In the newest episode of ABC's Grey's Anatomy, a severe car crash involving an entire family results in an all-hands-on deck situation in the E.R., as the eldest daughter is left to make the toughest decision of her life. Meanwhile Teddy, still in the dark about Henry's death, calls upon Cristina to help with her patient in the O.R., and Lexie finds herself working alongside Mark's new girlfriend, Julia, during an eye surgery.
The biggest event was that Henry died and Teddy is still in the dark. Owen wanted the health of her patient as the top priority and unfortunately had to step on a few toes to make sure that nothing wrong happens. Teddy in turn was forced to call on Cristina for help when the surgery turned difficult and inadvertently turned into one on Cristina's wish list. The tension was palpable in the room and it was touching to see the inevitability of the bad news amongst Teddy's graciousness. It was fitting for Cristina to immediate tell Teddy and despite Cristina being a bit too robotic that scene was the best these two characters have ever interacted in as Teddy pushed for Cristina to say that he died just to make it feel real. The concluding scene of Teddy with Henry's body had me (almost) reaching for the Kleenex box - it takes a truly magnificent scene to do that for me.
The other focus of the episode was on the family who collided with Alex & Meredith's ambulance. The grandma was dead immediately but the rest of the family was rushed straight to Seattle Grace and united all of our doctors. The eldest daughter gave an emotionally chilling performance as her family is slowly pulled away from her with her mother dying and the rest needing surgery and is forced to grow up. Although I could have done without the graphic eye surgery, I understand the need for realistic depiction but it grossed me out more than stylistically pleasing me. The daughter showed great poise as she decided to take her dad off life-support and actually brought out a side of Meredith that we haven't seen in a while.
The episode concluded with Meredith and Derek at home barely functionally as they take in what all had just happened. It was at this point in time when Derek was becoming all McAwesome again that I remembered that Zola had been tragically taken away from them in the previous episode. Lo and behold, the doorbell rings and there's the social worker with Zola for MerDer. Overall I'm glad about this reunion and hopefully as we move forward we'll see more of a happy, unified family.
Side Notes:
- I loved Alex in this episode despite him, Arizona and the baby virtually being put on the back burner to everyone else's drama
- I really enjoyed April as well. Her reaction to Henry's death was heartfelt and I actually yearned for her as Cristina picked on her to distract Teddy.
- I was unsure about the addition of Julia at first - mostly because she came out of no where and didn't really do anything good story wise for Mark. However, her little speech after her surgery was sweet and I guess I could enjoy her as the other woman for Mark and foil to Lexie.
- Hopefully, there will be more ramifications for Callie and Jackson due to their almost deadly mistake. Or at the very least a future story were the characters are reminded of their recklessness and make a difference
- The Ben-Bailey reunion is coming off very forced and lacks the genuineness it first had in season six.
