When you are a surgeon there is a right and a wrong time to panic. Find out whose resolve was tested the most in our Grey’s Anatomy recap.
Cases of the week: A fatal plane crash brings the casualties to the ER.
Richard Webber driving to the hospital sees a small CGI plane crash land in the center of Seattle. Only it was not CGI for the doctors who all take in the patients from the plane and the debris below.
Out of nowhere, Meredith is blindsided by Derek’s missed meeting and as she turns to take the blow from that she is hit with a plane crash flooding the ER. Jo and Stephanie charge into the ER ready for a fresh batch of trauma patients to add to their hours, while Bailey races them to get the best one. She does, of course, as the pilot enters the ambulance bay a few minutes behind everyone else.
Perhaps the dating site that matched Kate and the pilot Sam should make sure that everyone’s health is up to par to fly an aircraft. After suffering an episode in the cockpit Sam went down taking the plane and Kate with him. As she describes the date and begins to ask questions about where he is, all Meredith can hear are echoes of the woods from two seasons ago. As the patient and Owen ask questions, Cristina screams back.
In hiding Meredith and Arizona talk themselves through their first of many near panic attacks. They are not lying in the ER, the woods, or on gurneys lining the halls. But there are striking similarities following them everywhere.
As Meredith heads off to treat the pilot and plays back her last morning with Derek, Arizona heads to treat a prenatal yoga class that sat too close to the landing zone. Luckily, Karev is there to keep an eye on her and winds up taking the brunt of her orders.
As the morning of Derek’s departure plays out Meredith recalls waking up and telling him all the different ways she tried to make the bed less lonely. 3D tumors, the kids, even Cristina operating over Skype were nothing compared to Derek’s head on the pillow.
Webber keeps going over and over the details of his own morning, stopping just before getting to specific details about his location at the time of the crash. April is not only in charge of making sure he gets his facts straight, but that Maggie has hers in line. As Maggie goes on and on about a bad cancelled flight, April takes on the challenge of explaining Meredith’s experience losing her sister, Arizona losing her leg, and everyone losing a piece of themselves in the woods.
As if there is anything else to add to the day, Meredith is asked to stick her hand into a man’s chest and instructed, “Don’t move,” by Maggie. She has so much catching up to do!
Love at First Sight: The Kate and Sam Story, a Nicholas Sparks style novel coming to you soon from Stephanie Edwards. While Jo plays out the drama of the plane crash mulling over every detail, Stephanie is more focused on what Kate will do if she never remembers Sam or what if she does remember him and he never comes out of the OR? That is looking more and more likely as the only option Maggie seems to be left with is to glue the man’s valve together.
That novel is not as far fetched as it seems. When Edwards gets caught badgering Kate to remember her morning, Amelia runs in and escorts her out where they both run into Owen. But instead of the upper hand coming down on Edwards’ unprofessionalism, she blindsides her superiors and demands that they stop ruining her story. When she goes on to tell everyone the story of how she saved love at first sight she cannot have it clouded by uncooperative doctors who were too busy focusing on their own problems to help their patient.
The final morning comes back one last time as Meredith and Derek relive their fights, the big ones, and Derek tells Meredith that she has been, and will always be, like a breath of fresh air. By now the sun is up and we are catching up to the moment last week’s episode opened with. There is no doubt that Merder is here to stay. That is if Meredith doesn’t call in the National Guard if she does not hear from him by 5:00 p.m.
Dr. Webber, now looking into the cockpit from his car, is pulled aside where he finally tells the true version of his story to April. He did not have as near of a death experience as some of his other brushes with death. But this one still ran him through the life in pictures montage that comes with it.
Alex’s hovering is pushing Arizona closer to her emotional edge. Alex decides it is time to get something off his chest. In the OR after the crash, Callie made the call, but Alex made the cut on her leg. Arizona needed to take out her anger on someone and better to have Callie as the target and Alex as a friend.
It turns out Owen was not blindsided by Amelia’s reluctance to define their relationship, but by the aching feeling that under his orders, his men were placed in harms way when that plane went down. If another plane crash comes up, he will not survive. All their relationship will ever be is a plane crash.
Edwards crosses another line and takes Kate to see Sam. It was love at second first sight as she looks at her date lying in recovery.
Back at home, Meredith sits in waiting as flashing lights pull up to her glass house.
Watch Grey’s Anatomy season 11, episode 21, “How to Save a Life,” Thursday, April 23 at 8:00 p.m. ET on ABC.
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