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​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.

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​

A return to our favorite fictional Seattle hospital found Owen in the middle of two continuing medical stories we saw the beginnings of last week in Grey's Anatomy's two-hour premiere: Megan, returned from the presumed dead sister, pushing through recovery after surgery to repair / replace her abdominal wall, and Amelia, estranged and running scared wife, who had sworn Andrew to secrecy about her grapefruit sized tumor in her frontal lobe. Nope, nothing painful here for Owen to go through.

So, to recap via the recap, Megan remained determined to return as soon as possible to Iraq to reunite with her adopted son while Owen plead, mostly silently, for her to slow down and get well first. Meanwhile, things weren't going Amelia's way either as her former neurology professor, guest star Greg Germann, told her unequivocally that she should switch into patient mode given the size and placement of her tumor. In other words, neither woman in Owen's life turned out to be a very good patient.

In a melodramatic turn, Amelia sought out surgical service administration to share her medical status while remaining thoroughly unwilling to share her situation with either Owen or her sisters Meredith and Maggie. To ameliorate the drama level, at least we got to see more of Megan and Owen's sibling bond as they played cards and lamented their current personal situations. While I wish I believed Megan was really as all right as she seemed after ten years held captive in Iraq, at least we're getting to know more about Owen's family and history. Oh, and also that while she still loved Nathan she thought he still loved Meredith who, in a parallel scene, told her former (maybe still?) psychiatrist that she was done with love triangles. Guess she forgot to tell Grey's writing staff.

Meanwhile, as Amelia's testing continued it seemed to grow ever more impossible she could keep a rabbit this big in the hat. She finally seemed thoughtful on that topic after accepting Richard's help in evaluating the care she'd provided for her patients while her tumor grew. He managed to penetrate her mania with kind words about how while she helped her patients she was now hurting her family and friends by not letting them be in her current medical fight alongside her. So, while Owen and Megan agreed their lives needed fixing - Megan's approach to her health and Owen's marriage - we saw Amelia sharing her tumor news with weepy sister Maggie. Heck, at least her tumor, sizable though it may be, turned out to be benign.

​And, at last, we saw Amelia page Owen to the tech room so that he could find out the brains scans she'd been obsessively reviewing had her own name attached, while Maggie quietly broke the news to Meredith.

Elsewhere in the hospital: Miranda stressed out over Harper Avery's visit to the hospital; guest Bill Smitrovich, who played Meredith's psychiatrist in S.12, continued to treat her in an, albeit unconventional, way; Maggie and Jackson continue to be awkward with each other; Andrew, bound by HIPPA, got creative in trying to share Amelia's test results without actually sharing them; Alex and Jo's reunion seemed real; Arizona assigned Ben to spend the day monitoring a pregnant patient; Harper Avery, who was a real boor, died while in meetings at Grey Sloan Memorial; Carina and Arizona continued to see each other but disagreed about patient care; April continued to work through her decision to move out of Jackson's apartment; and Meredith told Nathan to fight for his dream to be back with Megan.

​Hour 1 - Break Down The House / directed by Debbie Allen

Grey's Anatomy returned in a big way this week with two hours that picked up right where the previous season set us down. Not only will Owen Hunt fans be pleased with the high-profile storyline at which he's the center - his long-thought deceased sister returned from being held hostage in Iraq - but we also got to see more of Kevin McKidd's directorial flair in the season opener's second hour.

We met Megan and saw that she's smart and funny and prepared to prank her brother Owen practically before she was off the helicopter used to transport her to McChord AFB near Seattle. And since she's inadvertently stepped into a Grey's triangle, it seemed a good plan that she was also willing to take baby steps when it came to reacquainting herself with Nathan. And, of course, while both men took leave from work to be fully involved in Megan's care, Amelia seemed freaked out by all the potential Hunt family bonding that was to come and retreated into surgeon mode. Meanwhile, Meredith became Megan's surgeon and all around favorite person, even though she was bound to find out that Meredith was also the 'significant' person Nathan has been seeing. And if that weren't enough family drama, it seemed Megan planned to return to Iraq as soon as possible because, wait for it, she planned to go back for the child she adopted while being held hostage. Yep, it's complicated.

