S13.E03: I Ain't No Miracle Worker

[Deanie87]

While I agree about all of that with Alex and how he has no excuse (even if he thought she was being attacked, which I don't necessarily believe is the 100% unfiltered truth - see my above post) I also think its a bit of an exaggeration to say that he beat DeLuca "almost to death," or "within an inch of his life."  He beat him severely, yes, but DeLuca was back at work PERFORMING SURGERY, within a week or two or whatever the timeline was.  He was lucid and talking the day of/after the beating.  So I don't blame Alex for pleading not guilty to a felony.

I don't mind this storyline for Alex as much as some, mainly because anything is better for me than what he got the last two seasons.  But also, I find Alex's darker aspects more interesting than his Hero Doc Child Savior/Best "Person" role, especially as it relates to his past.  My hope is that he will be forced to get some kind of anger managment/therapy and that this will some how come into play with Jo's backstory and her (hopefully soon to come) arc.  If Meredith is ordered to go to therapy for getting beat up, surely Alex will be required to go to therapy for actually doing the beating.  That's the hope anyway.

[Joana]

23 minutes ago, Deanie87 said:

While I agree about all of that with Alex and how he has no excuse (even if he thought she was being attacked, which I don't necessarily believe is the 100% unfiltered truth - see my above post) I also think its a bit of an exaggeration to say that he beat DeLuca "almost to death," or "within an inch of his life."  He beat him severely, yes, but DeLuca was back at work PERFORMING SURGERY, within a week or two or whatever the timeline was.  He was lucid and talking the day of/after the beating.  So I don't blame Alex for pleading not guilty to a felony.

IMO it's a case of the show wanting to have its cake and eat it too. DeLuca's condition seemed really bad and his injuries were quite severe. That was obviously done for dramatic purposes, the opening episode of a new season needed to have the shock factor amped up to the max. But then, if they decided to stick to it, DeLuca couldn't have gone back to work that soon and his recovery process would need to take some time and they obviously weren't interested in showing that (just like they wouldn't be bothered about anyone else not named Meredith) AND there would have to be some actual consequences for Alex, like going to jail and losing his job, and they wouldn't want that either. So, it end it became a sucky compromise: DeLuca is banged up badly - ZOMG! Drama!!!; but then he's just fine and can go on with his daily life - Alex can redeem himself within a few episodes.

I'm pretty sure he will have to undergo some sort of therapy. What I really hope is that he himself realizes it's something he needs and does not just see it as something he needs to get over with before Bailey gives him his job back.

[DearEvette]

46 minutes ago, Deanie87 said:

He beat him severely, yes, but DeLuca was back at work PERFORMING SURGERY, within a week or two or whatever the timeline was.  He was lucid and talking the day of/after the beating.  So I don't blame Alex for pleading not guilty to a felony.

Heh.  That is the Grey's Sci-Fi timeline stuff happening.  Kinda like last season where one episode April is barely showing and Mer and Riggs have sex.  But in what is apparently only a day or two later at the wedding, April is ready to pop and can give birth to a viable child.

[Chicken Wing]

Quote

He beat him severely, yes, but DeLuca was back at work PERFORMING SURGERY, within a week or two or whatever the timeline was.  He was lucid and talking the day of/after the beating.  So I don't blame Alex for pleading not guilty to a felony.

You plead to whatever is the smartest option for you. If he had been charged with a misdemeanor like they thought he would be, I think he was going to plead guilty or no contest and they probably had a plan to negotiate for probation or something. But the DA sprung the felony charge on him instead. He had to plead not guilty; he couldn't afford the penalty of that conviction. Prison time. Dismissal from his job. Possible revocation of his medical license. He was better off pleading not guilty and having the case continued, allowing his attorney time to address and negotiate these charges at a later date, or if worse comes to worse taking his chances going to trial and hope to get acquitted -- even though he is, as point of fact, guilty of a felony as charged. He did do the action, and the level of the assault qualified as a felony, ergo, he committed a felony. But he does himself no favors admitting to such. He didn't plead not guilty because "oh, the attack wasn't that bad, this shouldn't be charged as a felony." Yes it was, and should. He pled not guilty because that was the legal corner he had been boxed into.

Edited October 8, 2016 by Chicken Wing

[mojito]

Interesting that DeLuca mentions to Arizona that he has medical bills to pay off. Will he sue Alex in a civil case for damages? Will Alex volunteer to play off DeLuca's medical bills? (Yeah, off into the weeds, I know, but I'm a little sensitive to medical bills.)

Meredith is like a cat toying with a mouse. I don't think she owes Maggie any explanation of her past with what's-his-name. It's none of Maggie's business. Talking about Maggie with him, the way she does, just comes off as cruel. 

The "sister" crap is plain old stupid. Stop. 

This show is a soap opera about doctors hooking up in the midst of medical drama. Kids are merely a prop. If the married characters didn't get pregnant, viewers would complain that no one is having babies. But truly, except for a sick baby, children add little to the plot. So their not showing Meredith's children is as acceptable to me as their not showing me Meredith doing laundry or going for her annual teeth cleaning. I know more happens than they're depicting, and it does not further the plot.

