*SPOILER ALERT*
If you haven’t watched this week’s episode of ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ yet, I wouldn’t recommend finishing this article. Please do not continue reading if you’re not looking for spoilers. I know. It’s tempting. Don’t blame me when you ruin the episode. Don’t . I warned you. Don’t make me say it because I will say “I told you so” if you read this thinking I’m joking about spoiling the episode. Okay, I warned you. Last chance to get out. No? You’re going to stay? Great, here it goes.
First things first, where did we leave off last June?
That’s right, we witnessed a phone call, made to inform Owen that his sister, Megan, had been located. Right as Riggs and Meredith were about to finally go all in (and man did I ship that), Riggs got the call that they had found Megan, his fiance. We all know that Riggs was torn up over the fact that they could never find her, and that after ten years he and Owen finally worked out their differences over the matter in order to stay friends. Not to mention the fact that we thought maybe, just maybe, he and Mer could find love together after losing their first loves. NOPE, WRONG, Shonda had to crush our dreams AGAIN by having Mer tell Riggs to go to Megan. Riggs, of course, listened, and rushed to his fiance after years of trying to move on.
But, what was going on with the rest of the cast during the season finale of season 13? Oh right, they were fighting a fire. As we all know, Stephanie turned in her resignation while in the burn unit at the end of season 13 and Minnick was fired after everything that happened. As for Jackson and April, we were left in a pretty uncomfortable spot. Are they getting back together? Is Japril over for good? Will we ever find out Shonda, gosh stop torturing, us will you? Not to mention the whole situation with Maggie? Shonda where are we going with all of this??
Alright, so Shonda clearly wanted to leave us guessing at the end of last season, but where could she possibly take all of these stories next? Well, the first episode of season 14 is here, and I’d say we’re likely to find out in a slow, agonizing series of episodes, as is the Shonda way. So what are we waiting for? Let’s take a look at the first episode of season 14.
Shonda kicked off season 14 with a dazzling two hour episode that kept viewers on their toes. If you’re anything like me, Shonda’s twists were becoming a little predictable after having watched and obsessed over them for so long, so this episode was incredibly refreshing. Not to mention we got a whole bonus hour of Grey’s which is just a blessing in and of itself.
So, as we know, Owen’s sister was found after being held hostage for ten years in Iraq. The location of Owen’s sister, and bringing her to Grey Sloan, also prompted the return of our beloved Teddy, who left Grey Sloan to move to Germany a few seasons ago. Teddy and Owen’s friendship picked up right where it left off, creating some major tension between Owen and Amelia. When Megan arrived at Grey Sloan, it’s discovered that she was injured during a bombing that happened six months prior. Because of surgical complications at the time, she’s left with a colostomy bag. Bailey and Webber were immediately on the case, but their solution wasn’t as tempting to Megan as Meredith’s offer. As her family urged her to just let it heal, as Bailey and Webber were suggesting, Megan tells everyone that she needs to heal faster so she can get back to Iraq. When her family questions why she wants to return to Iraq, she tells them she needs to get back because that is where her son is. She explained how she decided to take care of a child, who she has raised for the past six years after the death of his family. Her biggest priority is to get back to him. Megan ultimately decides to have Meredith perform a risky surgery so she can get back to her son in Iraq, knowing that the surgery has a high chance of being unsuccessful. Meredith completes the operation, but when she attempts to close, there is not enough skin, which is the unsuccessful outcome that was expected. When Megan wakes up, she realizes that the operation has failed, and an angry Meredith storms through the attendings’ lounge and breaks everything.
Teddy confronts Meredith about taking Megan on as a patient because of her history with Riggs, which leads to a verbal altercation between Teddy and Amelia. Amelia stands up for Meredith, but Teddy doesn’t seem to care what Amelia is saying. She tells Meredith that she should tell Megan about her history with Riggs. Meredith ultimately listens to Teddy and informs Megan about the relationship they had after Megan’s surgery.
Meanwhile, the hospital itself is recovering from the fire, and subsequent explosion, that took place in the season 13 finale. Bailey closes down most of the operating rooms and the 4th floor nurses’ station because of the damage. Throughout the episode, we see snapshots of the 4th floor nurses’ station and it’s updated look after the construction. This serves as a cute bonding moment for Bailey and husband, Ben, while they compare the work being done on the hospital to different moments of a surgical trauma. Additionally, Bailey comes to terms with the fact that she is a female chief of surgery. Kicked off by a whole scene where Bailey doesn’t want to walk around in heels all day because they hurt her feet (Amen, Bailey, Amen). Bailey takes an amazing stand on the feminist side showing that she is an amazing and powerful women by supporting the women in the hospital and turning in her heels for her comfy surgical clogs. I’m super happy to see Shonda giving her strong female characters even more strength and defying social “norms” meant to suppress women. All I have to say is that I hope Bailey’s new found bada** feminism is here to stay for all of season 14 (and basically the rest of forever). Some of the leading ladies that Bailey supports throughout the episode are Jo, Meredith, and ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ newcomer Carina (played by Stefania Spampinato).