Once Meredith began the testing required to take Megan into surgery, Owen found himself on the wrong end of his sister's questioning about Nathan's relationship status. Both he and Meredith wisely kept their mouths shut and focused on the medicine. Nathan meanwhile, expressed his concerns to Meredith about her role in Megan's care. Meredith, a la Amelia, assured him she was fine thank you and that he should let her do her job. Oh, and speaking of romantic entanglements, when Megan asked why Meredith was on a first name basis with her mom, she learned the surprising information that Owen had been married twice during his time in Seattle. But at least this time relationship gossip got us to Megan telling Owen to put his guilt at not searching harder for her in his back pocket and to get on with the work of living instead.

[continues on page 2 - see jump link below]

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screencaps via Home Of The Nutty

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This was one of those rare weeks in our favorite fictional  Seattle hospital in which we caught sight of Owen Hunt  again, albeit in a painfully complicated story directed by Kevin McKidd himself. But this is  Grey's Anatomy so what other kind of story is there in  that universe? Considering we're almost to the end of  the season, Owen's fans should count themselves lucky that he wasn't in the hospital when a vengeful patient set himself on fire while trying to escape, causing a large explosion. Okay, let's go back to the beginning of the  hour so that y'all know how we got here.

The main focus of Owen's reappearance seemed to be a step forward in the storyline of his Missing In Action  ister Megan disguised as a further test to his marriage  with Amelia. Unfortunately, we had to wait a while to hear  what message was delivered by the two army personnel who  showed up on Owen's doorstep as he got ready for work.  Considering one of them was a chaplain, we knew it  wasn't going to be any kind of good news. Viewers were  meant to be inside Owen's shock, as instead of hearing  the news as it was delivered in that opening scene, we heard him walk through the hospital  shrouded in a static-laden buzz that seemed to indicate  Owen's shattered attempt at processing what had  happened.

Owen's abrupt behavior surprised April as she attempted to treat a choking infant in the Emergency Room. His hard  slaps on the infant's back dislodged the coin on which  she'd choked and got us to, of course, Amelia performing the neurological consult he gruffly recommended before  stepping away. This gave her a perfect excuse to find Owen, clearly freaked out, in an exam room to deliver the parents' request to speak to him further. In another stalemate move on the Owen and Amelia chess board, rather  than investigate why he seemed so off his game, she simply  got irritated and left the room after delivering the  message.

When he caught up to the baby's parents and the mother  thanked him with a tearful hug for saving her child's  life, Owen fled from the emotional closeness and hid out in  another empty exam room. This time Amelia followed him and  asked what was going on. Oh, and just in case this story  wasn't complicated enough, this was just after she  finished encouraging Meredith again to move forward with  Nathan. Owen finally choked out that he had news about  Megan, and, wait for it...she's alive! While I'm  grateful Owen has a storyline and that, perhaps, he and  Amelia might, just might, remember how to talk to each other, it's distressing how his story looped us back to  Meredith's story in a typical Grey's house of cards.  Are we destined to see Meredith on the dark and twisty road  again? Let's hope not, but since this is Grey's,  that might be a vain hope.

Soon we saw Amelia take charge as Owen began to crumble  under the weight of the situation. While the two of them were at Meredith's house trying to track down information on whether or not it was indeed Megan who was being transported to an Army hospital in Germany, we soon saw allusions to Owen's past, parts of which were news  to Amelia. After Teddy, former Seattle surgeon who served  overseas with Owen, Megan, and Nathan, confirmed that Owen's sister had been found, Amelia set about having  her transferred to Seattle. She was also smart enough to  call in the leading expert in PTSD to help Owen deal with  the guilt he soon showed us at having moved on with his life  while his sister had been held hostage for nearly 10  years.

Once Meredith arrived home with the kids the rest of the  story was set into motion as Amelia related the truth of  Megan's reappearance. Meredith then took it upon herself to  return to the hospital so as to share this news with  Nathan. And wouldn't you know it, just as Meredith got out of her car a fiery explosion shook the hospital. Guess  next week must be the season finale, huh?

Elsewhere in the hospital: Meredith and Nathan woke up together and Maggie noticed their coziness at work; Alex tracked down Jo's husband, a fellow doctor, with likely to be disastrous results given his imaginings of what might happen when he confronted him; Richard approved  Stephanie's return to work after a short round of  therapy; Arizona and Eliza woke up together so they seemed  to be going strong; two patients of the week came in  unconscious and partially disrobed after a car crash;  Jackson and Maggie continued to bond; Eliza put Stephanie on  scut duty monitoring the male patient in the car accident who grew creepy and combative as it came to light he'd  tried to rape the woman in the car; the hospital went into lockdown as they tried to find him after he took Stephanie  hostage in an attempt to escape; and that's where that  explosion came from as he tried to set a fire to get the  doors to unlock again and, with Stephanie's assistance,  ended up setting himself aflame.