Let's get back to Richard being Arizona's wing man.

[Deanie87]

1 hour ago, Chicken Wing said:

You plead to whatever is the smartest option for you. If he had been charged with a misdemeanor like they thought he would be, I think he was going to plead guilty or no contest and they probably had a plan to negotiate for probation or something. But the DA sprung the felony charge on him instead. He had to plead not guilty; he couldn't afford the penalty of that conviction. Prison time. Dismissal from his job. Possible revocation of his medical license. He was better off pleading not guilty and having the case continued, allowing his attorney time to address and negotiate these charges at a later date, or if worse comes to worse taking his chances going to trial and hope to get acquitted -- even though he is, as point of fact, guilty of a felony as charged. He did do the action, and the level of the assault qualified as a felony, ergo, he committed a felony. But he does himself no favors admitting to such. He didn't plead not guilty because "oh, the attack wasn't that bad, this shouldn't be charged as a felony." Yes it was, and should. He pled not guilty because that was the legal corner he had been boxed into.

That's assuming that Grey's will keep the legal stuff realistic.  I will be shocked if they don't have a trail either way for all of the drama possibilities.  People choosing sides, Jo testifying against Alex, the stuff about the husband coming out.  Surely that stuff can't come out in a private conversation, it needs to be part of the court record!  Either way, I'm still not convinced that DeLuca was circling the drain.  

Quote

 

Interesting that DeLuca mentions to Arizona that he has medical bills to pay off. Will he sue Alex in a civil case for damages? Will Alex volunteer to play off DeLuca's medical bills? (Yeah, off into the weeds, I know, but I'm a little sensitive to medical bills.)

 

He can just add them to Izzie's and his family's.  At this point, Alex should just a consolidation loan, or seriously consider prison.  It might be cheaper.

[Evie]

1 hour ago, Deanie87 said:

That's assuming that Grey's will keep the legal stuff realistic.  I will be shocked if they don't have a trail either way for all of the drama possibilities.  People choosing sides, Jo testifying against Alex, the stuff about the husband coming out.  Surely that stuff can't come out in a private conversation, it needs to be part of the court record!  Either way, I'm still not convinced that DeLuca was circling the drain.  

He can just add them to Izzie's and his family's.  At this point, Alex should just a consolidation loan, or seriously consider prison.  It might be cheaper.

I'm sure you're right about a trial. Unfortunately plea bargains aren't dramatic because that's what would happen in real life.

[windsprints]

Quote

That's assuming that Grey's will keep the legal stuff realistic.  I will be shocked if they don't have a trail either way for all of the drama possibilities.  People choosing sides, Jo testifying against Alex, the stuff about the husband coming out.  Surely that stuff can't come out in a private conversation, it needs to be part of the court record!  Either way, I'm still not convinced that DeLuca was circling the drain.  

Grey's won't keep the legal stuff realistic. That was over when Alex's lawyer stood there gobsmacked after the charges were changed without even asking for a recess to talk to/advise her client after the change. Instead she stood there telling him he had to say something. Gee, helpful.  I agree with everything else that you said.  I half jokingly posted in Jo's thread that Alex would find out about Jo's husband during the trial while DeLuca was testifying. Its very soap opera and very Grey's.

As for all the medical bills - DeLuca was injured by an attending physician on their staff. You'd think the hospital board would write off whatever costs aren't covered by insurance and have DeLuca sign off on not holding the hospital at fault in any proceedings surrounding his attack (hostile work environment, etc).

[Chicken Wing]

Quote

That's assuming that Grey's will keep the legal stuff realistic.  I will be shocked if they don't have a trail either way for all of the drama possibilities.  People choosing sides, Jo testifying against Alex, the stuff about the husband coming out.  Surely that stuff can't come out in a private conversation, it needs to be part of the court record!  Either way, I'm still not convinced that DeLuca was circling the drain.  

I fully expect them to settle this whole mess over a round of rock, paper, scissors.

Anyway, DeLuca didn't have to actually be near-death for the attack to be brutal enough to qualify as aggravated assault, aka a felony. A lot of posters have tossed around the phrases "beaten within an inch of his life" and such, but it's mostly hyperbole as it did not appear that DeLuca's life was actually in the balance when they were working on him. But it was a brutal beating, and he was grievously injured. The fact that his life wasn't actually in danger, that he was not left incapacitated for a significant length of time, that he was not permanently maimed or disfigured (as of yet), that he is well on the road to recovery in whatever imaginary time frame has gone by since it happened doesn't take away from the seriousness of what did happen to him. It was a vicious, violent beatdown. DeLuca's injuries were horrific and I can easily see how a lawyer could argue that they would meet the threshold for aggravated assault. It doesn't have to be so bad that you might have died (although certainly, he could have - e.g., brain swelling) to still be vicious and brutal.

Edited October 8, 2016 by Chicken Wing

[Ohwell]

34 minutes ago, Chicken Wing said:

It doesn't have to be so bad that you might have died (although certainly, he could have - e.g., brain swelling) to still be vicious and brutal.

So to me, a possible brain swelling would constitute "within an inch of his life."

