We saw a collision of history and the unhappy present for Meredith in realizing yet another piece of her life with Derek was now going by the wayside. And we also saw that amid her regretful examination of that history, Meredith still took seriously her promise to Cristina to watch out for Owen which kept her conflict with Amelia still very much alive.
Owen, meanwhile, was too caught up in his own excitement at home ownership to do more than double-check that Meredith was all right with the decision to sell the trailer before going into the hospital. We continued to hear more about Owen’s new house as Amelia crowed about it to Maggie during surgery. She then grew a little cagey as Owen suggested she help him pick out furniture so it would be set up to be comfortable for both of them.
Their playful, pretend conversation seemed almost circular as Maggie was added to the mix, asking if Amelia was moving in with Owen. For his part, Owen then upped the ante by talking up the house’s virtues, including its spaciousness, the big yard, that it was in a good school district, and talk soon skipped to would they consider marriage with the right person – both Owen and Amelia agreed they would. How quickly this conversation got to this point left me almost winded.
Meredith, still stuck a bit in slow motion, encountered Maggie and Amelia lightly bickering over their operating room conversation. While Meredith tried to keep the topic to the patient’s scans on the screen in front of them, Amelia turned to Meredith for fortification, reminding her she was the one who told her to get back with Owen in the first place. To say Meredith didn’t take it well would be an understatement. We soon heard Meredith read Amelia an amazing riot act about her cavalier decision-making which was at least partly about Meredith’s own mourning process for her life with husband Derek and best friend Cristina. (Later on Meredith bonded with someone unexpected over this very situation.)
The end of the day saw Owen and Amelia standing outside his new house, admiring it amidst further banter about their future. That banter soon turned serious as she brought up her patient’s death and their conversation once again went into overdrive. Amelia told Owen they should just go for it before officially proposing to him. While we didn’t hear his answer, the promo for next week’s episode showed what looked like a potentially crisis-laden wedding event so all we can say for sure is stay tuned.
Elsewhere in the hospital: Callie and Penny’s stalemate ended in a break up; Stephanie struggled with her feelings for Kyle and pestered Amelia about her plan to treat his symptoms, then watched helplessly as he died during surgery; Penny poignantly thanked Meredith for teaching her; Arizona ran out of patience with Callie’s requested adjustments to their custody schedule for Sofia; Jo refused Alex’ latest wedding proposal, Meredith and Nathan turned a fight outside the hospital into quite the lip-lock; Richard’s excitement at a pending visit from Catherine was eclipsed by several seeming passing of the torch scenes that were, perhaps, indicative of something more; Alex and Meredith treated a critical teenage patient; Maggie and Nathan bonded over surgical preferences and bacon; Ben and Jackson continued to bond over surgery and relationship challenges; and Bailey and Ben continued to agree to disagree, sort of.