S15.E11: The Winner Takes It All

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Quote

Amelia and Koracick tackle a daunting surgery on Catherine while Richard and Jackson hope for the best. Meanwhile, Richard urges Meredith to visit her father, Thatcher (Jeff Perry), before his time is up.

Promo:

 

Original Canadian air date: 1/30/19
Original American air date: 1/31/19

[funnygirl]

Underwhelming. Thank goodness for Tom Koracick and his candor.

Annoyed that after all these years, they bring Thatcher back just to kill him off. At least tptb remembered that Molly exists.

"I miss Lexie. I miss her so much." Me too, Thatcher. Maggie and the "sisterhood" will never compare. 

Edited January 31, 2019 by funnygirl

[Pepper the Cat]

Boring

Predicatable. Of course St Meredith was there when Thatcher died. 

What kind of private nurse takes off because his patients daughter suddenly appears? At best he should of said he would step off to the sid but of still been close at hand if needed. 

And of course Cathertines surgery was successful! 

Yawn.

Who stole not Greys and when will i get it back?

Edited January 31, 2019 by Pepper the Cat
spelling errors because of cat interference

[millahnna]

Was that the version of Mustang Sally from The Commitments? Love that movie. 

[Lady Calypso]

It wasn't the worst episode. I just...didn't find myself caring about a lot that happened.

I did like the Meredith/Thatcher storyline. It's obvious that he was going to die, but at least it made sense. Meredith did wait until he was close to death, and they said he would have died that week anyway. When my aunt went into hospice, I got to visit her two days before she passed and they said she had a week or so left, so I didn't find that part unbelievable. It's just unfortunate that Thatcher and Meredith only patched things up the day he died. I can believe that he hung on as long as he could for Meredith. It's just been eight years since he last showed up so it would have been nice if he had more of a substantial arc before he died. Also, I wish this wasn't the B plot of the episode. It really should have been the A plot. It would have even been nice if this episode was just about Meredith and Thatcher, because god knows those two have a whole season of issues to work out.

I also guess we'll likely never see Molly in the future. I forgot that Molly existed, to be honest. 

The Catherine stuff? Meh. No surprise she's all good. I figured she'd be perfectly fine with her scene with Jackson before her surgery. Before that moment, I thought maybe they'd kill her off. 

I know I was supposed to be charmed by the scene where they're all dancing to Ain't No Mountain High Enough, but I was more annoyed. 

At least no annoying interns showed up.

I still don't like Teddy/Koracick flirting up a storm. Koracick deserves better, goddamnit! I will say Koracick and Amelia's friendship works fairly well still. I actually loved their scene before surgery. 

So, there were positives (Meredith/Thatcher, Koracick/Amelia) and negatives (virtually everything else). 

[ElectricBoogaloo]

OMG, I laughed SO HARD when the camera panned across so we could see that Thatcher had framed the medical journal with Meredith on the cover. The show will never believe the rest of us when we insist THAT'S NOT A REAL THING! Go into the biomedical library at any university and pull a scientific journal off the shelf at random. I guarantee there will not be a photograph of a researcher's face anywhere, and especially not on the cover.

I know we're supposed to side with Richard and want Meredith to get closure with her father, but I wish she hadn't listened to Richard and continued to ignore Thatcher's presence on this earth. Sure, he is her biological father but he abandoned her and she is under no obligation to see him again before he dies. It really makes me mad when people insist this is something that needs to be done.

I thought the show was going to have Thatcher have a heart attack or die when Meredith told him about Maggie, so it was nice to see that he took it so well.

I loved that Catherine already had her celebration party planned.

15 hours ago, millahnna said:

Was that the version of Mustang Sally from The Commitments? Love that movie. 

Yes, it was!

[Joana]

OMG. Could they have possibly made this any more predictable even if they tried? Of course, this is a rhetorical question, because the answer is clearly "No". Every single minute of this was freaking deja vu. Catherine's surgery goes well until there's suddenly a major complication, but they manage to figure out a magical solution (quite literally this time!) on spot and she's fine in the end. 

