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“Grey’s Anatomy” recap (12.6): All hands on deck

Penny. Pretty Penny. She’s all anyone can think about at Grey Sloan Memorial. Callie is feeling broken hearted and confused, Meredith wants to rise above, and Amelia is furious. Should be a fun first day, no?

Penny Dreadful

Penny knows the deck is stacked against her when she steps into the hospital that first day. Of course, the first familiar face she runs into is Callie, who tries to be kind but Penny cuts her off. She doesn’t need Callie to pretend for her sake, though it’s pretty obvious that Callie isn’t pretending.

Penny gets another dose of reality when she finds out she’s on Meredith’s service that day. Bailey tries to intercept Meredith beforehand, offering to let Richard sub in for her, or even Bailey herself, but Meredith declines. She’s going to rip this bandaid off even if it takes all the scab with it.

Penny reports for duty, looking like she might puke, but Meredith puts her to work right away so theres not much time for awkwardness-well, at least for them. Their first patient is a pastor who fell down the stairs after he accidentally sent a sex tape to his entire congregation. He wins-his day is going to be the worst.

While the pastor is freaking, Meredith pulls Penny and Deluca aside for their assessment of the patient. Penny misses a step and Meredith comes down on her hard. They take the pastor to get a CT, and when Amelia catches sight of Penny, all the air goes out of the room. Penny tries to make a joke but it’s awful and awkward, and Meredith sends her away. Amelia can’t believe that Penny is on Mer’s service, but Mer tells her they should both be taking the high road. Alas, that road is bumpy and full of potholes and roadblocks.

Penny and Deluca join Meredith in the OR to do a little surgery on the pastor. Poor Deluca can’t get a word in edgewise because Meredith is dialed in on Penny. Meredith tells Penny to guide her through the surgery, and name every step along the way.

Penny thinks she’s doing a bang up job in the surgery, until Richard comes in to check on her and Meredith tells him she missed a step and would have killed the patient. Oof. Penny is all like, “Duh, I would have done that if I was doing the surgery,” but Meredith doesn’t care. She was to give detailed instructions and she missed an important step. In one respect, Mer is being super hard on Penny because she can be. In another, Penny needs to step it up. Even though she might think she’s a capable doctor, she has to prove herself all over again here.

Penny walks past Callie in the hall and Callie stops to ask her what’s wrong. Penny is at her wits end. She’s doubting herself left and right under Meredith’s watch. Callie offers to talk to Meredith for her, but Penny says no. She’ll figure it out on her own.

Richard confronts Meredith about the way she’s been treating Penny. He doesn’t like it one bit. Richard thinks Mer is hazing her, and he admits that he looked into her records. That means he knew about Derek, which sends Meredith off.

Penny checks on the pastor that evening, and he’s feeling pretty terrible. The news is out online and he thinks his life is basically over, but Penny assures him that it’s not. He will figure out a way to bounce back, to create a new life. Their conversation is cut short when he complains of stomach pain and Penny finds his catheter bag full of blood. Meredith comes in and, instead of giving Penny kudos for discovering the blood, she screams at her for finding it too late. Meredith tosses Penny off her service after basically calling her incompetent. Those feeling about what Penny did to Derek are rising to the surface more so than anything to do with the pastor.

Meredith takes some refuge in the bathroom where she also finds Amelia. She tells Amelia that she was right and Penny has to go. As Meredith goes off about Penny, Callie emerges from one of the stalls. (Does no one ever check? Geez!) Callie has had just about enough. She calls Meredith a bully and says she’s not doing her job as a teacher.

Meredith heads to the chapel, where Alex finds her sitting quietly. He’s confused-since when is Mer down with God? She’s not, but she does talk to Derek. She admits that rising above isn’t working so well for her. She needs guidance and she’s hoping Derek can give it to her. Alex just sits quietly next to her. He’s getting this person thing down pat.

Richard confronts Meredith again, but this time to say that he didn’t want Penny to come to Grey Sloan. But since he’s been accused of being too easy on her, he decided that it would be doing Meredith a disservice. He then tells her how he didn’t want her to come to the work for him all those years ago. It was so painful and he didn’t exactly want the reminder of his biggest heartache. But she came and she grew and so did Richard and he doesn’t regret it. Meredith gets it.