Carina joins the ranks of Grey Sloan’s female doctors, and, not only that, but is also Deluca’s sister. Carina makes her entrance through, none other than Joe’s, where she goes home with Arizona. This might seem pretty typical for a Grey Sloan employee at Joe’s bar, but when we remember the fact that Deluca is actually Arizona’s roommate, it becomes just a little more awkward, and therefore, a little more funny. After a night spent with Arizona, Carina is introduced to Bailey by her brother, and, in support of Bailey’s newfound super feminism, is given permission to study the female orgasm using the MRI machines at Grey Sloan. Which we’ll come back to in a little while after I catch you up to speed on the rest of the Grey Sloan crew I know you’re just dying to hear about.
I, first, want to touch on the Sub-Is, as they are some of the new characters who are making an appearance in the episode along with Carina. The Sub-I’s or Sub-interns are part of Minnick’s training program. They are in their final years at Med school and are coming to the hospital to tour and see what the work actually looks like in action. Webber takes them all under his wing, and is annoyed by their note taking habits. He allows them to look in at Kepner’s trauma, and the sight of blood makes one of the Sub-Is faint, and another scream. Webber removes them and continues giving them a tour of the hospital.
During said hospital tour, the Sub-I’s were taken to an operation room, which happened to be a patient of Alex’s. Earlier in the episode, Alex introduced Jo to the patient, and allowed her to perform the patient’s surgery on her own. When Webber asked if they could observe, Jo agreed. While leaning over the body cavity, a Sub-I dropped his glasses into the body cavity. Alex tries to jump in to take over, but Jo springs into action, clearing the contaminated tools, foreign object, and Sub-Is from the field and operating room. After work, Jo heads to Joe’s where she is torn, without Stephanie, and doesn’t know if she should try to talk to Alex or not. She is approached by the Sub-I that dropped his glasses in the body cavity and he apologizes for his mistake. Jo goes home with him and they hook up. She confides in Warren, but Alex overhears her and spends a good portion of the episode laughing at the fact that she hooked up with a Sub-I.
I’d like to head back to Meredith for a few at this point, especially after introducing the Sub-Is (and how utterly incompetent they all seem to be), because as all the other doctors were working, she was upset about her failure. She sits in her room and picks at the wall that used to be home to the tumor drawing. Alex has patched over it, but the outline is still clear from where it was cut from the wall, essentially just looking like a patch. While picking at it, Meredith comes up with an idea as to how to solve Megan’s failed surgery. Instead of trying to close what is already there, they should patch it. Essentially using a donor’s abs to patch the hole left in Megan’s abdomen after the first surgery. Meredith rushes back to the hospital and has Webber’s Sub-I’s go on the hunt for the perfect donor. When she tells Megan about the surgery, she offers to let either Bailey or Webber take over because of her history with Riggs. Megan declines, and tells Meredith that she should be the one doing the surgery. Some of the Sub-I’s find donors, but Meredith shoots them all down because they aren’t at all a good fit for Megan. Finally, one of the Sub-I’s (The one who dropped his glasses in the body cavity) informs Jo that he has found a suitable donor, but doesn’t know how to ask the family for consent because he is not a doctor. Jo takes over and calls Meredith, who awarded Jo the privilege of scrubbing in on the surgery. The privilege was supposed to go to the Sub-I, but Jo took the credit to benefit herself, rather than a Sub-I who didn’t need to be in such a groundbreaking surgery before graduating Med School. Meredith goes to bring Megan back to surgery and start the operation but when she gets to the room, she walks in on Riggs proposing to Megan. Eventually, the moment of awkwardness passes and Meredith brings Megan up to surgery. With the help of Avery, the surgery is successful and they are able to close Megan’s abdominal cavity.
Amelia, our favorite drug addict turn neurosurgeon, takes on a case pretty close to her own heart. She decides to take on an inoperable tumor of a 14 year old boy, who lives in constant pain because of his tumor. Avery is against Amelia from the start, arguing that she can’t take his jaw apart for an inoperable tumor. He tells her to give the patient medication for the pain or to send him to a pain clinic, to which she responds that she does not want to send a 14 year old child away with no hope and drug addiction (making a jab at her own past and self hatred for all of the awful things that happen to her when she, too, was a drug addict). Subsequently, Avery told Amelia that he will not take the child’s jaw apart for her. In a typical stubborn Amelia fashion, she brings the child to surgery and begins the operation. She sends Deluca to get Avery from Meredith’s surgery on Megan. When Avery arrives, he again tells Amelia that he is not going to take the child’s jaw apart. Amelia, looks at him, and tells him that she is aware of that, so she did it already. She needed him, however, to put it back together. Avery jumps in to help Amelia and fix the jaw bone. The child’s surgery was a success and Amelia was able to so stop his severe pain. In celebration, Amelia goes to see Deluca’s sister and participate in her study. While Amelia is in the MRI, Deluca and his sister express concern at the monitors. When Amelia enters the monitor room, she sees a brain on the screen and marvels at the size of the tumor in the brain. When she asks who’s brain it is, she is greeted by sad looks, and realizes that it is her brain on the monitor and that she has a massive frontal lobe tumor.
