Grey's Recap: Till Death Do Us Part
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Warning: The following contains frightful quantities of spoilers for Thursday’s Halloweenderful Grey’s Anatomy.
Eat your heart out, American Horror Story! Thursday’s Halloween episode of Grey’s Anatomy was jam-packed with goosebump-inducing developments, from the discovery of a mass grave at Pac-North to the spectacle of Meredith in a prison cell instead of an O.R. But perhaps likeliest of all to make you squeal, if only with delight, was a wedding that was totally unexpected — at least on October 31st! If you think you can bear a relapse of the heebie-jeebies and/or the warm-fuzzies, read on, and we’ll go over all the thrills and chills!
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‘ANYBODY EVER TELL YOU YOU SNORE LIKE A TRUCKER?’ | As “Whistlin’ Past the Graveyard” began, Meredith, her stay in the big house down to its last few hours, was understandably eager to get sprung. But even when the time arrived for her to be released, she remained stuck behind bars: The court had yet to send over the paperwork necessary for her to reacquaint herself with the taste of freedom. So she distracted herself by, as cellmate Paula put it, “whining about how you might lose your medical license” and ultimately getting to know the other woman. Turned out, Paula was a single mother of two who had been arrested for assaulting a cop (she hadn’t really) after being forced to leave her children home alone to work the graveyard shift at her second job. Now, her kids were in foster care, and she was looking at another month in the slammer before her hearing because she couldn’t afford bail. Do I really need to mention that, when Mer’s paperwork at last came through, she anonymously paid to get Paula out, too?
While Mer was busy singing the last chorus of “Cell Block Tango,” Maggie was “killing the auntie game,” in her estimation. In PJ pants, but still. DeLuca, on the other hand, was struggling, in particular with Zola. When he offered to help her with her butterfly wings, she snapped, “You’re not my dad.” At Grey Sloan, Owen terrified Teddy by dropping off some old Halloween costumes that his mom had sewn for him and Megan back in the day. Did he expect his babymama to do the same? Teddy wondered. Levi told Taryn that he was spending Halloween in Capitol Hill with Nico, which was lovely. However, his mother had asked him not to post pictures, which was significantly less lovely. He’d thought she didn’t have an issue with his sexual orientation, but apparently, she did. After sharing with Amelia that she was pregnant, Bailey admitted that the hormonal surges were driving her crazy. “I can’t cry at work,” she exclaimed, “and certainly not in front of Tom Koracick!” Unfortunately, even Amelia’s advice on how to keep the tears at bay made Miranda weepy! Speaking of Amelia, Link invited her not just to lunch but to lunch with his divorced parents, aka the Bickersons, for his cancerversary — the anniversary of the day that his doctor told him that his scans were clear. Sure, their get-togethers always devolved into fights, but this time would be different, he was sure, because he and Amelia would tell them about the baby.
‘I DON’T HAVE MORE ROOM FOR DEAD BODIES TODAY’
| At Pac-North, Alex was just about to show the investors that he hoped would chip in for his new research wing the construction site when the foreman showed him that… er, his crew had dug up some bones. Like, a lot of ’em. Later, Karev revealed to Richard that he’d found out that, 100 years ago, Pac-North had been a mental hospital. If no one claimed the body of a deceased patient, that body got dumped. “That sure explains why this place feels haunted,” cracked Webber. When Jo stopped by in her corpse-bride outfit — and yes, since her wedding dress had been expensive, she was indeed going to wear it every Halloween! — patients started crashing right and left in the ICU. Not from the shock of seeing her, mind you. One of Pac-North’s fridges for blood was on the blink; the hospital had nearly killed a bunch of people! After Jo helped Alex get the situation back under control, he barked at some nurses to stop spreading ghostly rumors, inadvertently cluing in the investors to the fridge situation… and the burial-ground situation!
Meanwhile, Link and Amelia’s lunch with his folks, Eric and Maureen, quickly went from bad (Amelia admitting that just last year, she’d been living with her ex and their two kids) to worse. So. Much. Worse. After Maureen announced that she was getting remarried — to Eric — Link lost it and yelled at his parents in disbelief. They’d used him as a pawn not only in their divorce but for years afterwards, and now they were getting back together?!? Over the course of his tirade, he accidentally slipped and mentioned the baby. So “oh yeah,” he huffed, “you’re gonna be grandparents.” When he went outside to get some much-needed air, he was followed by Amelia, who — as we well know — just happens to be one of the world’s leading experts on family dysfunction. She sweetly (and, it seemed, rightly) suggested that maybe his anger had less to do with his folks’ unexpected reunion than with them making his cancerversary all about them. Now, if he wanted to, they could split, she added. “Or… you can give them a chance to do better.” Link chose the latter option but came thisclose to regretting it when Eric and Maureen inquired when Amelia was due — because they’d already put a deposit down on a venue for a spring wedding. Thankfully, they quickly volunteered to forfeit the deposit if necessary. So they weren’t all bad… just mostly.