[Chicken Wing]

23 minutes ago, Ohwell said:

So to me, a possible brain swelling would constitute "within an inch of his life."

I used brain swelling as a for instance. But if I remember the premiere correctly, which I probably don't, his head CT was clear for that. I'm just saying that's something that could have resulted from the beating his face and head took. It could have been something that might have killed him. But even without a literally life-threatening injury, what he did suffer was still serious enough to warrant the felony charge.

Edited October 8, 2016 by Chicken Wing

[Deanie87]

I agree that it was a vicious beating and given the right circumstances, even one punch can be deadly. My annoyance stems from what Joana said.  They up the severity for the sake of drama, indicating that DeLuca may lose his vision and will never practice medicine again, when lo and behold, he scrubs in the very next episode. Alex has anger and violence issues, clearly, but if they are going to insist that he is an attempted murderer and a possible felon, then he should just be flat out fired and jailed, which we know isn't gonna happen.  Although I am  (pleasantly) surprised at how long it looks like  the "punishment" will stick.

[DearEvette]

5 hours ago, mojito said:

Meredith is like a cat toying with a mouse. I don't think she owes Maggie any explanation of her past with what's-his-name. It's none of Maggie's business. Talking about Maggie with him, the way she does, just comes off as cruel. 

Yes, she is toying with Maggie.  And yes it is cruel.  But what she and Riggs has isn't the past.  Meredith  is stringing him along as much as she is Maggie.  Asking him to not go out on the date and flirting with him is definitely continuing to show present interest and keeping him dangling. 

If she had no real interest in him, she'd shut him down definitively and would actively encourage him to date Maggie.  And their sex in the car would have just been a nice memory, a simple one and done.  But she isn't doing that.  This is why I think no matter how tiresome Maggie is with her incessant talking about Riggs, she is just merely being annoying.  But Mer is on another level of obnoxious here.  Even if Meredith doesn't really consider herself close to Maggie and doesn't feel that whole sisterly thing, she knows that Maggie clearly does feel that way. Given how obvious Maggie is about her feelings for Meredith and her feelings for Riggs, what Meredith is doing playing head games and that makes Mer the sole asshole in this scenario.

Edited October 8, 2016 by DearEvette

[Ohwell]

Meredith seems to take smug pleasure in toying with Maggie and Riggs.  I got all over Maggie last season for punching that woman in the face last season; she was all kinds of wrong.  However, once she finds out the about Meredith/Riggs, I would take great pleasure in seeing her punch Meredith in the throat.  I know that probably won't happen because, after all, Meredith is the Sun but I would like to see either: 1) Maggie getting back with DeLuca, or 2) even better, Riggs discovering that he really does like Maggie and they wind up together.  I'd like to see the look on Meredith's face if that happens and she catches them pawing each other in the janitor's closet.    

[Pinecone]

5 hours ago, windsprints said:

Grey's won't keep the legal stuff realistic. That was over when Alex's lawyer stood there gobsmacked after the charges were changed without even asking for a recess to talk to/advise her client after the change. Instead she stood there telling him he had to say something. Gee, helpful.  I agree with everything else that you said.  I half jokingly posted in Jo's thread that Alex would find out about Jo's husband during the trial while DeLuca was testifying. Its very soap opera and very Grey's.

As for all the medical bills - DeLuca was injured by an attending physician on their staff. You'd think the hospital board would write off whatever costs aren't covered by insurance and have DeLuca sign off on not holding the hospital at fault in any proceedings surrounding his attack (hostile work environment, etc).

Anytime you have a sudden injury like that, you start running up incidental bills. De Luca can't drive, so he must have been getting Ubers to work; you are too exhausted to cook so you get takeout; you get your laundry done, someone to clean, etc. 

[mojito]

Quote

Meredith seems to take smug pleasure in toying with Maggie and Riggs.

Riggs knows he's being toyed with, and is doing the same. 

[backformore]

On ‎10‎/‎7‎/‎2016 at 11:53 AM, taanja said:

The SURGEON-- not a nurse mind you but a surgeon (Amelia) looking up the injuries of patients in front of a woman who says she's the mother (how does Amelia know this?) and then blithely informing the woman of all their injuries had me going ---patient confidentiality anyone???? and then the blabbing to the family that it was the long lost daughter/sister who caused the accident. and then blabbing to the long lost daughter that the family had been informed while the patient was in the middle of a procedure! Oy. This show.

that part drove me crazy.   A computer with names of patients shouldn't even be in an area where any random visitor could see a list of patients.  And telling a visitor details of patient injuries?  The patients were adults, not children, so their mother is not entitled to information about their injuries. 
PLUS, when one patient is yelling about how he wants to know who caused the accident so he can SUE -  it's not the doctor's place to let everyone know who caused the accident! 

[Chicken Wing]

Heh, twenty years ago when my mother and I arrived at the hospital to see my grandmother, the nurse looked up her file on the computer with us standing right behind her watching. Very awkward when my grandmother's name came up with EXPIRED next to it. It happens. To the nurse's credit, she was horrified.

[Canada]

There is no way in hell someone can be declared dead incorrectly.

