Archive

“Grey’s Anatomy” recap (12.7): Check yourself

Every once in a while on Grey’s, the docs encounter a very special patient. We’re not talking about the ones who teach them life lessons each week, but ones they really love. Mr. Jaffee is one of those patients. Suffering from end stage renal failure, Mr. Jaffee has been waiting for a year and a half for a kidney to match his specific needs. That kidney has arrived. It’s late, but the docs leap out of bed to rush to the hospital. This includes Penny, who is in mid-makeout (and nap) with Callie when she gets a call from Meredith. Callie doesn’t like the fact that Meredith seems to be running Penny ragged, but Penny’s not complaining. She’s already throwing on her pants and rushing out the door.

Jo, who is still smarting from Steph’s remarks that she’s not as good of a doctor, has a soft spot for Mr. Jaffee-she’s been one of his doctors from the beginning. She joins Penny in assisting Meredith. Mr. Jaffee is adorable, and so excited about his surgery.

Jackson has been crashing with Ben and Bailey who, despite being a consummate host, wants Jackson the hell off her couch. Ben tells Bailey that Jackson his his friend and boss and Bailey reminds him that she’s the boss of everyone. Get it done. Truth.

Callie takes it upon herself to speak to Richard about Meredith monopolizing Penny. Amelia overhears the conversation and reminds Callie that all residents are run ragged and exhausted during residency-it’s kind of the thing. She calls her out for just wanting to spend more time with her girlfriend.

Since Penny hasn’t said anything about it, Richard tells Callie that Penny will stay with Meredith. As Callie steams and walks away, Dr. Riggs, the new guy doc from last week, walks into the lounge asking for scrubs. Maggie has no idea who he is, but he seems really excited to get to work. She’s like, cool dude, see you around. Little does she know, he’s her new cardio doc.

After attempting to have some sexytime with Amelia, Owen gets called to the ER. A teenager with intellectual disabilities ate one of his toys, and his doting mom, and distracted dad brought him in. The ball, which has a blinking light in it, is going to pass the ol- fashioned way, and the mother is really relieved. Right away, Alex pegs her as a “Doc Knocker” and tells Spencer and DeLuca to avoid her. Apparently, a Doc Knocker is a parent who, well, likes to knock it with docs. Alex tells Spencer to do hourly checks on the kid. Spencer, if you need help remembering, is the one who puked when Richard dissected a brain.

So it turns out, Mr. Jaffee has been hiding a big secret under his fishing cap: a massive tumor growing on the top of his skull. This puts everything they’ve been working for at risk because now the guy has cancer on top of needing a new kidney.

Maggie is surprise to find Dr. Riggs working on a cardio patient in the ER, and even more surprised to find out he’s working for her now. See, Bailey kind of forgot to tell her. Oops. Owen is beside himself when he finds out that Dr. Riggs has been hired at Grey Sloan.

Ben tries to get the nerve to tell Jackson it’s time to find a new place to crash, but when Jackson tells him that he and April are having dinner together, where he’ll be asking for a divorce, Ben backs out. He can’t kick a guy while he’s down.

Owen sees Meredith working with Penny and asks how she does it. Meredith is honest: She’d really like to punch her most of the time, but she keeps her cool and keeps Penny from possibly harming another patient. Owen doesn’t think he could do the same, but Meredith tells him what’s done is done.

Maggie and Dr. Riggs, who I’m sure has a first name, check on the cardio patient from earlier. The woman keeps looking to Riggs for assurance, even though Maggie is his boss. Naturally, this pisses Maggie off. It would piss me off, too.

The Lady Chiefs take a break from arguing to put their heads together about Mr. Jaffee. Amelia thinks she can easily remove the tumor, but Callie isn’t too sure how to fix the gaping hole that would be left in Mr. Jaffee’s skull. Mer sends Steph and Jo off to figure out a way to fix the hole so Mr. Jaffee can get that kidney, and tells Penny to go and monitor the donor. Penny makes that face that she always makes (which is starting to rival that face that Owen always makes), and goes off.