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This week's episode of Grey's Anatomy brought out some stories that have been teased out over the season, including the distance that's grown between Owen and Amelia. The literal distance was highlighted at a post-plane-surgical-rescue press conference in which Meredith and Nathan's actions to save two seriously injured patients were lauded by Miranda and a host of reporters. We saw both Owen and Amelia in the audience - Amelia chatted with Richard on one side of the room while Owen escorted Catherine to her seat in the front row on the opposite side of the room. An old story for Owen seemed to be getting older by the second, especially as it took us almost the whole rest of the episode to see him again.

And to keep the pressure high on their storyline, naturally anytime there's a pregnant patient in the hospital either Owen or Amelia, or maybe both of them, treat that patient - as we once again saw this week. A pregnant cancer patient, previously treated by Alex, was again in the ER with back pain and tingling in her legs. After an exam we saw both Amelia and Arizona enter the picture so as to prep for a C-section even though the baby wasn't yet at term. Since their patient's cancer had metastasized time was, as they say, of the essence.

During the surgery their patient threw a clot, which anyone could have predicted when she asked to sign a Do Not Resuscitate order before the surgery commenced. While Arizona handled the not so complex C-section that left Amelia to provide supportive care once their patient refused surgery for the clot. Their patient's sorrowful speech about how she regretted having put barriers in the way of being with the man she has loved, who loved her too, but also happened to be her best friend, and the father of her son, left everyone in the room teary-eyed.

We saw no easy resolution for Owen and Amelia in this episode, even after the elevator doors opened in front of Owen to show us a crying Amelia standing inside. While she tried to pull herself together and he tried to give her the space to do so, that processing lasted for only a second before he stepped into the elevator, wrapped his arms around her, and let her cry it out. Once they reached the next floor Owen stepped back, took a deep breath while Amelia again pulled herself together and they went their separate ways. This not talking about the elephant(s) in the room has left them both stuck in their stalemate mode, not surprising since there are only two more episodes before a said to be explosive season finale. Hey, at least they got the almost plane crash out of the way early this season.

Elsewhere in the hospital: A press conference outed Meredith and Nathan's relationship to Maggie; Alex continued being Meredith's fill-in person in Cristina's absence; Richard and Catherine continued to feud and Miranda couldn't help trying to fix it and pulled April into her plan; April, Richard, Stephanie, and Andrew ended up treating a patient with abdominal worms; Maggie blocked Meredith's attempts to explain what happened between her and Nathan; Maggie drowned her sorrows in surgery with Jackson; Richard and Catherine began the road back to each other; and Maggie grudgingly agreed to go out on the town with Meredith and Amelia - presumably dancing it out ensued

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Another hour of Grey's Anatomy aired this week that focused on telling a singular story in a singular location from beginning to end, though this one, maybe, included another beginning too. I'm not sure I'm digging this trend of taking doctors outside of the hospital to lay bare all their issues, even as this one put Meredith Grey and Nathan Riggs on an airplane with enough turbulence to injure several of their fellow passengers.

Meredith's initial dread at seeing Nathan as she was boarding the plane turned quickly to the two of them joining the Mile High Club, to the surprise of probably exactly no one. Turbulence rained on their parade and created injuries throughout the plane, some severe and some that allowed for cute bonding with a child with a forehead laceration that brought out Meredith's mommy side. Naturally there were other hints of romance, as a flight attendant made an attempt at a little flirtatious bonding while Nathan reset and wrapped her wrist, while the pediatric dentist also on board the flight tried to carve out some quiet time with Meredith.

We also got some Grey's gallows humor as Meredith invoked the plane crash that ended Season 8 and took both Lexie and Mark from the cast roster. (I still miss them both, btw.) We got some forward emotional story for Meredith as in this telling of the story, it was deceptively easy for her to admit loving her kid sister. Things got intense, though, when Nathan pushed Meredith's buttons about how she's overextended herself to take care of Maggie while backing away from what she wants with him. Astoundingly, she blurted out that she still considered herself married, and then all the Merder shippers gasped aloud. And that's when their more severely injured patient with a potential brain bleed starting throwing up back in the cabin. Uh oh.

