Owen Hunt had his professional hands full negotiating a precarious situation in which Miranda Bailey had administered a deactivated virus to her immune deficient patient even after his parents had withdrawn their consent for the procedure. Once the child's health had improved to the point at which he could be discharged, Bailey finally confessed her actions which, in turn, put her in the position of having to tell Owen once the child's parents threatened legal action. While Owen spent most of this episode investigating this situation and trying to shield the hospital from harm, he was also facing his challenging feelings regarding the impending departure of his love and colleague, Cristina Yang.
We saw Owen and Cristina navigate around each other, frustratingly so, for most of the episode. We recently learned that Dr. Russell, the hospital's Chief of Cardio, had resigned to pursue options elsewhere in the face of Cristina's loss of the Harper Avery award and the resultant implications for award eligibility for Grey Sloan Memorial hospital surgeons. Owen had given Cristina the task of interviewing prospective candidates for her former boss' position which put her in a series of interviews with mostly lackluster or ill-prepared candidates, none of whom, as Owen put it, will ever be Cristina Yang. While she took her duties seriously, we saw one candidate's mention of the Harper Avery award be the trigger it took to show us just how grown Cristina is as a surgeon as she talked about the importance of the work, not the awards, to illustrate a surgeon's mettle.
While Owen and Cristina's professional duties weighed on them over the course of the day, in this episode we were meant to feel the tension of how would these two people ever be prepared to let go of each other personally as well. And yet through that tension we saw that their bond remained firmly in place even as they were both facing the prospect of being apart when Owen approached Cristina at the end of the day. In a touching scene we saw Owen and Cristina face up to their acceptance of their situation and also how deeply in love they remain with each other. As Owen encouraged Cristina to explore opportunities elsewhere he also reached for her and pulled her into one of their legendarily scorching kisses. When they both paused for air we heard Owen ask Cristina to step overtly back into their romantic bond with him until she leaves. That it took her not even a split second to agree and lean back into him showed us how much they both still rely on the love between them.
Elsewhere in the hospital: Derek Shepherd proposed he and Meredith Grey move to Washington DC and that his sister Amy could take over his practice in Seattle; Amy, meanwhile, had already decided she wanted to stay in town; Callie Torres and Arizona Robbins processed some challenging news regarding their plans to have another baby; April Kepner and Jackson Avery began telling people they're expecting; Alex Karev acted out around his frustrations with his new gig outside the hospital; Miranda Bailey and her husband Ben struggled over where their relationship fit into her professional aspirations; and we watched all of the residents in a tizzy still around which of them was rumored to be getting cut from the program while Richard Webber eventually broke the news to Leah that she didn't have what it took to be a surgeon.