At the end of the episode, Riggs informed Meredith that Megan didn’t accept his proposal because she believes that he is still in love with her. Meredith turns away from Riggs and flees. Meanwhile, Alex and Jo have a heart to heart in the residence lounge.
And of course, we can’t have a recap of Grey’s without touching on the relationships between all the characters, so here is a breakdown of all the relationships that were prominent in the first episode of season 14, but were not necessarily part of the major plot points I covered.
Meredith and Riggs
Over? Seems so, until we find out that Megan declined Riggs marriage proposal because she thinks he is still in love with Meredith. When Mer finds out though, she turns and runs away. In typical Shonda fashion, only time will tell with these two.
Megan and Riggs
We all thought they were going to get to be happily ever after, but whoops, you guessed it, Shonda couldn’t let anyone be happy. Do I smell another Derek/Addison situation brewing? We’ll have to keep watching to find out.
Owen and Amelia
Definitely on the rocks and I’m not sure how much longer they are going to last. If I were you I wouldn’t put my money on these two working things out, but, then again, Shonda always has to keep us on our toes, so I guess we’ll really never know until she wants us to. Hopefully for Owen’s sake they can work it out, but we all know Owen and Teddy belong together, even Amelia seems to know. She told Owen that if he wanted Teddy, he could have her, so I’m not thinking there is much of a relationship worth salvaging at this point. Plus, Megan and the rest of Owen’s family don’t seem too fond of Amelia either.
Owen and Teddy
Probably the two people on Grey’s who were most meant for each other and haven’t seen any absurdly tragic event tear them apart. They’re still best friends, and when Amelia tells Owen that if he want’s Teddy, he can have her, Owen kisses Teddy (Finally, oh my goodness, I have only been waiting years for this). Teddy wasn’t having the fact that being with Owen would mean he was cheating on Amelia, so she shut it down quickly, but we can all hope it’s not for long.
Alex and Jo
One of my all time favorite Grey’s couples making a return?? I think yes, after the steamy residence lounge kiss that appeared in this episode. Not to mention that Jo said that she was still in love with him. Granted it might not have been directly to him, but she still said it. After Warren tells Alex that Jo is afraid of him, Alex comes clean about finding her husband and that he would never hurt her. Shonda, I am begging: Please, please, please be kind to me just this once and let my favorite couple be happy. Seriously. Alex and Jo are meant for eachother and if this episode doesn’t prove it I don’t know what will.
Jo and Deluca
Friendship on the rocks because she doesn’t feel the same way he does, and because she is still in love with Alex. Sorry Deluca, I’m #TeamJolex.
Jackson and April
Could they be rekindling their love after Montana? Sorry Japril fans but this relationship is definitely on the rocks, if not, over, but will Japril ever really end? No matter how much these two get torn apart or don’t work, they always seem to come crashing back into one another. April told Maggie to pursue Jackson if she was interested and told Jackson that she thinks she should move out of their apartment. Signs lead to an end, but if I know Shonda in even the slightest, these two aren’t quite at their relationship’s demise.
Jackson and Maggie
Maggie confronts Jackson about their feelings for each other and Avery doesn’t know how to feel. It creates an all around awkwardness that the two can’t seem to overcome and had Avery contemplating his feelings for April and Maggie at the same time. I have to say, I’m #TeamMavery on this one.
Arizona and Minnick
Over! Done! They are no more. Minnick GHOSTED Arizona. Yeah you heard me. Poor Arizona was so so sad and confused because she didn’t know what ghosting was but if we’re being honest, I’m glad this one’s done. I’ll always be #TeamCalzona.
Arizona and Carina
Hooking up? Dating? I don’t know what is happening here, or really what might happen in the future if they are going to be working together (Carina is an OBGYN and Arizona is in Peds so clearly there is some overlap). Could it turn into something? I don’t know, I’m still waiting for Callie to come back and win Arizona over again. A girl can dream.
Now that I’ve got you caught up, you’ll be able to watch next week’s episode without feeling like you missed anything (hopefully). I hope you enjoyed this recreation of the first episode of season 14, as well as my personal comments! Tune in next week for my recap of season 14 episode 2!