Meredith is angry with her father, but they make amends and he dies in her arms. The last bit might not have actually happened and I could have simply imagined it as I dozed off for a minute there, but it's in the Great Soap Opera Textbook, so... Although, I must say I kinda liked this storyline after all. It reminded me of time this show was still worth caring about. 

Remember when Riggs first appeared carrying a huge flashing neon sign saying "Hi, I'm Meredith's New Love Interest"? That was actually subtle compared to what they're doing with Teddy and Koracick. 

Edited February 1, 2019 by Joana

[Shellie]

10 hours ago, Lady Calypso said:

It's just been eight years since he last showed up so it would have been nice if he had more of a substantial arc before he died. Also, I wish this wasn't the B plot of the episode. It really should have been the A plot. It would have even been nice if this episode was just about Meredith and Thatcher, because god knows those two have a whole season of issues to work out.

I agree with this. It was an emotional moment that probably deserved a bubble episode. Although Thatcher has mostly been AWOL through the entire series, he's also one of the fundamental characters in Meredith's story. This particular part of the story didn't need to be combined with the surgery plot.

I actually liked most of this episode.  I even liked the dance scene, although it was probably kind of silly . . . but I liked the meta aspect, similar to Sara Ramirez singing "The Story."

[LexieLily]

Did Jackson or anyone bother telling April that Catherine had cancer and was having major surgery? She's Jackson's ex-wife, the mother of Catherine's grandchild and as far as I can remember April and Catherine were friends/friendly even before Japril was a thing.

[statsgirl]

April who?  Although we saw Harriet so there's that.

I liked:

• the dance scene, as cunbelievable as it was
• Korachik going to the chapel to talk to his child when the surgery was successful, ad Amelia going to a meeting
• Amelia playing dumb so that Korachick could get over his yips
• the conversation between Meredith and Thatcher so that they ccould get closure.

Other than that, it was pretty meh.  I'm glad that Korachik is flirting with Teddy because hopefully that means the Teddy/Owen/Amelia triangle is over but I don't really care. The Thatcher stuff felt like it was ticking off a box. And I knew Catherine would be fine.

1 hour ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

OMG, I laughed SO HARD when the camera panned across so we could see that Thatcher had framed the medical journal with Meredith on the cover. The show will never believe the rest of us when we insist THAT'S NOT A REAL THING! Go into the biomedical library at any university and pull a scientific journal off the shelf at random. I guarantee there will not be a photograph of a researcher's face anywhere, and especially not on the cover.

I hate it. The only journal that I know that has pictures of the researchers is American Psychologist and it's always with the article, never on the cover. The medical jourals have no photos at all.

[jschoolgirl]

Was the other picture one of Lexie? It didn't look like Chyler Lee to me.

Did Jeff Perry appear after the MWF? What did Thatcher die from?

[readster]

Hey, Molly still exists, but we will NEVER see her again. 

[NUguy514]

I tend to like it when the show focuses on only a few storylines within an episode and doesn't force the entire cast to appear, although that heavily depends on the storylines and cast involved.  I don't care about Catherine at all and kind of just wanted to punch Jackson, but I really enjoyed watching how Catherine's surgery and its aftermath affected Amelia and Koracick; the two of them were great.  Similarly, while the Thatcher storyline felt rushed and obligatory (and I wish it had been the dominant storyline), I really enjoyed seeing how Meredith sorted through her feelings throughout the episode, and I was pretty moved by the end.

I was just so relieved to have a respite from shitty love triangles and Glasses (or...Contacts, I guess) for an episode.

[Guest]

I laughed so hard at the stupid dance scene. “Hey are we all scrubbed in and ready for surgery? Yes? Ok, great. Let’s stop to have a dance party with the patient and her family on the OR floor.”

I had mixed feelings on the Thatcher stuff. On one hand, I didn’t feel Meredith needed to go. But it was nice when she did. But it felt unbelievable that the nurse recognized her like thatcher talked about her so much when he didn’t really ever make much of an effort with her. But I guess if Meredith can forgive Ellis to the point of naming her child after her, she can forgive Thatcher. 