And there is definitely no way someone can be dead for so long and then suddenly wake up with no residual neurological damage.

Of all the BS I've seen on Grey's, this was some of the worst.

[Chicken Wing]

Apparently it's true. When the woman woke up and they declared it Lazarus syndrome, I decided to Google it right away because it sounded like one of those things that should be made up but probably isn't -- it isn't, and, incidentally, the very second sentence on the Wikipedia entry is that it has happened 38 times since 1982. (The Grey's writers are getting lazy.) I'm not sure how long this woman was "dead" before she woke up, but in the examples the Wikipedia page lists several of the people came back after a matter of minutes, or half hour, etc., with one noted as coming back two and a half hours after being pronounced dead. Indeed some were discovered to be alive only after they were already in the mortuary -- one woman was snoring. Some of the people noted, though, died again, for real this time, days later. Neurological damage is certainly a possible issue; another woman who came back, and stayed back, sued the hospital over it.

Edited October 9, 2016 by Chicken Wing

[Nobodysfan]

18 hours ago, DearEvette said:

Yes, she is toying with Maggie.  And yes it is cruel.  But what she and Riggs has isn't the past.  Meredith  is stringing him along as much as she is Maggie.  Asking him to not go out on the date and flirting with him is definitely continuing to show present interest and keeping him dangling. 

If she had no real interest in him, she'd shut him down definitively and would actively encourage him to date Maggie.  And their sex in the car would have just been a nice memory, a simple one and done.  But she isn't doing that.  This is why I think no matter how tiresome Maggie is with her incessant talking about Riggs, she is just merely being annoying.  But Mer is on another level of obnoxious here.  Even if Meredith doesn't really consider herself close to Maggie and doesn't feel that whole sisterly thing, she knows that Maggie clearly does feel that way. Given how obvious Maggie is about her feelings for Meredith and her feelings for Riggs, what Meredith is doing playing head games and that makes Mer the sole asshole in this scenario.

Precisely this!!!

I really can´t stand Meredith´s behaviour.

I wonder who Shonda roots for to be with Nathan.

[Nobodysfan]

16 hours ago, Ohwell said:

Meredith seems to take smug pleasure in toying with Maggie and Riggs.  I got all over Maggie last season for punching that woman in the face last season; she was all kinds of wrong.  However, once she finds out the about Meredith/Riggs, I would take great pleasure in seeing her punch Meredith in the throat.  I know that probably won't happen because, after all, Meredith is the Sun but I would like to see either: 1) Maggie getting back with DeLuca, or 2) even better, Riggs discovering that he really does like Maggie and they wind up together.  I'd like to see the look on Meredith's face if that happens and she catches them pawing each other in the janitor's closet.    

She is totally playing with both of them, twisting their actions to suit her intrigues, intentions or just simply her mean character. Does Meredith find all this funny? 

Even the sheer idea of suggesting a date for Maggie with a jerk identity Nathan - how cruel is that??? Did she find it funny or charming? I can´t stand Meredith´s sly attitude, the way she speaks, so so smug, I find it totally immature. 

I do want point 2, if there is some sort of logic out of this s....y  triangle than this one!  

Why put Maggie through all this? Meredith still leaves her in doubt and suggests this stupid idea to Nathan? Who would ever do this???

Why doesn´t Nathan come clean to Maggie himself??? 

Also did Meredith actualy call Nathan a bloated corpse??? That is supposed to be a funny flirty remark of her just playing hard to get????!!!!! An odd woman that is who she is.

Edited October 9, 2016 by Nobodysfan

[Starscream]

On 10/6/2016 at 10:25 PM, Racj82 said:

Fuck out of here show.

"And he turned down all of this?" Yes, he turned down Maggie's annoying ass.

Funniest, most delusional line of the night.

 

8 hours ago, Nobodysfan said:

I wonder who Shonda roots for to be with Nathan.

Megan.  Of course, he and Meredith must see this thing through all the angst and anger from Maggie, but Megan can show up as soon as things get comfortable (read: boring).

Shonda wisdom dictates that Meredith and Christina are eternal soulmates.

Maggie's mostly a comedic character, so she's stuck with her vagina monologues when she's not hooking up with randoms.  Cross was about her speed before he was Hahn'd.

[Margherita Erdman]

On 10/6/2016 at 6:58 PM, maraleia said:

Where in the hell are Meredith's kids??? That is all!

I don't know, but Harriet will no doubt join them in the not-seen, not-heard off-screen ether very shortly.

On 10/7/2016 at 10:52 AM, windsprints said:

The problem for me is that they have made it clear there is no nanny and then keep putting Meredith in scenes that leave you wondering where the hell the kids are. It would be easy to avoid. They could have had her hire a nanny then have 1 line per season where she mentions it in passing. Have Maggie drive the carpool so its not obvious that there's no car seats in a car that belongs to a mother of 3. Don't have people smashing walls while kids are sleeping and then not have a peep from the kids, etc.  Its just annoying, more of a joke to me at this point.  What I do find baffling is that they have a character who had non-stop mommy/daddy issues for 7+ seasons who has children and then ........... nothing. No exploration of how her childhood impacts her as a parent. No exploration of her becoming a single parent like her mother. No worries about her children growing up without a father. I honestly don't get why they ever made Meredith a mother.

