For all the ~Grey’s Anatomy~ fans, we have all fallen in love with Jo throughout her time on the show. Am I right? Our hearts all broke with hers on last Thursday’s episode.
Jo has been on the show for the past 6 seasons. She started as an intern and became a central character of the show. From the beginning, she was full of secrets, and slowly we have gotten to learn more about her past. Jo has been through a lot, to say the least, from her broken childhood that we know began with her being left at a fire station to her abusive ex-husband.
In this season she has made it her mission to find out who her birth mother is after her and Alex, who we all adore, started talking about potentially starting a family. At the end of the episode before this one we already had the #vibe that the journey to connect with her mom didn’t go well. The episode ended with Jo in bed fake sleeping when Alex got home from work so he wouldn’t see her silently sobbing.
In this episode, we find out that Jo did find her mother, but didn’t find the mother she was expecting. She found a professional, put-together grown woman who lives with her lawyer husband, two kids, and golden retriever in a beautiful house in the suburbs. Jo was shaken to say the least, as she was expecting to find a woman who was desperately trying to keep her life together. What breaks Jo’s heart is when she does get the line that she always thought she would get, “I wanted you to have a better life.”
After some arguing and Jo nearly giving up, she finally gets the full story from her biological mother. She was raped by her TA during her freshmen year of college and chose to keep the baby and the rape a secret from everyone. She expressed her struggle through the pregnancy as every aspect of it reminded her of Jo’s father, who she hated with every ounce of her being. However, she had hope that once baby Jo was born, that she would instantaneously fall in love with her. Although her mom admitted to loving her more than anything, she still was constantly reminded of the man who assaulted her. It got to the point that she couldn’t take it anymore, and dropped Jo off at the fire station five days after she was born.
We cannot even begin to express how heartbreaking this episode was, but if finding out this tragic aspect of her life was not hard enough, Jo then found herself supporting a young woman named Abby who came into the ER after being brutally assaulted and raped. She supported Abby through the whole process of convincing her to get the rape kit and the surgery that she needed. We applaud the strength and courage that Jo exhibited in this episode. Helping Abby through her traumatic experience obviously hit home for Jo, but she was the epitome of girls supporting girls, and we couldn’t be prouder of her for overcoming her own heartbreaking story. She quite literally brought together all of the women who worked in the hospital to support Abby, and it was an impactful and empowering moment for anyone watching. It was a tear-jerker, to say the least.
Where things will go from here, we’re unsure. Camilla Luddington, aka Jo, told Cosmo that this was going to be a tough season for Jo, and for Jo and Alex’s relationship. We ultimately hope that Jo can overcome this obstacle, as she has before, and continue to be the empowering woman we all love.