[ElectricBoogaloo]

For me, the best moment in the episode was when Amelia saw that Tom was panicking so she came up with an excuse to have them switch places so that he could get himself together. And even then he still managed to sound obnoxious so that no one else in the room knew what was going on.

[Chas411]

I can’t believe they brought Thatcher back for one episode only yet we had that matchmaker woman for half a season.

I thought they’d save his final appearance for a bubble episode too yet no. 

At this point are Jo/Alex the only characters to not get anything to do this season.

[GSMHvisitor]

So they really had to shoehorn in not one, but two scenes of Teddy to get her relationship with Koracik going? Seriously? Like someone said up-thread, they couldn't be any more obvious about where this is going. God, I've come to really dislike her. And I don't get it, why would any guy, much less Tom Koracik, bf interested in a woman who just got pregnant from a different man?

This episode did nothing for me, but I liked the Meredith & Thatcher plot enough.

All in all I still find it upsetting that guest characters like Catherine, Koracik and Glasses get more meaningful material than Alex, who is an OG. Seriously, what has he done all season? Nothing significant whatsoever. The last episode I enjoyed for him was 15x04. To think he'd get an entire centric or even just half of a centric is impossible.

[txhorns79]

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I know we're supposed to side with Richard and want Meredith to get closure with her father, but I wish she hadn't listened to Richard and continued to ignore Thatcher's presence on this earth. Sure, he is her biological father but he abandoned her and she is under no obligation to see him again before he dies. It really makes me mad when people insist this is something that needs to be done.

At this point, I just wonder when the slaughter of Meredith's family will finally come to an end.  Since the show began, she's lost both parents, her stepmother, half-sister and husband.  It's dangerous to be a Grey or Grey-adjacent!  

[readster]

13 minutes ago, txhorns79 said:

At this point, I just wonder when the slaughter of Meredith's family will finally come to an end.  Since the show began, she's lost both parents, her stepmother, half-sister and husband.  It's dangerous to be a Grey or Grey-adjacent!  

I know, I'm waiting for news that Molly is dead, even though we haven't seen her since season 2. Or that one of the kids has something happen to them. 

[transitfan]

On 1/30/2019 at 10:58 PM, Pepper the Cat said:

What kind of private nurse takes off because his patients daughter suddenly appears? At best he should of said he would step off to the sid but of still been close at hand if needed. 

 

I don't have a huge problem with that, as of course, Meredith is not just his daughter, but an award-winning surgeon.  The nurse knew if anything happened, she could handle it, and he also wanted to give them alone time.

[Good Queen Jane]

Apparently, Catherine's surgery is based on the real life experience of one of the show's producers.

[MarylandGirl]

It would have been much more interesting if they'd gotten the tumor but had left her unable to use one or both arms. To see how she'd cope with that. Especially because Richard was pushing them to get it all. Not that I particularly like Catherine as a character... Add me to the list not liking the idea of Korachik and Teddy. I've never particularly liked Teddy anyway, and he has much better chemistry with Meredith or Amelia. And I also think the Meredith/Thatcher storyline should have been the centerpiece of an episode instead of how they did this.

[AriAu]

For all the sappiness, and there was plenty, we got Debbie Allen DANCING!!! Good enough for me.

I liked the closure with Thatcher-it was well placed and well done, but could they have made Meredith look any harsher, both physically (pulled back hair etc...) and in tone??? Also, was it really necessary for Meredith to tell him, literally on his death bed, that Ellis and Richard had a love child. And only after that does she start talking about her kids.

Quote

I was just so relieved to have a respite from shitty love triangles and Glasses (or...Contacts, I guess) for an episode.

AMEN to that.

Quote

Did Jackson or anyone bother telling April that Catherine had cancer and was having major surgery? She's Jackson's ex-wife, the mother of Catherine's grandchild and as far as I can remember April and Catherine were friends/friendly even before Japril was a thing.

The actress is not on the show anymore and she is not going to randomly show up. These are just the facts.  I guess they could have thrown in a random line about where she was or why she wasn't there, but that might have been even worse.