Whatever happened to the Supernanny/Personal Assistant that Meredith hired when Derek was commuting between Seattle and D.C. and Meredith had the grand epiphany expressed in voiceover that working mothers Need Quality Help??? That was the last time I remember the show grappling with work-life balance.

I agree that what's troublesome about the incredible invisible Grey-Shepherd children isn't that children make for interesting storylines but that Meredith as a character from the beginning has been set up to value motherhood and childhood, that she wasn't going to take on being a mother if she didn't commit to spending lots of time with her children and having a genuine family life.

That even seemed to be the rationale for abandoning everyone and everything after Derek's death to cocoon with Zola and Bailey during her pregnancy with Ellis.

But now she's trashed that ethos completely for no apparent reason and she's got no conflict about it...

[candall]

1 hour ago, Margherita Erdman said:

I agree that what's troublesome about the incredible invisible Grey-Shepherd children isn't that children make for interesting storylines but that Meredith as a character from the beginning has been set up to value motherhood and childhood, that she wasn't going to take on being a mother if she didn't commit to spending lots of time with her children and having a genuine family life.

To me, this show was better when the personal doctor stories wove into and around the interesting patient stories.  Now it feels as though the patients just break up the soapy doctor drama.  The patient-doctor stories are no longer symbiotic, the patients are an independent vehicle to let Amelia have an "oh shit" scene or showcase Stephanie being so distracted she rambles on in humorous fashion.

So I wince every time posters wonder about the Grey-Shepherd kids.  If we have to re-establish that Meredith still isn't Ellis, then we'll have Mer's post-Derek love life, Mer and her "sisters," Mer and her kids . . . who cares if she can wield a scalpel, it's a classic working single mother show.

 

(Harking back to my glut of Lifetime repeats, you know what was a GREAT "Mother Meredith" story?  When Meredith threw a fit and insisted she was just as talented as Christina and Christina said, "No you're not.  Not anymore.  We made different choices and that's okay, but Callie had a baby and never let up, Bailey had a baby and never let up.  You come to surgery late, distracted, unprepared and then get mad because you don't get a pass."  Boom, brutal, but Meredith Grey being "less than" was very interesting.)

[Chas411]

Quote

(Harking back to my glut of Lifetime repeats, you know what was a GREAT "Mother Meredith" story?  When Meredith threw a fit and insisted she was just as talented as Christina and Christina said, "No you're not.  Not anymore.  We made different choices and that's okay, but Callie had a baby and never let up, Bailey had a baby and never let up.  You come to surgery late, distracted, unprepared and then get mad because you don't get a pass."  Boom, brutal, but Meredith Grey being "less than" was very interesting.)

Just watched that episode last night and it's brilliant. Then again though the show was more even back then - Meredith had Derek and Cristina and was much less of an asshole. Jo and Stephanie were actually given meaningful scenes and not relegated to background noise, Alex wasn't the fourth Grey sister.

Even before Derek died the show had shifted. Cristina left and Maggie/Amelia were shoehorned in and made central characters. This is where it all started to go downhill for me. The writers favourites became obvious and the characters they weren't as interested in they just stopped writing for period.

[windsprints]

Quote

Whatever happened to the Supernanny/Personal Assistant that Meredith hired when Derek was commuting between Seattle and D.C. and Meredith had the grand epiphany expressed in voiceover that working mothers Need Quality Help???

 I'm guessing she found another job when Meredith took off for a year.

Quote

Boom, brutal, but Meredith Grey being "less than" was very interesting

They'd never have Mary Sue Grey be "less than" for any significant period of time. There's always been someone talking about what a wonder she is and she'll always be the one to save the day when she is on another surgeon's case. 

[candall]

12 minutes ago, Chas411 said:

Just watched that episode last night and it's brilliant. Then again though the show was more even back then - Meredith had Derek and Cristina and was much less of an asshole. Jo and Stephanie were actually given meaningful scenes and not relegated to background noise, Alex wasn't the fourth Grey sister.

Even before Derek died the show had shifted. Cristina left and Maggie/Amelia were shoehorned in and made central characters. This is where it all started to go downhill for me. The writers favourites became obvious and the characters they weren't as interested in they just stopped writing for period.

I agree with you about the turning point.  I try to be fair because SO-O-O many people have come and gone, but now the cast is splitting at the seams and they still seem determined to load up the shallow end of the pool--Riggs, Penny, DeLuca, Maggie. 

Who exactly has replaced the likes of Sloan, Lexie, Yang, Derek and Callie?  They couldn't make Amelia any more Derek 2.0 unless one day she sprouts a penis while on the phone with the White House--but she continues to grate. 

Ben Warren is as handsome as Sloan, but he's only Bailey-adjacent and she's pretty peripheral herself these days.  Avery and Kepner (although I don't like her) integrated into main characters, faster and more successfully than Jo and Stephanie.  Are they better actors or did they just get the screen time for better, stronger stories? 