Callie doesn’t like this one bit and charges after Meredith. Meredith doesn’t take too kindly to being chastised by Penny’s gf, and reminds Callie that if Penny were anyone else, Callie wouldn’t care. The thing is, they are both right. Callie is over-stepping and Mer isn’t giving Penny the education she deserved. The fact that two major characters on one of the most popular shows are arguing about one of their girlfriends, is pretty spectacular though, isn’t it? I heart you, Shonda.

Just as Alex warned, the kid who swallowed the toy’s mom totally tries to bone Spencer. He backtracks out of the room like he’s just seen a sexy soccer mom ghost.

At Meredith’s, Amelia, Alex, Mer and Maggie are having dinner. Maggie is all flummoxed because of Dr. Riggs. She expresses frustration at the fact that whenever she’s in a room with a male doctor, they get treated as the one in charge. The fact that she’s a black woman adds to her struggle, too. Amelia can’t really wrap her mind around that being an issue, but as Maggie points out, it’s not her issue so of course she doesn’t think about it. When Maggie brings up Bailey and Steph, Amelia considers that she may have been internalizing something that she didn’t even realize.

At Ben and Bailey’s, the couple is about to get it on until Ben admits he didn’t have the heart to kick Jackson out. Bailey is freaked out with the thought of Jackson walking in all sad, so she tells Ben no sex until he’s gone.

Speaking of Jackson, he and April are having dinner together and it’s actually going pretty well. April thinks it’s a step to reconciliation, but for Jackson it’s closer to the end. Before they can talk about it all, April gets a page and has to run to the hospital. They agree to have dinner again the next night. My heart hurts for April a little bit right now.

Back at the hospital, Dr. Toehead goes in search of Owen, and finds him having a PTSD nightmare, like he used to have when he was first dating Cristina. Owen nearly punches him out before he wakes up. Wow, having Riggs around is really doing a number on Owen.

Jo finds Penny monitoring the kidney donor. She and Steph haven’t had any luck figuring out how to deal with covering the skull hole, so Jo’s feeling defeated. Also defeated is Penny, who knows she’s not getting what she needs. Penny doesn’t like that Jo called the donor “The Holy Grail” and that he was everything to someone. This sparks an idea in Jo and she runs out to tell the other docs. Welcome to the first skull and scalp transplant at Grey’s!

Maggie’s cardio patient is failing, and she finds Riggs trying to call the shots on her. She disagrees with his surgical assessment and Maggie takes over, despite his objections.

Since Spencer was so afraid of bumping into his patient’s mom, he didn’t do the last few hourly checks and now the ball has come apart and the battery could perforate the kid’s colon. Now they have to take him to surgery.

As Callie and Penny prep for surgery on Mr. Jaffee, Callie finds out that Penny won’t be in the room, but is stuck in the donor operating room watching the kidneys. Callie has had just about enough and she confronts Meredith again. This time Penny jumps in and tells Callie to back off and shut up. Yeeouch!

Callie leaves with a cocked eyebrow and nothing to say, but Penny isn’t done. She tells Meredith that either she gives her a chance to learn, or sends her away, because this isn’t working out.

In Maggie’s OR, she comes up with a new way to address the patient’s issue, which isn’t Riggs’ method or the one she originally planned. This is why she’s Cardio Chief, because she’s innovative and thinks on her feet. Riggs already knows this: He’s read everything she’s written and studied her before joining the team. These two might actually be a good team after all.

Still thinking about her conversation with Maggie, Amelia finds herself alone with Steph and asking herself some big questions. She asks Steph if she thought Amelia took Jo’s word over hers because she is white…although Amelia can’t bring herself to say the words. Steph said it crossed her mind but they are all good. Spoiler: Amelia is not all good. She’s learning some big lessons, things that are unpleasant to think about. No one wants to think they have bias, or internalized racism or homophobia. It’s ugly and awful and we all like to think we are above that. But sometimes, as Amelia is realizing, we overestimate ourselves.

Meredith, for her part, has learned something, too. As she attaches the new kidney to Mr. Jaffee, she has Penny join her, much to Jo’s chagrin. While this makes Penny feel much better, it makes Jo feel awful and only reinforces the thought that she’s not a capable surgeon.

