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“Grey’s Anatomy” recap (11.15): The Streak

Good day, GreysGays. I want to try a little something different with this week’s recap, because the episode really lent itself to breaking it into groups of docs and their cases.

Last week on Grey’s Anatomy, Dr. Herman lived to snark another day, but she is now blind thanks to that bastard tumor. Amelia is a superheroine, and Callie and Arizona connected in a meaningful way. This week, maybe to diffuse some of the heavy personal drama from the last two episodes, was really about the cases. Also this week, an earthquake jolts a little sense into the doctors.

Meredith and her winning streak

Meredith has been an absolute machine lately, arriving super early for rounds and staying late. One might say she’s avoiding something, like seeing her husband or dealing with her crumbling marriage, but whatever. As she operates on a patient, a pretty epic earthquake rocks the hospital. Meredith protectively places her body over the patient’s open cavity, because she’s Meredith. Jo watches from the theatre, which she has apparently been doing a lot of. Jo tells Steph that she’s been keeping track of Meredith’s surgeries and she is on a streak, meaning she hasn’t lost a patient since November, months ago.

After the surgery, Meredith and Alex help out in the ER where an engaged couple and their respective children have been brought in. They were skiing when the quake hit, and the dad and his fiance’s son both fell off the ski lift. Ski dad’s daughter is a real brat, and resents the hell out of his fiance and her son, blaming the kid for the accident. Jo begs Alex to let her off of his service that day so she can work with Meredith and her winning streak. He warns her not to tell Meredith about it, because knowing her, it will throw her off.

It turns out that the son, Micah, isn’t doing so well, and while getting a CAT scan, he starts crashing due to his ruptured spleen. Meredith punches him in the damn chest, and gets his heart pumping again. They rush him to surgery. When his mother finds out, she becomes furious with her fiance and Ski Dad feels terrible. All he wanted was to unite this family and, instead, he pushed them further apart.

While working on Mica, Meredith brags about how healthy her and Alex’s relationships are. So what that she has to cancel DC? She and Derek in a groove. Alex begs to differ and suggests that ruts can look like grooves to people who are in denial. Meredith is quick to point out that Alex isn’t exactly a champ in the long term relationship game. His relationship with Izzie was a “Cancer Marriage.” Eva went and peed on Mer’s couch. Hell, Jo’s the best thing that’s happened to him since-well, ever. Meredith reiterates what Cristina once told her, that her life doesn’t revolve around Derek. Her marriage is happy, even if her husband isn’t really in it at the moment.

When Meredith pulls Micah out of a perilous situation, Jo lets it slip about the streak. Meredith can’t help but be impacted by the fact that the streak started the day Derek left. She wonders if, perhaps, it was kismet that Derek left, allowing her to truly climb. Fuck climbing-she’s soaring! She doesn’t need Derek, but she wants him and heads off to give him a call. A woman picks up, and it’s not Derek’s assistant. In fact, she’s a complete mystery and won’t tell Meredith who she is. When she hangs up on Meredith, a sense of dread enters the room. Is Derek stepping out?

Owen and Amelia teach a child to operate, probably scar her for life

Well, as earthquakes do, they cause chaos, and so the ER quickly fills up with bumps to the head, cuts and broken bones. April is manning the pit, which Richard is pleased to see. Arizona pops by to let us know that Herman is doing well, learning how to live as a blind person and not losing any of her snark. The ER phone rings and Owen picks it up. It’s a little girl named Ruby whose mother fell during the quake at their cabin and is now unconscious. She couldn’t get through to 911 so she tried the hospital. Owen decides to stay on the line while April tries to get a 911 trace on the call.

Owen moves to a quieter room and Amelia joins him on the line. Ruby’s mom has a restricted airway and they walk the 11-year-old through how to help her. It’s actually kind of cool how they use the phone to figure out her breath sounds and whatnot. Owen tells Ruby to tilt her mother’s head, but Amelia is worried it will paralyze her. They decide to do it anyway, and it opens the woman’s airway for a brief moment. Through the phone they can hear that air is trapped and know that they have to ask Ruby to do something no child should have to: cut into her mother’s chest.

Richard joins in as they walk Ruby through the procedure while paramedics helicopter their way to her. The little girl does it correctly, but her mother crashes anyway. Amelia, Owen and Richard teach Ruby how to do chest compressions, using the Bee Gee‘s “Staying Alive” as a guide. They all sing to her as she does compressions, and her phone eventually dies. Hearing her little trembling voice singing as she struggles to keep her mother alive was heartbreaking.

They all wait by the phone to hear from her again, and when the phone finally rings, the scene switches to the helipad. EMTs rush the mother into the hospital, while Ruby runs off the copter and into Owen’s arms. He tells her that she’s a pretty kick ass kid, and he’s proud of her. Later, as her mother is in surgery, Owen tells Ruby to rest, but she’s worried she hurt her mother. Owen assures her that is not the case, and that she, in fact, saved her mom. Amelia comes out to deliver the good news: Ruby’s mother is going to be OK, and another hero is born.