Edited February 1, 2019 by AriAu

[dmc]

Filler episode.  Thatcher hasn’t been around enough for this to be a viable story 

[Shellie]

9 hours ago, NUguy514 said:

I tend to like it when the show focuses on only a few storylines within an episode and doesn't force the entire cast to appear, although that heavily depends on the storylines and cast involved.  . . . 

I was just so relieved to have a respite from shitty love triangles and Glasses (or...Contacts, I guess) for an episode.

I totally agree.  The cast usually seems so bloated and I would guess that most viewers don't have much interest in most of them. I got to thinking later last night that this more streamlined version of the cast works so much better.  They could take a push broom and sweep out Glasses, Schumer, all the other interns, HAOG, Linc and even DeLuca.  I never thought of any of these people even once during the episode. 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, dmc said:

Filler episode.  Thatcher hasn’t been around enough for this to be a viable story 

Now that you say this, I think it impacted me more because I’ve watches early seasons so much and skipped whole seasons of the later years. It probably would have been a better storyline for season 9 or 10. 

I did love the throwback lines to Lexi. I loved her character.

[marceline]

It's kind of funny to me how much I like Koracik. I think of all the times Grey's has brought on a character and practically ordered us to like them only to have it fail (Minnick, Riggs, etc...) yet somehow characters who are supposed to be ancillary become more interesting. I really like his obvious love for Catherine and how it came through in this surgery. Not the babbling before but his reaction to seeing her face. I thought that was well done.

That dancing scene on the OR made me positive that Catherine would die but then I realized that was the whole point of having Thatcher around. One parent lived, the other died.

I was kind of annoyed by how both Catherine and Thatcher had stories of "secretly" being there for their kids on momentous occasions: Catherine in Jackson's first surgery and Thatcher at Derek's funeral. I'm sorry but the idea that he would show up and not say anything is ridiculous, especially when his grandchildren were there. 

They are lampshading Teddy and Koracik so hard I half expect a twist because I really don't want to have to put up with a Koracik/Teddy/Owen/Amelia love square.

[dmc]

1 hour ago, deaja said:

Now that you say this, I think it impacted me more because I’ve watches early seasons so much and skipped whole seasons of the later years. It probably would have been a better storyline for season 9 or 10. 

I did love the throwback lines to Lexi. I loved her character.

I have been watching since the beginning and I was just iffy...

I was more touched when Meredith named her baby Ellis after Derek died.  But I am sure different things mean more to certain  audience members 

Edited February 1, 2019 by dmc

[pieinmyeye]

With the exception of the scenes with Meredith and Thatcher and the interaction between between Amelia and Koriack during the surgery, this was one of the worst episodes of Grey’s I’ve ever watched. It doesn’t help that I no longer care about most of the characters, but continue to watch for those I do. 

If one is going to make a medical drama, at least make it somewhat believable! Make it look like she has an IV which is one of the first things they do when someone is being prepped for surgery. Of course it would have been very awkward trying to dance with an  IV pole. I really don’t know the protocol as far as being sterile in the operating room, but I could imagine all those people standing in line to scrub their hands again. I thought the entire scene was unbelievably stupid!!

I hope Amelia or Meredith end up with Koriack. He’s the first character I’ve liked in a long time. I hope Teddy goes back to Germany and takes most of the cast with her!!

[Chas411]

1 hour ago, marceline said:

I'm sorry but the idea that he would show up and not say anything is ridiculous, especially when his grandchildren were there. 

This actually doesn’t shock me at all. Considering he avoided her for nearly all her life and hid it behind the fact that her mother was an asshole I’ve no problem believing he’d hide out in the back and not approach her or his grandkids at Derek’s funeral. The man was pretty spineless.

[madpsych78]

I think the thing that got me was how long Grey's has been on the air, as Thatcher has aged A LOT. Jeff Perry is only 63 IRL. This picture I found I think was a screenshot from an early Grey's episode...back when there was speculation that Thatcher was George's father because they looked alike.

[izabella]

I have always hated Teddy, and I love Koracik, so I am pissed beyond belief that they are putting the two of them together.  I don't want to fast forward Koracik's scenes, but I may have to when they are with her.  Ugh.  Why, show, why?