I don't think anyone expects Grey's to go twelve more seasons, so why all this effort to reinforce the ranks when they already have a stable of venerable actors/underused characters who have been established for at least four or five years?

**************

I was looking at the IMDb cast list.  Zola has six credits for 2015-2016.  And I think it's funny that Payton Silver, the on-set medical technical adviser, has made 25 appearances between 2009 and 20016 as 'Dr. Knox.'  Watch him turn out to be Thatcher's long-lost brother, hiding behind his surgical mask all this time, waiting for the right moment to reveal himself to Meredith.

[Chas411]

34 minutes ago, candall said:

Are they better actors or did they just get the screen time for better, stronger stories? 

Jackson and April got better storyline and had the added benefit of being integrated as part of the original intern group.

[Tara Ariano]

In case you missed it, here's the Previously.TV post on the episode!

How Is It Possible That No One Has Risen From The Dead Before On Grey's Anatomy?

And how is it that we only get one 'Jesus Wept' reference? And other pressing questions sparked by a miraculous episode.

[LucyHoneychrrch]

With regards to April, I believe it. I went back to work a month early with my second baby because I was so bored.

[iMonrey]

Quote

. I understand what you mean - that April shouldn't be complaining about being bored. But for all the things that Grey's gets wrong about being a parent, I think they actually got this right - the newborn phase is not always this rosy dreamy place. 

Fair enough, but it's always something with April. Last week she was whining  because she couldn't go home with her baby. This week she's home with her baby and she's whining that she's bored. There's no pleasing the woman.

[RachelKM]

3 hours ago, iMonrey said:

Fair enough, but it's always something with April. Last week she was whining  because she couldn't go home with her baby. This week she's home with her baby and she's whining that she's bored. There's no pleasing the woman.

April has frequently annoyed the crap out of me, particularly last season.  However, even without being a mom myself, these two things rang absolutely true.  Not wanting to be separated from your newborn and hating that you cannot physically take care of your child makes sense to me.  Likewise, I have had friends on maternity leave call me just for an up date on the stuff at the office because they feel so isolated and bored.  These women love being mothers and love their children.  But you are in a house with a person who makes it hard to shower, sleep, or even eat while also being the most important, tiny, fragile human ever which just makes you feel guilty for the first part of that sentence; and then on top of it, there is no one there who is capable of speech with whom to have even a basic conversation. 

Edited October 10, 2016 by RachelKM
Typos... commas are important

[candall]

I've watched April employ the wide eyes and the trembly lip 37,000 times, as she ranges from "flustered and/or indignant" all the way up to "horrified and/or outraged."  [Full credit for the tragic baby story exception.]

I liked her that one time when she impressed and astonished all her colleagues with her cool professional competence, rolling up to the emergency room astride the wrecked car with the patient trapped inside.

"Conflicted mother issues" are perfect for April.

[Chicken Wing]

April is generally annoying, but even without having kids myself I can understand her restlessness. She loves Harriet, obviously, and she absolutely cherishes being a mother and having her baby, but let's just call a spade a spade. Babies are kind of boring. The cuteness and the sweet "new baby smell" thing and the funny little baby faces they make, yeah, it's adorable and all but it's also entertaining for all of ten minutes. April's life used to be fast-paced and adventurous (doctor-adventurous anyway) and, simply, involving humans who could talk. It's kind of an abrupt change that must get old pretty fast.

[DearEvette]

Yeah, I get itching to get back to work after baby.  Although I am not gonna lie, I loved that first four weeks or so  just hanging out with the baby.  I breast fed and my adorable little parasite was always eating and I was always exhausted.  I was happy to see other people just so I could sleep.  LOL.  Now he's 17 and somehow he is still in the kitchen looking for food every two hours.  Nothing has changed.

I think it depends on how much time has passed tho.  Since Grey's doesn't really make it clear.  Has it been only a couple-three weeks since she's been released? Then I need to side-eye  her a bit.  Has it been a month or more, then yeah I get it.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

On 10/6/2016 at 6:13 PM, Court said:

Shut up, Maggie. Shut up, Amelia. 

I have 3 sisters and you know what? We all tell each other when we're being annoying or should stop talking about xyz.

Same here. Just because you are someone's sister or BFF doesn't mean that you have to listen to them go on and on and on about the same damn thing endlessly. Remember last season when one of the newer female doctors told another female doctor that she had two minutes to finish complaining and then she had to STFU about it? I think it was Edwards telling Jo to stop complaining about how Meredith wasn't nice to her. But the point is that being someone's sounding board doesn't mean that you are required to listen to them complain about the same thing ad nauseum. In fact, I think a true sister or BFF will be honest and say, "Look, you need to stop obsessing about this and GET OVER IT."

On 10/6/2016 at 6:26 PM, shantown said:

I think I wouldn't mind the build up of Mer/Riggs if there whole Maggie drama was removed from it. I thought the scene in the scrub room was nice and made sense for both of them - being able to share about losing a spouse and actually understanding what the other person was experiencing.

