Grey’s Anatomy season 11, episode 18 tries to send everyone off with a happy ending, but sometimes life doesn’t work out like a fairy tale.
Cases of the Week: A bank robbery sends multiple cops and one suspect into the ER with gunshot wounds during a school field trip.
There is nothing like waking up the morning of a class trip. You know you don’t have to go to classes, you get to see someplace new, learn a thing or two hands on, and somehow a bagged lunch tastes better that day. Meredith experiences a similar wave a happiness when she looks through her back door at her charming husband, two kids, and prepares to go off to a great job. When you see an excited child, you want to share their joy. But, as Meredith explains, when you see another adult counting their blessings, sometimes you want to punch them in the face.
Owen may be having trouble finding his place in Amelia’s life, but he is not the only one. As Derek returns to the surgical rotation, he must first get Amelia’s approval to work for her. As the class makes their way to through the hospital, they run into the Shepherds, who operate on brains. Cool! An important lesson in working with your siblings is passed along, but Amelia has a few followup questions for Derek. Will serving at the pleasure of his sister ever be enough to compare to serving the President?
We are still waiting for Ben’s inner Regina George to erupt and yell, “Stop trying to make ‘Plastic’s Posse’ work, Avery!” Avery tries desperately to make Sloan’s spirit live on, but his coolness is not up to par. He cannot even get an eight-year-old to high five him.
Stephanie “Left-Swipe” Edwards’ track record on the dating app is not great. However, a stray chaperone on a field trip may offer her someone to look at offline for a change. A field trip to the ER to see Kepner quickly turns from a talk about trauma to a first person lesson in gushing neck wounds and learning when to get out of the way.
While Avery tries to get Plastic’s Posse to take off, Arizona attempts to call newborns Pop Tarts, sparking a question about wombs. She takes too long to stumble through her answer to beat out another question about whether or not a man with a gunshot wound to the neck is going to die. The answer to his fate and others lie in the ER.
A mother arrives to find that both of her sons are being treated for severe injuries while cops crowd the rest of the ER around their commanding officer. Sitting with one of her sons, his chest injuries become too severe and he loses oxygen for 14 minutes, causing him to go brain dead. Upstairs in the OR, his brother is in the clear for his injuries, but the surgery causes him to suffer a stroke. Downstairs, a mother is informed that both of her children are gone.
As the class tries to avoid more trauma, Alex takes them into an exam room and shows them x-rays of nails to the head and a can that wound up in an intestinal track.
Owen and Amelia are not so certain how to handle Derek roaming around the hospital. Both are trying to envision a world where clipping aneurysms and stopping bleeders is enough for Derek Shepherd, M.D.
As a grieving mother faces her future, she must consider where her sons’ organs are heading. She may be all right with giving them over to donation, but Bailey pushes another option on her. Donate one liver to the suspect in need of a transplant in the next few hours. Not only does the mother have a problem separating the backstory from the patient, but the doctors do as well.
The commanding officer holds the other side of the story. Beyond being an accomplice to the death of his partner, the kid is at the end of his rebellious road. As hard as it may be to imagine, after bouncing from foster home to juvie and back again, this final outburst might just be act they need to turn his life around. That is enough to have the mother reconsider her sons’ organ donations.
Another lost child turns out to be one from the class trip. The inquisitive child found her way into the gallery of the organ harvest as she watches Meredith take apart the man she feared would die in the ER. Derek finds her as he wanders in to watch Meredith. She watches with awe and decides then and there that Meredith is exactly who she wants to be. Derek agrees it is nice to see your future laid out before you, step by step.
Bailey and Meredith complete the harvest and transplant, ready to present the mother with her sons’ bodies. As Avery spends time making sure they are presentable, just as Mark Sloan would have done, Bailey thanks the woman for giving nearly 100 people a second chance at life through the gift of her boys’ organs.
Edwards’ potential fling with a chaperone turns out to be a dud when he bails on plans because of his own junior prom, but Callie makes out a bit better, securing a date with the commanding officer she treated.
Everyone’s day may not have turned out as expected in terms of happiness, but there is one person everyone needs to stop worrying about. Derek heads out to chat with Amelia. The Shepherds are runners. Pain, panic, stress, and they bolt. But after years of running, Derek is tired. What was wrong with saving one life at a time in an OR and taking the rest to coach soccer and watch his daughter’s recitals? It turns out it is enough. Amelia still has a bit of settling down to do as she faces her relationship with Owen and considers what love can feel like. For now, it’s terrifying.
Before you watch an all new Grey’s Anatomy season 11, episode 19, “Crazy Love,” Thursday, April 9 at 9:00 p.m. ET on ABC, go back to Seattle Grace and watch the pilot at 8:00 p.m.
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