Grey’s Anatomy 12×12, “My Next Life,” brought back Meredith’s first case with Derek and his shadow at every turn.
Grey’s Anatomy may have killed off Derek Shepherd, but they’re not ready to let go of him just yet. The episode starts out by Meredith telling her students that they need to have more respect for the dead. Then, her very first patient Katie ends up back in the hospital with similar symptoms to those she had years ago. Amelia takes on the case and gets annoyed that Meredith wants to be involved since she’s no longer in Neuro. She’s convinced that Derek must have made a mistake all those years ago, which Meredith doesn’t want to hear.
What they weren’t expecting was for it to be another aneurysm, but this time it’s a monster size. Amelia is worried that it’s too risky and doesn’t instill much confidence in Katie, who asks her, “Are you as good as your brother? Are you better than him?” This seems to be the very thing that Amelia is worried about, living up to her brother’s legacy. Everyone always had every confidence in Derek, but not her. It probably doesn’t help that Meredith keeps sending Penny to check up on her progress, but at least Owen believes in Amelia.
Meanwhile, Meredith has choices of her own to make. Does she focus on her former patient or her current one? What was supposed to be a routine checkup with a cancer patient turned into something much more serious when she starts to bleed out. Meredith tries to avoid bringing her into surgery and hopes that it can resolve itself. That doesn’t end up being the case and as they rush her to the OR, Meredith can’t help but remember how Derek started his surgeries with, “It’s a beautiful day to save lives.”
Unfortunately, Meredith’s patient doesn’t make it. Amelia has better luck and Katie pulls through, and she’s glad to hear that Meredith thinks she’s a good patient.
Even though I understand there is a grieving process, and it’s interesting to see how Amelia and Meredith have dealt with it, I can’t help but feel like Derek is being brought up too often. After Meredith went through therapy two episodes ago, I thought she had gotten some closure. I expected her to begin moving on from him, so it’s surprising to see that he was brought up again so soon and in such a big way. What I’d like to see is for them to start moving on from Derek in a substantial way.
Resolution did come for some other storylines, as Riggs revealed to Meredith what Owen blames him for. Riggs and Owen’s sister were working together when a patient had to be transported, but there was only room on the helicopter for one doctor. After a fight, he let her go on it because it was her patient from the start. The helicopter never arrived at it’s destination and they never found out what happened.
Jo also gave Alex something of an answer to his proposal. She asked him not to get rid of the engagement ring, saying that she doesn’t want it right now but she doesn’t want it to go away either. It’s not really the answer that Alex or fans were looking for, but it’s better than nothing. Hopefully they can start moving forward now.
I was also hoping to learn more about April and Jackson after their big episode, but all we learned is that April isn’t ready to tell Jackson that she’s about nine weeks along. Alex ended up figuring it out on his own and offered his support but also thinks she needs to tell Jackson. This feels like a bomb just waiting to explode and I hope April gets to tell Jackson before he finds out some other way.