I would be a lot more invested in Arizona/DeLuca if we got to see ANYTHING of their friendship and roommate situation. I want to be invested in the storyline, but it just seems so out of nowhere. But I think it's a nice dilemma for Arizona and a way to pull DeLuca into the central cast more. I miss when Callie/Arizona lived across from Mark and I think Christina was in the same building - it was so fun to see everyone hanging out on their downtime together and how the relationships changed and developed outside of work. I want to see more of that!

Yes to all of this! A lot of the Riggs/Meredith stuff has felt forced to me but that was a real moment, and it was something that not everyone else will understand. I mean, sure, even if your significant other hasn't died, you can still imagine how terrible it would be, but for people like Meredith and Riggs who have experienced it, they understand the specifics in a real, not hypothetical, way. I'm not saying that Person I Loved Is Dead is enough of a reason for them to move their relationship from parking lot sex to serious romance, but it's nice to see them share something emotionally honest like that with each other.

I also agree that it was nice when we got to see the various people on the show hanging out together outside of work. It feels like in the last few seasons, we get mostly hospital scenes and the gatherings outside of work are either big events like weddings or Callie's New Girlfriend Killed Derek dinners with the same people who are already friends. I like mixing up the groups/pairings which we got more of when they still used to go to Joe's after work. In fact, during this episode when Maggie and Stephanie were working on the wife together (with Amelia), I thought huh, when was the last time I even saw those two in the same room together? We see Maggie and Amelia, and we see Stephanie and Amelia, but Maggie and Stephanie?

Arizona and Deluca have been living together for a while now, but outside of a few scenes when he first moved in we have seen very little of them being roommates. And even the scenes we initially saw were mostly for the discomfort factor (like when Deluca was going on and on to Richard about the hot chick he was seeing because he didn't know that Richard was Maggie's father). Plus Arizona is a friendly busybody so you know that she is not the kind of roommate who avoids whoever else lives there. She's the kind of roommate who would offer to make you a sandwich and ask you about your day, but we haven't seen any scenes like that to show us that they've become friends. If we had, it would make her emotional conflict have even more impact because she loves Alex but she also really likes Deluca.

On 10/6/2016 at 6:59 PM, Laurie4H said:

I find Maggie and Amelia's sex talk so stupid.    Dirty married sex?  Sex rich....etc....It just reeks of the writers trying to find out how many clever ways they can use the word.             

I'm okay with sex talk because yes, people talk about sex, but ITA that the writers just seem to want to come up with new cutesy analogies all the time. But the other thing that annoyed me about that scene was Amelia saying that married sex was dirtier than she thought it would be. That makes no sense at all. She's been having sex with Owen for a while now. Did she think that after the wedding, they would just start having vanilla sex? Or that it would change right after they signed a piece of paper? Some people have the stupidest ideas about marriage.

On 10/6/2016 at 10:26 PM, WhosThatGirl said:

Yup, I said in the last episode that all this would be done and over with if Mer had just come clean. The thing is, the show is trying so hard to hold onto the glory days of when this show was all "adults who act so immature, isn't it funny?" and that's..not funny at all anymore. The characters aren't the same people they were and neither is the show. They can't try to reclaim that and this story makes me like Meredith less and less each week. 

It was okay for MAGIC & co. to be immature during S1 because they were younger, but now they're all significantly older (heh, I know the timeline on this show is screwy so they aren't 13 years older than they were in the pilot but they're definitely more than 2 years older) so it's not cute or funny anymore. When you're 30-40 and still acting immaturely, that's not a good look.

On 10/7/2016 at 8:01 AM, Chicken Wing said:

It's always amusing, almost infuriatingly so, the way this show cherry picks which characters' transgressions are worthy of condemnation and which ones are swept under the rug. Still, though, in this case it's not really the same thing. Owen punching Riggs once in the face, or Derek punching Mark once in the face that time years ago, etc. -- it was one punch. Still something that someone could have pressed charges over -- simple battery or something -- but nowhere near the level of assault that Alex leveled on DeLuca. And I think charging it as a felony is correct. It was brutally vicious. It caused debilitating, possibly long-lasting injuries (are we sure he's out of the woods about his eyesight?) that required surgery. That's no simple battery. Injuries that serious and that grievous elevate the attack from simple assault to aggravated assault, and that is typically classified as a felony. Love me some Karev, but he deserved the charges.

This is similar to the way the show treats HIPAA and MRIs (although at least this week Arizona told Kira that she had to stop talking and hold still in order to get a clear image - it drives me crazy when they let the patients talk while they're in the magnet because those scans will come out blurry). Most of the time, they're like ehhhh, whatever and then every once in a while, they pick one specific incident to be semi-realistic. Even if Riggs and Mark didn't want to press charges, Owen and Derek still should have been severely disciplined for (1) punching a coworker (2) at the hospital (3) in front of patients and staff. But ITA that Alex repeatedly punching Deluca was far worse than the single punches in the above examples.

What really bothers me is that Alex is only remorseful because of the consequences of his actions (not being able to do "real" work, being forced to work at the clinic, people telling him what an idiot he was). But he doesn't actually seem sorry that he beat the shit out of Deluca. For me, that's a problem.

On 10/7/2016 at 9:38 AM, thewhiteowl said:

Stephanie obviously inherited Lexie and Izzy's run of the mouth disease. Really how many times should a resident be told to shut the hell up? But that's typical Grey's.