Callie finds Penny sitting outside, looking like she just had the worst day of her life. Well, second worst day. Callie tells her what she said to Meredith and how she should have stood up for Penny that awful night of the dinner party. Callie talks about forgiveness is needed for the mistakes they make, and offers to put this badness behind her if Penny is willing. She is, folk. She is.

Yes, this makes everything very really for Pallie. (Is that their shipper name?) Penny’s not going anywhere, so Pallie is about to become the new normal. Penny also gets an interesting email. Meredith has requested her for the entire week on her service. This can either be really good or really bad. Either way, Penny has Callie to turn to.April’s surprise

We finally meet the new male doc that that we’ve been hearing about, Dr. Riggs. He’s kind of got this mix of an Australian and surfer dude accent, which I don’t mind. He’s pals with April from her last tour and has brought an adorable child named Kamal. Seriously, this kid rocks. He has something called Ollier’s disease, which causes tumors in the growth plates of his hands. Kamal is beside himself with excitement at meeting Jackson since he’s heard about how much this doctor can help him. Now, April kind of downplayed the seriousness of Kamal’s condition since she was worried that Jackson wouldn’t agree to do the surgery. She’s right and he’s pretty pissed once he sees how bad Kamal’s hands actually are.

Jackson decides to do a biopsy before he makes up his mind either way though. Unfortunately, Kamal’s tumors are pre-cancerous, and Jackson doesn’t think anything can be done to save them. April flips because anything Jackson does or doesn’t do connects right back to their marriage. Riggs is over it, and tells them to sort their issues out and leave Kamal out of it. The poor kid has been through enough.

Riggs storms off to find another doctor somewhere in the states to help. April tries to find a sympathetic ear in Arizona, but Arizona isn’t exactly on her side. Arizona does however understand that feeling of fear, frustration and loss that April is dealing with.

Ooh! Get this: Owen sees Riggs standing outside and the two know each other from the service. Owen looks like his forehead vein might pop, and he tells Riggs to make like a tree and get the fuck out of there. Bad Blood, you guys!

Riggs had no luck finding another doctor for Kamal, and Jackson feels genuinely terrible about it. He apologizes to Riggs for dragging him into his marital issues. Riggs tells Jackson about April’s nickname, “the Machine.” April is fast, efficient, and relentless and she made everyone step up overseas. This actually makes Jackson smile, and remember that it’s one of the things he loves about April. It also gives him an idea. He sends Ben to find Callie to see if maybe she can give him a hand (excuse the pun), because Callie’s kind of a genius with bones.

Jackson does tell Kamal that amputation is the best bet, and the sweet little guy is devastated but understands. It turns out that Jackson lied to Kamal. He wanted him to be prepared for the worst while he, Callie and Ben work like hell to save his hands. April is beyond happy and her belief in Jackson surges.

During Kamal’s surgery, things are looking bleak at first, but Callie and Jackson manage to find usable bone-five of them! The kid’s got a shot.

After surgery, Kamal is shocked and delighted to see that he has hands. It will require therapy and more surgeries, but the docs gave this little darling a new lease on life. p.s. Anyone else think April will want to adopt him?

Jackson stops April as she’s leaving for the night to thank her for bringing Kamal to him. She apologizes for the lie, but she knew that Jackson could work a miracle. For the first time since she’s been back, the frost between them starts to melt. Let’s all hug it out.

Richard and Maggie have a moment

Richard’s old pal Paul and his daughter arrive at the hospital after a car accident. Paul and his wife were friends with Richard and Adele for decades. Paul accidentally crashed his car, injuring his daughter, and Richard suspects there might be something up with Paul. When he suggests that Paul has been dealing with diabetes and not doing anything about it, Paul gets upset. He gets even more angry when Richard suggests that his diabetic nerve pain may have caused the accident. Paul asks Richard if he ever had kids, and in front of Maggie, Richard says no.

Later, Richard tries to talk to Maggie about it. Admitting to an affair to your lifelong friends isn’t easy, so Maggie understands, even if it makes her feel like shit.

Richard, though, felt it wasn’t his place to say, but he’d be proud to if she’s OK with it. After Paul’s daughter’s surgery, Richard tells his friend about the affair and that he does have a child. Even after all the pain he caused, he tells his friend that there was a wonderful thing that came out of it-this child. Maggie nearly tears up at the words.

Later on, Richard tells Maggie that if she wants to tell people that Richard is her dad, he’s be totally good with that.

Here are our favorite #greysgays tweets from “The Me Nobody Knows.”

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