| press release | promos | photos | sneak peeks |​
​

| press release | promos | photos | sneak peeks |​

written by Elizabeth Finch / directed by Kevin McKidd

| press release | promos | photos | sneak peeks |​

written by Elizabeth Finch / directed by Kevin McKidd

| press release | promos | photos | sneak peeks |​

written by Elizabeth Finch / directed by Kevin McKidd

| press release | photos | promos | sneak peeks | recap |

​In an evening of crossover events, Grey's Anatomy surgeons and fans were introduced to Andy Herrera, the new female badass firefighter who showed up at Grey Sloan Memorial with her hand inside a patient's chest cavity. (The ads for her show, Station 19, made it clear this behavior was just how Andy's wired.) So, pretty much a regular day at this Seattle hospital. Former surgeon, now emergency responder Ben Warren was in tow as a way to connect the two shows even further while allowing him to keep a watchful eye on wife Miranda who was just returning to work after her vacation, ahem, make that heart attack recuperation.

While the hour showed a few allusions to the mysterious surgical contest occurring at the hospital, writers spent much of the episode introducing Andy, a thrill-seeker fire fighter with a decent side helping of earnest.  She was  fascinated by Meredith's surgery on their critically injured pediatric patient, enough so that Andy covered for her when the fancy Madrid doctor called to discuss the patent on the polymer Meredith needs for her research. She also convinced him to meet with Meredith on an upcoming visit to Seattle.

Having bowed out of the contest in the interest of retrenching himself in his beloved trauma department, Owen found himself working with one of the new interns to save another child pulled from the fire, older brother to the child Andy and Meredith were doing their best to save in another operating room. His mentorship skills were in high gear when Owen's intern used her hijab to stem the flow of blood from their young patient's femoral artery in a rushed pre-surgery moment. Owen's kind words to her after their patient pulled through gave this previously somewhat hapless intern a shot of confidence in her abilities.

Speaking of quick thinking, badass women, we saw Miranda step firmly back into the OR while shutting down both Richard and Ben's attempts to babysit her. Of course, Ben's need to linger at the hospital also showed us his realization that he now missed surgery even as he was stepping into an exciting new career, one Miranda had finally made peace with in a previous episode. Out of this part of the plot we got a bit of additional bonding for Miranda and Maggie, who operated on her and and then cleared her boss to return to work.

Additional bonding occurred, though somewhat at cross purposes, between Jackson and Arizona when he approached her to discuss his concern over April's actions after finding out the interns were calling her Dr. Party. While Arizona assured Jackson April was simply kicking up her heels outside her former relationship with him, Japril fans were heartened when he followed through on his gentlemanly urges to defend April's honor to the interns, albeit in a slightly caveman kind of way. By episode's end, it seemed Arizona was sharing Jackson's concerns over April as she watched her friend raucously pour shots for the interns while urging them all to chug them down. Oh April, seems you're on the Grey's writers' path to self-knowledge these days.

Viewers also got another shot of bonding between the Grey's sisters - Meredith, Amelia, and Maggie - as the three talked surgery while corralling the kids in the morning. Unfortunately, Alex found himself caught in the middle at work as Amelia invited her former mentor to help them brainstorm their research into how to save their pediatric cancer patient. Tom seemed more interested in catching up where he and Amelia left off, since the two slept together in an on-call room during his last appearance on the show. This time they bantered, argued, and flirted while Alex grew ever more irritated until they finally figured out a new approach to their young patient's insidious brain tumor. One good thing to come out of this messy story was watching Alex continue to steadfastly advocate for their patient, even while singing badly with her, and it gave Sam and Andrew something more to do than argue and flirt with each other. Here's hoping their scientific breakthrough will leave them with a way to salvage their winsome young patient's life in upcoming episodes.