The Grey’s Anatomy season 13 premiere wastes no time in jumping into a very dark storyline that affects all the surgeons at Grey Sloan Memorial.

‘Grey’s Anatomy’ season 13 premiere recap

Grey’s Anatomy opens up to the cheery scene of Owen and Amelia’s wedding reception. Fans are reminded of the mess that Meredith is in now that she’s somewhat involved with Riggs, and her sister, Maggie, has a crush on him. Her hints to Riggs that they need to end things aren’t being received.

This little problems seems like nothing in comparison to Alex’s issue. Meredith has to rush out of the wedding when she gets a call from Jo that something happened to DeLuca. She goes to the loft to find Jo crying hysterically while blood is all over the floor. Meanwhile, at the hospital, Alex arrives in an ambulance with DeLuca but dodges everyone’s questions of what happened.

Meredith arrives at the hospital and quickly makes Alex leave the room where they’re working on DeLuca. It’s obvious to her that Alex did something, but Meredith’s loyalty causes her to want to protect Alex. She advises him to say he fell and slipped in the rain if anyone asks about his hand. Then, when Maggie asks what happened, Meredith clearly feels guilty about having to lie. Maggie may be Meredith’s sister, but Alex is just like a brother to her.

Luckily for Alex, DeLuca’s CT scans come back clear. To be safe, Alex asks Meredith to take a second look at the scans just in case anything was missed. With the severity of DeLuca’s injuries, Meredith thinks Alex should talk to the police. However, Alex is hoping he can fix things with DeLuca all by himself without having to involve the police. Too bad they’re already there and looking into what happened.

Trying to hide the truth isn’t going to work for Alex. Ben is already suspicious and asks him what happened to his hand. Alex sticks with the story that Meredith gave him about slipping. Ben, though, says that when DeLuca wakes up, everyone will know what happened. It’s a wonder that Alex is staying delusional that this situation can still be fixed.

Rather than talking to the police, Alex talks to Jo, who shows up at the hospital. He should listen to what she has to say, but he assumes the worst. When he finds out that DeLuca wasn’t actually forcing himself on Jo, he gets verbally aggressive. What gives, Alex? Even though Jo is at fault for keeping secrets from Alex, he is way out of line here. It must be traumatizing for Jo to be involved in this situation, and he’s not thinking about her at all.

Meredith goes to watch Alex’s surgery and finds Ben is already there. He thinks DeLuca could have ongoing issues with his eyes, meaning his career as a surgeon could be over. Ben even admits to Meredith that he thinks he knows who did it to DeLuca, but doesn’t think the truth should come from him. Meredith agrees with him.

Stephanie comes to check on Jo and finds her packing up all her things from the lockers. Jo’s new plan is to flee, it seems, but Stephanie talks her into telling the story of what happened. Stephanie relays it to Meredith, who tells Alex, and begs him to tell Bailey.

The truth that Alex is the bad guy in this story is now out, and he needs to tell Bailey. For whatever reason that only makes sense to Alex, he thinks the best thing to do is wait for DeLuca to wake up and talk to him first.

DeLuca does wake up, and he finds Jo in the room with him. Despite being the one in the hospital bed, he wants to know how she’s doing. He thought that Alex might have gone after her too, and clearly doesn’t place any blame on Jo. It does upset him when she asks him to keep her secret, and it makes DeLuca think she only came to protect herself. This seems to be a running theme for Jo; her friends never seems to really stand with her. It’s curious that Jo doesn’t just come out with the truth now.

Things only go from bad to worse when Alex walks in. He wants to talk to DeLuca, but he starts freaking out right away. While DeLuca is screaming for help, he seems to go into distress, so Alex flees. By now you think he’d go tell the truth, but he seems tempted to slip away.

Meredith is dreading having to talk to Bailey, so she tells Riggs she has to do something she doesn’t want to. It does open her up to getting his comfort, though, and she asks him to sit beside her for a while. This is the opposite of what Meredith has been doing all episode with Riggs, where she’s been trying to push him away.

Bailey and Meredith go to find Alex and get him to the police, but he’s already there talking to them. Now that they know what he did, Alex is placed under arrest for aggravated assault. Walking past Jo, Weber, and Catherine in handcuffs is surely a new low point in his life.

Even though Meredith did come out with the truth, Maggie can’t believe that she had kept it a secret. Meredith had started out the day thinking she was going to upset Maggie with Riggs and ended up upsetting her about something completely different, and much worse. Maggie worries that she can’t trust Meredith.

Cue Riggs to show up just when Meredith promises not to lie to Maggie again. He tells Meredith that something is happening between them and wants to know the problem. She says someone is going to get hurt, and she doesn’t feel the same way about him. Is Meredith telling the truth or just trying to push him away?

Sticking with truth-telling, Meredith goes to see Alex and apologizes for telling Bailey. He’s not mad, though; he’s the one who did the punching. Alex is convinced that his life is over, but Meredith is trying to keep positive.

The episode heavily focuses on Meredith and Alex, while including the other character from Grey’s Anatomy, which stays true to Shonda Rhimes’ promise to bring the focus back to the originals. It worked well in this case, and time will tell how it plays out the rest of the season.

Notably missing from the episode was Arizona, who is usually right by Alex’s side. Still, the episode packed a punch and was a great start to the season. Here’s to another season of drama in Shondaland!

Extras from ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ season 13 premiere:

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