SERIOUSLY. Look, you can be as amazed by this woman coming back from the dead all you want. That doesn't mean you need to babble nonstop about it while you're conducting an evaluation to see if this lady has any neurological deficits. STFU, Edwards.

On 10/7/2016 at 1:25 PM, RachelKM said:

OMG! I generally enjoy Maggie far more than most, but I seriously wanted to slap her during the carpool to work scene.  How freaking self-absorbed is she?  And to be honest, if that was the supposed example of "Meredith doesn't want to listen to me" Maggie was griping about, FUCK U MAGS!  For reals, I think we are supposed to think Mer has been changing the subject or dismissive because she doesn't want to talk about it due to her secret.  But the actual example we got was one in which I would have told my sister or brother to get his or her head out of said sibling own ass long enough to maybe remember someone else's issues are more pressing.

Maggie whining about Riggs for what feels like the millionth episode while Alex might lose his license to practice FOREVER really annoyed me. A little bit of perspective and tact would be nice, but no, Maggie has to rehash the same thing over and over.

On 10/7/2016 at 1:59 PM, politichick said:

They have known each other for so little time that Maggie baffles me with her "You're not acting like a sister" or "sisters don't/do [fill in the blank]" as if she would fucking know. She has the emotional maturity of a seven-year-old. If I were Meredith I'd tell her to shut the hell up, she took her shot and was shot down. He's not into her and she needs to stop whingeing about it all the time. It is utterly annoying. Amelia is also annoying. She's Meredith's dead husband's sister, not Meredith's. They are not her people at all. I miss Christina Yang.

The thing is that not all sisters act the same way, so it's stupid for them to say "sisters do/don't do this." Even within a family of three sisters, they won't all have the same relationship with each other and THAT'S OKAY. But for three "sisters" who were not raised together (two of whom were raised as single children), of course they're going to have different ideas of what a sister will be and how they will interact with each other. It's a balancing act to set reasonable boundaries/expectations, but it's also annoying that Maggie and Amelia are both trying to dictate to Meredith what she must do to fulfill her role as a sister. Even if Meredith didn't have this Riggs secret, there would be nothing wrong with her not wanting to listen to Maggie talk nonstop about Riggs.

[Chas411]

I really wish they'd stop trying to make Fetch happen with the sisterhood. It's just not happening and the more central they try to make it the more I resent it. I'd rather watch other characters get some much deserved screen time then watch Meredith/Amelia/Maggie rehash the same conversation over and over.

They did the Lexie/Meredith story so much better.

[mdw]

I agree with the above. I feel that this sister trio is forced. Their relationships with each other are shallow. Amelia has actual sisters she grew up with. Exploring complications and emotions in her relationships with one of them would seem more interesting dramatically for her character development. Maggie's relationship with her adopted parents, Webber, or someone she connects to more deeply than Meredith would be more interesting to me. Her problem with Meredith not telling her about Alex beating up DeLuca right away seemed silly.

[maddie965]

On 10/7/2016 at 6:05 PM, Joana said:

It's still too early to judge how the storyline is going, but the one thing I really, really need to happen is Alex to be truly sorry for what he did. Not being sorry for himself or that his career is going to suffer (that's where Ben's storyline in the previous season failed miserably IMO, as he didn't seem at all concerned that a woman and her unborn child died because of what did and instead was upset because he couldn't work and his wife no longer trusted him), but to actually recognize and ackownledge how much wrong he has done a completely innocent person, own it and then take it from there. 

One of the problems I've always had with Grey's is that it's not an ethic show. Ethics or honesty or decency don't really matter here. It seems to me the authors don't really know the difference between right and wrong, and they don't care. Their characters can do pretty much anything, and there are no consequences - or there are only consequences for the actors/characters the authors dislike. So doctors can refuse to treat patients for any reason (he's a criminal, he's annoying, he's cute, he's ugly). Doctors can commit fraud on medical trials and it's OK. Mothers can put their children at risk or submit them to stressing, traumautic situations and it's OK. Surgeons can cut open patients in corridors with no justification at all and it's OK. 

So yeah, Alex can beat up a guy for NO REASON  at all and it's OK. I mean, of course he's upset. Poor guy is working at the clinic. It doesn't matter that he could have taken out a life, or that he hurt the person he used to love most, or that he used violence so brutal none of us would stand it in real life. He's cute, right? Let him get away with it. Why not?

April, darling, if you're bored, take your baby elsewhere, but not inside a hospital full of sick people. You know better.

Amelia and Maggie, you're not Meredith's sisters. In fact, you're no one. Just disappear, will you? 

Authors, it seemed to me the real story of that episode was the relationship between the walking dead mother and the prodigal daughter. So how about a scene where they finally reunited? Was that too much to ask?

ETA. Sorry, didn't mean to sound so angry. I do love Alex, I do love Justin, I still (kind of) love Grey's. But it seems like they forgot how to tell a good story. Or what a good character looks and sounds like. God how I miss Cristina! Wonder what Sandra Oh is up to these days...

Edited October 15, 2016 by maddie965