In another OR, Owen explains what’s at the root of a Doc Knocker. I’ll spare you. They get the battery out, FYI.

After their respective surgeries, the docs all check in with Bailey. Bailey introduces Riggs around and Owen loses his cool. He yells at her in the middle of the hallway about hiring Riggs without vetting him properly. Bailey calmly shuts him down, and asks if he wants to speak privately. He doesn’t; he wants to brood. And brood he does. He won’t talk to Amelia about it, so Meredith goes to comfort him. She tells him she made a promise to Cristina to watch out for him, so does she need to hate Riggs or what? Yes, we hates him. Much hate, Owen says.

Ben finds Jackson and after he finds out that he didn’t talk with April about divorce, he’s forced to act. He tells Jackson that he wants to have sex with his wife again, so could he, pretty please, leave. Jackson gets it and ends up in bed with April. This is probably only going to complicate things for these two.

In the parking lot of confessions, Amelia reveals to Maggie her worries that she was being racist. Maggie wants to know if Amelia is discussing this with her because they are sisters, or because Maggie is black. As Amelia fumbles all over her words and needs reassurance that she’s not the kind of person who would be biased or racist, Maggie delivers an epic speech that really nails the whole internalized racism/white privilege/white feminism issue. It’s so good, I’m putting it here in its entirety:

Maggie: Well it’s not an issue…for you. And it’s not all of a sudden. I mean it’s not Mississippi Burning or anything, but it is all over. It’s when people assume I’m a nurse, or when I go to get on a airplane with my first class ticket and they tell me that they’re not boarding coach yet. It’s like a low buzz in the background. Sometimes you don’t even notice it. Sometimes it’s loud and annoying, and sometimes it can get dangerous. And sometimes it is ridiculous, like right now.

Amelia: That’s not funny. If I’m doing it and I don’t even notice it…

Maggie: Then notice it. Look, did Edwards tell you that she’s OK?

Amelia: Yes.

Maggie: OK, then don’t give her the extra work of having to make you feel good about it.

Maggie couldn’t be more right. We need to notice. We need to stand up and take a whole lot of notice, and check our privilege at the door. It’s extra baggage that gets in the way of being the people we need to be. It’s not about seeking out validation for our insecurities. It’s about being better.

Mr. Jaffee is alive and happy and surrounded by his family. Jo, however, watches from the sidelines. In the resident locker room, Jo takes out her frustration on Penny who she feels swooped in and took over her patient. Steph watches this all unfold and asks Penny if she wants to grab a drink. Penny happily agrees, thinking that maybe she’s found a friend at Grey Sloan.

True to her word, when Riggs tries to cozy up to Meredith in the elevator, she shuts him down, telling him she’s Owen’s friend and no, she won’t be having a drink with him. Somewhere in the alps, Cristina is high-fiving her friend. Dammit, I miss Cristina.

OK, I saved this for last since it kind of existed on it’s own outside of the rest of the episode and it’s pretty great.

Arizona doesn’t have much in this episode, but what she does have is choice. Seems that seeing Callie officially move on with Penny has made Arizona realize it’s time to get out there herself. She wants to go to the lesbian bar (there are ones left in Shondaland and Rosewood) for trivia night to meet some smart queer ladies, but she’s nervous to go it alone. She asks April to join her, but she’s got plans with Jackson. Alex isn’t impressed with her suggestion of trivia, but Richard overhears and offers to join. He loves a good trivia night.

The bar is packed with stylish, hip lesbians and Richard. He doesn’t pick up that it’s a lesbian bar at first because he’s just so excited to get his trivia on. Arizona explains that she didn’t know how to turn him down since he seemed so excited and Richard realizes what she needs is a wingman.

He springs into action, scoping out the room and trying to figure out Arizona’s type. (For future reference, some tattoos are OK, glasses are a plus.) He saunters over to a group of cute ladies and works his magic while Arizona sips happily on her drink. I’d kind of love to see Arizona dating a hipster lez. Yay!

You all had a lot of feelings about this episode. Here are our favorite #greysgays tweets from this week.

Lesbian Apparel and Accessories Gay All Day sweatshirt -- AE exclusive

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Back to top button