[mytmo]

54 minutes ago, Chas411 said:

This actually doesn’t shock me at all. Considering he avoided her for nearly all her life and hid it behind the fact that her mother was an asshole I’ve no problem believing he’d hide out in the back and not approach her or his grandkids at Derek’s funeral. The man was pretty spineless.

He sure had a spine when he tore into and blamed Meredith for his wife dying from hiccups.

Loved that on Lifetime the same day as this episode was from when Thatcher was there in the NICU with his grandchild and Meredith asked him if there was any drawer full of unopened cards for her and he replied no and that Ellis told him to basically go away then he had a new family soooo nope.  It looked like 2 people talking at a bus stop he was so nonchalant.

He was an asshole to Lexi.  Basically he was just an asshole.  Good riddance.  

[BaseOps]

I like that Krista brought Thatcher back for closure. I would have enjoyed a few more episodes with him, but Jeff Perry is filming a new series and it seems they could only get him for one episode. It showed a lot of growth for Meredith; thinking of where she was when she first rang Thatcher's doorbell back in season 2 to seeing where she is now, raising 3 children of her own, is quite remarkable. There was a lot of pain and resentment between them, but they got to say goodbye on good terms. Jeff and Ellen were great. 

I actually dig that Catharine is okay but living with cancer. As mentioned by the writer in the article linked above, it's a reality that we don't see often on TV. Usually, patients (not just on Grey's) either die or are magically cured, but that's not the reality of cancer. There's a lot of in-between. 

I like Teddy/Koracick and am glad we're not gonna see Teddy pining for Owen. Koracick is such a fun, fantastic character. 

[dshgr]

The highlight of the episode for me was the absence of Owen.  He really gets on my nerves.

[Chas411]

5 hours ago, mytmo said:

He sure had a spine when he tore into and blamed Meredith for his wife dying from hiccup

Laying onto his abandoned daughter and blaming her for his grief? Sounds spineless to me. 

[LisaM]

I must be easy to please because I really liked this episode. Having it focus only on Catherine's surgery and Thatcher/Meredith worked for me. I didn't miss any of the ancillary characters. 

I am not a Catherine fan but she does have a significant connection to major characters. Even without knowing the real life origin of the storyline, it hit home for me. I also liked how Richard mentioned the use of his pen to track down the cancer. 

I appreciated that Thatcher and Meredith were able to patch up their relationship before he died. I particularly liked how Meredith recognized that he was dying at that moment and told him about his grandchildren as he literally took his last breaths. 

[Ohwell]

1 hour ago, LisaM said:

I particularly liked how Meredith recognized that he was dying at that moment and told him about his grandchildren as he literally took his last breaths. 

I don't care for Meredith, but I did like that scene.

[dmc]

11 hours ago, Chas411 said:

Laying onto his abandoned daughter and blaming her for his grief? Sounds spineless to me. 

Yep spineless 

[jschoolgirl]

I would like to have seen less dancing and less Catherine overall and more interaction between Meredith and Thatcher. 

I get that Meredith and Thatcher had a loaded relationship, but I thought it was pretty awful of her to lay into him as he lie dying. A longer arc would've mitigated that.

And I can't imagine that they couldn't have wrung a few more episodes with even a brief appearance by Thatcher, even if Jeff Perry is in a new series. Sarah Drew used to manage being in Mad Men as Poor Kitty.

[Layne]

5 hours ago, jschoolgirl said:

Sarah Drew used to manage being in Mad Men as Poor Kitty.

Poor sweet naive Kitty Romano...

[ForeverAlone]

As someone who has pretty much always liked Teddy, I have a hard time understanding what the writers are thinking with some of their storytelling choices. I mean, they had this whole weird whirlwind relationship between Owen and Amelia, a marriage breakup over children and then Amelia's brain tumor, Owen running off to see if he can make it work with Teddy, only for it to it to fall apart, then put Owen and Amelia BACK together with a ready made foster family, only for Teddy to now show up pregnant with Owen's child. What is the point of all of it? It just feels like such a soap opera setup, where they spend time on putting a couple together, only to pull them apart immediately after getting them together. Lather, rinse, repeat. Now if the show is setting up a Teddy/Koracik relationship, I can get behind that, just because I find him an entertaining character. But the overall point in bringing Teddy back just sort of stumps me, unless the point is to pair off Teddy and Owen eventually and they run back to Germany together to raise a family together. Unless this is setting up Owen's exit story, it just seems like a waste of time.  

