she arrived in Seattle she's been shown caring for Meredith 's kids (as has Maggie). Amelia may be flaky in terms of relationships but I can't recall anything that showed her not trying to be nurturing to the children in her life. We're never going to see day to day interactions with any characters' kids & I don't think people expect that. I can't recall any scene where Meredith put her kids first, not just in this episode, but in years and years (if ever). TBH in any scene with her kids she comes across as so cold.

I don't remember her coming off particularly warm in the scene where she told Young(er) Zola and Bailey that Derek was dead, either.

[Anela]

I do remember their joy, when Zola was small. When Bailey was a baby, Callie was living with them for a little while, with her little one. They were all helping each other. 

[30 Helens]

Even Rock Star Kai is boring. Gotta hand it to them, that takes an impressive lack of personality.

[JeanJean]

23 hours ago, Anela said:

 It’s like in another show, where the most driven female character just exclaimed one day, “we’re happy! We have boyfriends!” 
 

Sex and the City?

[Bboppy]

This was so boring. Why spend so much on a character we never met before. 
 

I agree with those that think greys needs to end. If greys can fictionalize a “post-Covid world”, I think they should have a final season where they bring as many characters that they can from the first 5 seasons.  I don’t care if they died, in this fictional last season, they’d be alive again. Those characters made this show great. 

Edited March 20, 2022 by Bboppy

[CarpeFelis]

On 3/18/2022 at 9:03 AM, taanja said:

Mere gets a lot of shit for never being with her kids but when was the last time Amelia was shown with Scout (<That's his name - right?) or even mention that fact that she has a kid?  She - like Meredith-- seem to live perfectly well without the kids bogging them down

She did mention Scout to Kai when she was getting ready to leave for Seattle. She claimed to miss her son “with every cell of [her] body”. Not exactly believable…

I was really tempted to fast forward through the Ellis scenes. The “Great Ellis Grey” gives me a big pain.

These writers, geez. Nick’s niece and “Silver” bust in on their supposedly romantic weekend and Nick and Meredith don’t send them packing, really? Or at least tell them they only brought enough food for two? Seems very unrealistic to me. Silver sure as hell wouldn’t get to eat my steak.

[izabella]

I don't understand why Nick's niece and Silver were brought on at all.  There wasn't enough story for an entire segment of Nick and Meredith? 

[Anela]

9 hours ago, JeanJean said:

Sex and the City?

Paris, from Gilmore Girls. I know it's a common thing, for relationships to make you happy, but it was one sentence that turned my stomach. I've loved the movies or shows, where a "soulmate" or "true love" turned out to be a sister's love, a mother's love, a best friend. 

[Avabelle]

10 hours ago, CarpeFelis said:

She did mention Scout to Kai when she was getting ready to leave for Seattle. She claimed to miss her son “with every cell of [her] body”. Not exactly believable…

Massive eyeroll. Everything out of her mouth has to be so dramatic. 

 

I do think she’s a more hands on parent than Mer. I also think it’s an incredibly low bar.
 

 

[lamadeleine]

On 3/18/2022 at 7:11 PM, Anela said:

I do remember their joy, when Zola was small. When Bailey was a baby, Callie was living with them for a little while, with her little one. They were all helping each other. 

Yes- this show always seems to know how to do something story-wise with births and babies, but the writers have never been strongly invested in what happens to the main character's kids beyond that ...that being said, I thought the young actress playing Zola did a good job with what she was given this week.

Other random thoughts:

-Stop. Just stop with the stupid fever-dream episodes. I had no idea what the point of that whole thing was. I could have maybe understood something like this if it had happened when Maggie was first introduced on the show, but at this point, it's like "Oh...Maggie's been harboring all this anxiety about her place in the Grey family all this time?...Huh. Ok. And I care because...why?"

-Nick/Mer- I wonder if it got back to the writers that there was a persistent fan theory floating around that Nick was nothing more than figment of Mer's imagination. The show seems to be now desperately trying to build a character/backstory for Nick when that groundwork should have been put in place as soon as SS was a lock to come back- thus the niece/Silver plot. I think they're trying to show that Nick has people in his life outside of Mer, that he's capable of experiencing/causing tension and conflict, and that he's not just the weirdly perfect robot boyfriend that was initially introduced to us. I'm baffled as to why we don't get to see Nick actually interacting in a meaningful way with the people in Mer's life..you know, like her kids, her family, her colleagues.

-Kai/Amelia- I'm fairly neutral on this one. I do think ERF/CS have good chemistry together, so I'm willing to see where this goes. I like the character of Kai, but ERF doesn't seem to have a lot of range as an actor so...

[MarylandGirl]

I wasn't going to bother watching this but was awake in the middle of the night last night, so decided to go for it. The Maggie stuff was OK, along with Meredith's kids (though I still don't feel I have much of a sense of who Winston is beyond a nice, intelligent, attractive guy).

Kai and Amelia--eh, I don't know. Amelia just seemed so over-the-top into them (with the goo-goo eyes), but I'm not getting mutual chemistry. I guess the plant-naming thing was supposed to make Kai seem quirky or something, but it fell flat for me. And as someone mentioned above, they managed to be a boring rock singer. And they definitely don't seem into the idea of kids, so don't see how this would work out long-term.

Nick, Meredith, niece (blanking on her name), and Silver--zzzz. Silver was such a caricature, the whole "I'm a student of the world!" I suppose it was supposed to be setting up a conflict between Meredith and Nick, as Meredith was like the niece. But it was all just really boring and cliched. Couldn't they have thrown in some sort of medical emergency maybe? (In this or any of the plot lines.) Something to make it interesting? And they're stuck out in the cabin and have to make do with what they have?