Turned out Nathan and Meredith made a pretty good trauma surgeon team as they discovered they would have to relieve the inter-cranial pressure for their patient as it wasn't yet safe to land the plane and get him to a hospital. And naturally, their shared stories about working in the field from earlier in the episode were brought to life as Meredith closed her eyes and waited for the right time to plunge a syringe into their patient's brain so as to draw out the blood that was pooling inside.

Another patient with pulmonary hypertension lost consciousness and when Nathan couldn't find a pulse, a defibrillator and chest compressions required him to stay with his patient while more turbulence complicated Meredith's steady-as-she-goes approach to her patient's brain bleed. But heck, it wouldn't be Grey's Anatomy if there weren't multiple terrifying medical emergencies happening at the same time. An attempt at finally landing the plane saw a stressed Meredith flashing back to that plane crash she survived and got us some scenes of those missing family and friends - Lexie, Mark, Cristina, and Derek. (Although Cristina's still alive in the Grey's lexicon so here's hoping we see her again sometime in more than a flashback.)

Nathan's whoop of delight when they eventually landed wasn't quite mirrored by Meredith, though she did seem plenty relieved. Witty banter ensued as Nathan chattered on about the Sioux Falls hotel they would have to stay at rather than continue onto the medical conference both were scheduled to attend. Cue some more flashbacks of Merder's history as an easy explanation of what Meredith was trying to move past, before they both sauntered off to the hotel together.

Of course, we got no Owen Hunt this week, though the season is rapidly coming to a close so we'll have to catch up on the emotional and verbal cone of silence between him and Amelia sometime soon. I hope so as it's getting pretty wearying for viewers at this point.

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Viewers found out something new in this week's episode of Grey's Anatomy. Owen Hunt - wait for it -  has friends and they don't work at Grey Sloan Memorial! Of course, to twist the knife in typical Grey's fashion, these friends were both ideally placed to bring up Owen's history and vulnerabilities via being veterans he met at the VA Hospital who also happen to be married to each other and were expecting their first child. They also bantered cutely with both Owen and Nathan and asked about Owen's marriage and whether he and his wife were pregnant yet. Yup - Grey's writers went there.

Meanwhile, Maggie's first day back to work after her mother's death had her in the spirit to poach surgeries, starting with the one Nathan and Arizona had planned to fix a severely scary sounding and highly technical problem with the baby's heart - which put the most potentially vulnerable surgeon in the hospital right on Owen's radar. In front of the patients he was all business, but when he followed Arizona out of the room to ask why a doctor who hasn't spent a lot of time prepping for this very surgery was now in charge of it, the answer seemed very important to him. And of course, the father, who followed him into the hall, overheard the question and was seriously interested in the answer too. Did this have train wreck written all over it? Or was it a writer feint? Turned out to be some of both.

Although we did also get some bonding between Owen and Meredith, a reminder of their friendship in the wake of Cristina's departure from Seattle, it got a little strange once Jackson and Amelia joined in. They discussed forms of grieving and whether or not Maggie was ready for this surgery as though they were banal subjects. And then Amelia put it together that the patients involved were Owen's friends, people she knew. He kindly encouraged her to visit them because they'd asked about her. Other than a slightly reflective expression on Amelia's face, we were given no clues about how she felt. 

All eyes were on Maggie in the OR which meant that Owen and Meredith, Nathan and Amelia, along with pretty much every other featured surgeon on the show was in the gallery watching this unique surgery. We were treated to more storyline mirroring as we heard Amelia share the story of their friends tumultuous road to being together and to having this baby. As Amelia spoke, the camera alternated between her face and Owen's yet viewers would have gotten the parallels either way. What remained to be seen was how many more allusions to their friends' story it would take for Amelia to open her mouth and speak. Turned out we'd have to wait some more, as Amelia simply pushed him aside at the end of the day, calling them 'Owen's friends,' before she went home to Meredith's house.

Elsewhere in the hospital: Nathan saw Arizona and Eliza turn up at work together which turned into Arizona and Nathan bonding over moving on romantically; Maggie had the support of her sisters Meredith and Amelia as she grieved her mother, went back to work, and danced it out; Alex took on a teaching opportunity which we never actually got to see; Meredith and Nathan continued to dance around each other; Stephanie and Andrew treated one of the interns and both misdiagnosed him; Richard and Miranda worked together, and bickered together again; and Jackson helped Maggie mourn her mother which made this viewer think he should be made an honorary Grey/Pierce/Shepherd sibling.