As for the rest of it...eh. I'm glad Catherine survived, and I like to see Amelia and Koracik working together on complicated cases, because they have a good character dynamic. I don't feel much about Thatcher's death, but at least Meredith made peace with him before he died. That's pretty much all I got. 

[skermac]

nothing in this episode stood out to me, standard episode, nothing great

[ams1001]

Allowing her family (hospital employees or not) to watch from the gallery seems like a supremely bad idea.

 

And don't any of the other doctors have, like, work to do?

Edited February 3, 2019 by ams1001

[Quark]

She wasn't in it much, but I just can't stand Maggie. Of all the extra characters on the show, I want her to leave the most.

[Chas411]

8 hours ago, Quark said:

She wasn't in it much, but I just can't stand Maggie. Of all the extra characters on the show, I want her to leave the most.

As if it can’t be said enough - she is the worst character. This season in particular through all eye rolling dramz with Jackson they’ve just taken all her most annoying traits and highlighted them in the most Mary Suish way possible.

[RedbirdNelly]

19 hours ago, Quark said:

She wasn't in it much, but I just can't stand Maggie. Of all the extra characters on the show, I want her to leave the most.

I agree. Whenever she showed up on screen, it just was a negative to me. I understand she would be there with Jackson but I wasn't interested.

[Aethera]

Koracik is my favorite part of this season. Greg Germann really is killing it making him a layered, interesting character. I really don't need him to get it on with Teddy, but I'm fine with it if we avoid the Love Triangle. I enjoy Amelia when she's Work Amelia, not Personal Life Amelia. Let's just hope they Let Koracik Be Koracik, as it were.

I also have always loved Richard, and was so relieved earlier this season that they didn't knock him off the wagon. I think his character has been pretty well written this year.  I think Pickens did some terrific work in his scenes this episode, really.

[Biggie B]

Not looking forward to the Teddy-Koracik-Owen baby triangle. I think Koracik will be happy to have the chance to be a parent again, which will of course make Owen territorial and jealous. Possible plot (not a spoiler, just a thought): Betty successfully completes rehab, gets her life on track, seeks and regains custody of baby Leo, leaving Owen without a child and increasingly and insanely jealous of Teddy and Koracik co-parenting his child. Oy!! No thanks! Koracik deserves better. 

I'm glad Catherine survived. I like her, even though she pulls a lot of crazy and sometimes awful shit. As someone pointed out earlier, it's a refreshing change that her surgery was not a 100% miracle. She is now one of the many, many people who live day to day with cancer. I will be interested to see how that's portrayed. 

Not quite sure what to think about Meredith and her father. It worked out, I guess - well, not for him, he's dead. The way I saw it (and this is my interpretation, nothing more), she didn't really have much desire to see him, dying or not. If he'd died before she saw him, she probably wouldn't have been terribly upset. It seemed like she pretty much had to force herself to go, but since she did go, and even though she initially said she didn't want to talk about anything, once things got going, she figured, why not - might as well get it all out in the open and have the last word. Even though they had a few laughs, and even though she told him lovely things about his grandkids, I feel like she still thinks he was a failure as a father and as a person, and is maybe even a little relieved that he's dead - now she doesn't have to feel anything about him at all. 

Maggie is the worst. Can anything be done to make her character more palatable? Would it even be worth trying? 

Edited February 4, 2019 by Biggie B

[Chas411]

18 minutes ago, Biggie B said:

Maggie is the worst. Can anything be done to make her character more palatable? Would it even be worth trying? 

The writers have tried EVERYTHING at this stage. They’re relentless but yet manage to make her even worse at every attempt. The Jackson romance has really brought out the worst in her though. He doesn’t come off great either but she is just insufferable.