When they are finally alone, Owen and Amelia hug with relief. The hug slowly turns romantic though, and they kiss, before moving it to the on-call room. The more I think about it, the more I’m OK with this pairing. I mean, I think Amelia deserves the sun, but these two somehow click.

Maggie and Callie talk about SEX

When the earthquake hits, Maggie is temporarily trapped in an elevator with a cute new doctor named Ethan. He’s kind and flirty, and when he grins, Maggie gets a little awkward.

Maggie and Callie team up on a patient who has heart issues, but also a broken hip. The patient, who is in her 70s, has a very active and adventurous sex life, and wants to get back into banging shape ASAP. (She heartily endorses the Karma Sutra book.) Callie wants to go in and do a full hip replacement, which will give her full flexibility, and the patient is totally on board. However, Maggie has concerns about putting her through a major surgery, considering her heart troubles. The patient wonders if Maggie is getting laid. Poor Maggie, everyone needs to step off. The woman tells the docs about how she loved her husband for 40 years, but when he died, she wanted to try new things, lots of sex being one of them.

Outside the room, Callie and Maggie continue to argue about the surgery. Maggie asks if the ability to reverse cowgirl (OK, my words not hers) is worth risking the patient’s life over. Callie points out that being bedridden would be life threatening too for their patient, but reluctantly agrees to look into other, less invasive options.

In the radiology room, Callie and Maggie bump into Ethan, who doesn’t try to hide his giddiness at seeing Maggie again. Callie figures out a way to fix the hip without replacing it and goes off to tell their patient, leaving Maggie with Ethan. Ethan, who has a terrific smile, just continues to moon over Maggie. He gets up the nerve to ask her out, but she declines, and it’s all a little bit awkward.

In the OR, Callie works on their patient while Maggie observes to make sure nothing goes south with her heart. Callie teases Maggie about Ethan, and Maggie tells Callie that he’s simply not her type: He’s a radiologist. Callie takes this to mean that Maggie thinks she’d be dating down, and calls her a snob. Maggie is horrified because that’s not what she meant. Well, what do you mean, Maggie? Later, after surgery, Maggie tries to explain herself. It’s not that she doesn’t date radiologists-she just doesn’t date. It always ends up all awkward, and Maggie ends up feeling like an outsider, so she just avoids it.

Callie tells her that’s nice and all, and also a load of crap. She’s an adult now. Grow up and get over it, and maybe, get over or under someone else. She shouts out a bunch of sex euphemisms at a fleeing Maggie, my favorite of which is “Cup your coconuts.” Ha. I love when Callie cracks herself up. She’s got a laugh that can pierce the darkness.

Maggie takes Callie’s advice and agrees to a date with Ethan. He suggests right then and there, but she gets nervous, so they agree on the following week.

Jackson teaches Ben to talk less, and listen more

After Ben throws himself on Bailey to protect her from the earthquake-protection she doesn’t need thank you very much-Bailey suggests that he go and call his sister to check and make sure she’s alright. Ben is still balking about his sister’s transition, especially when Bailey asks about the trans family support group that he was supposed to attend. He snaps and tells her it’s none of her business, which is not a phrase any spouse wants to hear coming out of their loved one’s mouth. To Bailey, this is about family, and Ben continues to shut her out of it. Ben reports for rounds with Jackson, who tries to be cool and suggests that maybe he’ll want to join the “plastics posse.” Unfortunately, the posse is just Jackson now, and it just makes Mark’s absence loom larger.

Their first consult is a woman looking to have a breast augmentation. She keeps looking to her boyfriend when Jackson shows her the options, and Jackson tells her to come back in six weeks. When Ben asks why he’d do that, Jackson tells him that he’s learned to read these things pretty well and this woman is only doing it for her douchey boyfriend. He hopes six weeks will give her time to realize this.

The perform a nose job on a woman, and afterwards, Ben wonders how this is different from the boob job woman. What if she wakes up and regrets it? Jackson tells Ben that some people know, deep in their bones, what they really want and who they are. This patient has wanted a nose job since she was a kid. This was no whim, just like Ben’s sister has know her whole life. “Those patients do not change their minds,” Jackson tells him. The only way Ben will know that, is if he learns to truly listen.

Later on, Ben finds Bailey to apologize for shutting her out and tell her that he called Rosalind to check on her. He knows it doesn’t make everything OK, but it’s a step in the right direction. Bailey makes him promise to cook her dinner and “other things” when he gets home to make it up to her.

So, what are your thoughts?

Here are our favorite #GreysGays tweets from last night’s episode.

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