Grey’s Anatomy season 12, episode 5 tests the interns’ ability to act under pressure when a flood takes over the ER in “Old Time Rock and Roll.”
Plenty of natural disasters have taken over the pit of Grey Sloan Memorial, but tonight’s flood is not a natural disaster. The “Silver Flood,” a code word for a mass influx of senior citizen patients provides the perfect training course for bedside manner, triage, and knowing when it is time to let go.
The human body and mind can endure a massive amount of pain. Some of it is necessary, like surgery to fix internal bleeding. Some is more emotionally challenging, but equally important, such as hearing someone close to you has died. You may not believe the pain will make you stronger, but in time it does. So how do you silence the one part of your brain that is telling you to keep going when every other part is screaming for you to quit? Take in the world around you and learn from it.
Grey’s Anatomy season 12 is returning to a time where the teaching is at the forefront of Grey Sloan Memorial and everyone can benefit from listening and learning.
The ‘Four L’s’
The toughest lesson to hit the interns is not Webber’s anatomy class, but Hunt’s instruction to deliver death notices to the senior citizen patients’ next of kin. Find a location, use explicit language, offer a comforting pat on the arm, and then excuse yourself as quickly as possible. That is Owen’s military training creeping into his teaching. Meredith has a different approach. She sits with the interns and explains that in the moment before the worst pain a person is about to experience in their entire life, theirs is the last face they’ll remember before their world changed forever.
Lady town is closed for business
Maggie Pierce is not open for business. After she an McIntern hit the sheets, Pierce instantly recognized her dalliance was a mistake, even if it was fantastic and extremely satisfying. Meredith is all ears for the sexy gossip, but she has a stunning realization in the midst of Maggie’s tell-all. Meredith’s lady town is closed for business. She may not be having sex, but she isn’t holding her breath until it happens again. She has her kids, her career, her friends. She had her one love. For now that is enough.
The past is the past
Amelia is ruthless when it comes to achieving success. One of her patients, a woman recovering from brain surgery, is going to stand up and walk to a chair less than 24 hours into recovery. Edwards is Amelia’s right-hand woman for a myriad of reasons, namely because she is loyal and tough as nails. But torturing a patient wakes up a 20-year-old ghost from her childhood. But when she uses an excuse for the first time on Amelia’s service, Jo assumes that Edwards is continuing on her manipulative streak.
However, this time, Edwards stuck to the straight and narrow.
A true relation-ship
One of the sweeter stories of tonight’s episode centered on Abe and Gabbie, an elderly couple involved in the bus crash. Abe and Gabbie were on their way to a singles’ cruise, not to look for love, but to celebrate the anniversary of when they met on the ship. Abe planned to propose the love he found in his late ’80s. The junior high butterflies were alive and fluttering in their hearts and stomachs, but unfortunately, Abe did not wake up from his nap.
Ghosts that will not leave
McIntern set off a lot of emotional triggers for Maggie Pierce. If she wasn’t already having enough trouble getting her wits about her in Seattle, this was the straw that broke the camel’s back. But Maggie and DeLuca must learn to coexist in the hospital or else he will become her ghost in the halls of Grey Sloan Memorial. The easiest solution is to put an end to it. The more satisfying conclusion? Keep it going.
Meredith cannot unload all of her baggage from Derek’s death in a matter of six episodes. She’s done a great deal of work to free herself of most of the weight, but Callie is about to unintentionally add a huge bag to the pile when she introduces her date, Penny, the doctor who failed to order a head CT for Derek.
Watch Grey’s Anatomy season 12, episode 5, “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” Thursday, October 22 at 8:00 p.m. ET on ABC.
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