‘THEY CALL THESE FUN-SIZE? THEY’D BE MORE FUN IF THEY WERE BIGGER’
| At Grey Sloan, while working with Bailey and Teddy on a teenager who’d been hit by a car — not, as it appeared, struck in the chest with axe — Tom groused that there came a time when kids were just too old for trick-or-treating. When Bailey expressed her disbelief that he wanted to put an age limit on Halloween, he retorted that “a town in Canada did it — 16. After that, it’s just panhandling in a costume.” Later, Teddy — unaware that her ex-boyfriend was still in the room — floated the idea that Owen equated good Halloween costumes with good mothering. “You are not inept,” Tom reassured her, “except in your choice of babydaddies.” In the end, Bailey advised Teddy not to worry about the costumes, worry about spending time with Allison and Leo; that was what mattered. As for Tom, Miranda privately asked him why he was such a damn Halloween Grinch — prompting him to reveal that the holiday had always been his late son David’s favorite. One year, the boy had been especially psyched about the Luke Skywalker costume that he and his dad had put together… and he’d died two weeks before Halloween. Obviously, this reduced Bailey to tears (despite her use of Amelia’s waterworks-avoidance techniques), leading to a fantastically awkward moment between the nemeses.
The other big case-of-the-week was that of Mary Rose, an 11-year-old with xeroderma pigmentosum, a condition that left her unable to withstand UV light. She’d gone outside without her protective gear and had come back with bad burns on her arms. And that was just the tip of the iceberg as far as her woes went: She was also upset that her usual doctor (Alex) no longer worked at Grey Sloan and that her injuries might make her unable to go out on Halloween night — the one time she could be a regular kid. In response, Jackson invited her to the hospital’s Halloween party… which Levi pointed out didn’t exist this year since Karev wasn’t around to assign it to a resident. Schmitt couldn’t take it over. “I have plans,” he said. “I know,” Jackson replied. “I just gave them to you.” Argh! While operating on Mary Rose, DeLuca opened up to Jackson about his recent difficulties: no phone time with his jailbird girlfriend and Zola’s sudden dislike of him. With kids, Harriet’s dad said, there’s always a reason for their behavior — you just have to figure out what it is. Later, DeLuca did just that, getting Zola to admit that Derek had once fixed her wings for her. “I don’t want to forget him,” she said. To reassure her that neither would she nor anyone else, he told a story about how her legendary dad had once saved lab tech Isaac. By doing a comical impersonation of Alex, Jackson got Mary Alice to open up, too. She revealed that she’d only rushed outside without her gear because her cat had run out. She hadn’t wanted to tell her moms, lest they respond by giving away her pet. Not to worry, said Jackson. He’d let doctor/patient confidentiality take care of this one.
‘YOU ARE TURNING A HOUSE OF HORRORS INTO A LEGIT HOSPITAL’
| As the hour drew to a close, Nico showed up at Grey Sloan since Levi kept getting delayed (especially by an adorable tyke who wanted to be a sunflower for Halloween). Delighted by his beau’s arrival, Schmitt took some selfies with him and posted them online. “Because,” he noted, “joy should be shared.” As Grey Sloan’s Halloween parade got underway, Teddy arrived with Leo and Allison, and was relieved to learn from Owen that he hadn’t expected her to make costumes, he’d just thought the old ones might fit. Well, instead, Teddy had improvised and made them zombies. “You dressed our babies up as dead babies?!?” he exclaimed. Priceless. At Pac-North, Alex shared with Jo that, despite the day from hell, he was still getting the funds that he needed for the hospital’s research center. The investors, he explained, had been “impressed with my ability to handle chaos.” Ha, replied Jo. “They should visit your childhood!” When he suggested that they celebrate, and she remarked that she was “absolutely dressed for that,” he got the kookily romantic idea to run off to the courthouse and retie the knot. During the impromptu ceremony, his vampire fangs nearly fell out of his mouth when Jo changed her vows from “for richer or poorer” to “for richer or pregnant… I’m pregnant.” She was just kidding, but at least she’d finally gotten the shocked reaction that he’d never given her amazing costume.
So, what did you think of the episode? DeLuca’s handling of the Derek issue? Jolex’s Halloween nuptials? The return of a Tom we can like? The baby zombies? Hit the comments.
Launch Gallery: <i>Grey's Anatomy</i> Season 16 Photos
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