‘Grey’s Anatomy’ recap: Harper-ing a grudge

By on Oct 31, 2017 in Recaps |

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Brain tumor be damned, Amelia is not the doctor that dies this week — though the one who does kick the bucket does so at a very convenient time for the subordinate he has just fired. Here’s all that happened on Grey’s Anatomy Season 14, Episode 3: “Go Big or Go Home.”

From neurosurgeon to neuro patient

We all think that this episode is picking up right where the last one left us, with Amelia examining the grapefruit-sized tumor she just realized was hitchhiking in her brain but — surprise, surprise — she’s been staring at it for a week and not telling anyone. Of her colleagues, only DeLuca knows and only because he was there at the time of diagnosis.

Amelia brings in Tom Koracick, head of neuro at Johns Hopkins and her (arrogant) former teacher. And that dude gives her a hard dose of reality. “Your plans, your judgement, your decision making, your impulse control — it’s all your tumor. You are not of sound mind now, and you haven’t been for years.” He even thinks Amelia operated on Nicole Herman’s inoperable brain tumor because of her own tumor. (Isn’t that, like, one tumor murdering another?)

DeLuca, still worried about Amelia, tries to skirt the doctor-patient confidentiality rules by bringing Maggie into the scan room — with Amelia’s scans on every screen, clearly labeled with her name — under the pretense of apologizing for the way they broke up and saying he wants to “amelio-rate the situation and shepherd in a new era.” Maggie doesn’t get it, and instead, she becomes (hilariously) indignant, saying it’s damn right DeLuca should be apologizing.

Amelia tells Richard about her diagnosis, and he tries to show solidarity by showing her his own brain scan from when he had a tumor, and Amelia (hilariously) belittles the barely-visible blot on the scan. “Koracick would let me remove this tumor while he removed mine,” she says, ribbing him. “Did they even have microscopes strong enough to see this?”

But it’s Richard she relies on when she goes full doom loop about all her negative outcomes, thinking all those patients might still be alive if her tumor hadn’t affected her judgment. Richard crunches the numbers, however, and realizes that Amelia’s mortality rate is 0.9% compared to Derek’s 1.3%. He says she isn’t hurting anyone… except for the loved ones she’s not telling about her tumor.

So Amelia tells Maggie and asks Maggie to help her tell Owen… then she tells Maggie to pass the news on to Meredith. What she hates most of all, as it turns out, is the potential that Meredith has been right all along about Amelia being crazy.

Finally, Amelia pages Owen to the scan room, and Owen storms in yelling at her about wanting to talk to him now after weeks of silence… and then he sees the scans on the screens. He realizes what’s up, and he helps Amelia check in as a patient at the hospital.

Then Maggie retrieves Meredith, and Mer simply crawls into bed next to Amelia. They’re family.

From therapist to cardio patient and back again

Meanwhile, Meredith is in a foul mood, and no one knows why. Even she doesn’t know. (She even vents to a very grown-up Zola.)

Coincidentally, her old shrink Dr. Carr is in the hospital as a patient: He has a two-foot blood clot. (He does a lot of sitting for his job! Leave him alone!) Mer talks to him about the Megan situation, and she says that Nathan “got” her, since he too lost his special someone. But there’s a big difference between “presumed dead” and “dead dead,” as Carr points out. Mer tells him she’s angry because he made herself clear to Nathan, and Nathan made a liar out of her. Carr says that’s not why she’s angry, but he (inconveniently) codes before he can set Mer straight.

He is rushed into surgery, but he survives, wakes up, and immediately resumes his shrink role with Mer. But she doesn’t need his help now — she’s figured out why she’s angry. She goes to find Nathan, who’s packing up, feeling spurned by both the women in his life. Mer says she’s angry that he got a gift she’ll never get and he’s throwing it away. He claims he’s actually in love with Mer, but Mer says he’s really in love with Megan and he should fight for her love. To be continued…

(Oh, and speaking of Megan, she’s trying to rush through her recovery to get back to Farouk, and Owen is justifiably concerned.)

From employed to fired and back again

Bailey is frantically overseeing the final touches on the hospital renovation — frantic because Harper Avery, Jackson’s grandfather and Catherine’s father-in-law, is coming to assess the hospital’s performance. He’s irritated that Bailey spent $15.8 million on repairs — and irritated that she organized a welcoming committee for him — but she contends that the renovation will attract the upper-income elective surgery patients who bring in the most revenue.

Nevertheless, Harper tries to shut down the hospital, and Bailey tells him that doing that so soon after Stephanie’s act of heroism will be a PR nightmare. So he decides to keep the hospital open and instead fires Bailey as Chief of Surgery. He tells Catherine to take Bailey somewhere else where Bailey can have her “feelings,” one of a few misogynistic comments he spouts in his — spoiler alert — short time at the hospital.

(Side note: Stephanie saving that young girl from an abductor and rapist last season was indeed heroic, but is no one else bothered that she flat-out killed him? Is that really just considered self-defense? Someone with a legal mind, fill me in.)

Anyway, Harper also clashes with Jackson, who demands to sit in on Harper’s sit-down with Bailey and Catherine. Harper accuses his grandson of backtalk, but Jackson says it hasn’t been “backtalk” since he was 18 years old. Touché.

Catherine tells Bailey that Harper’s ego is bruised — “You embarrassed that old white man,” she says, awesomely — and that she’ll smooth things over. But when they return to the conference room, Harper is slumped over the table. Dead. Jackson, ever the pragmatist, realizes that this means no one has to know he fired Bailey.

Bailey, Catherine, and Jackson lie to the staff and tell them Harper was mightily impressed with Grey Sloan Memorial… though Jackson doesn’t exactly hide his disdain. (“I take special comfort knowing that he died… doing what he loved,” he says, pausing a little too long there.)

From one ho-co-pro to another

Jo and Alex’s romantic reunion — or at least sexual union — is still going full force. They’re taking every opportunity to make out, even snogging on the elevator to the ambulance bay. That’s where they part lips long enough to join April in treating Pete, a 16-year-old whose elaborate hot air balloon “ho-co-pro” (i.e. homecoming proposal) backfired when the balloon crashed.

After Pete’s operation — in which Jo and Alex tease April about her very wholesome homecoming experience — Pete gets a visit from Jamie, the subject of his ho-co-pro. Jamie wants to see how he is, but she’s preoccupied with her newfound popularity and the hot upperclassman who’s suddenly interested. April gives her some sage advice, telling her to “say yes to the guy who rents out the ugly tux and the hot air balloon.” She even tells Jamie about how Paramedic Matthew arranged a flash mob to propose marriage… though she’s stymied when Jamie asks her if she married him. (Yeah, no, she literally ran away from the altar with Jackson.) Jamie later comes back to Pete’s with her own little helium balloon, and hooray, young love isn’t dead after all!

That night, in the hospital parking lot, Jo surprises Alex with a ho-co-pro of her own: She wants him to come home. He wants to, too, of course, and squeeee.

From labor pains to ecstasy

Meanwhile, Carina is still turning heads with her unconventional, orgasm-centric medicine. This time, she has an unusual suggestion for Ben and Arizona when their patient gets stuck in labor without the possibility of an epidural. She suggests “natural oxytocin” via “downstairs stimulation.” (“I beg your pardon?” Richard says. Says Carina, “It’s no mistake that God puts the G-spot in the birth canal.”) Arizona is scandalized, of course, but when the parents-to-be get desperate, she clues them in. And wouldn’t you know it, the idea works.

Later, when Bailey and Ben get home and Bailey complains about her sore feet and her wounded ego, Ben shows her what he learned about “natural pain relief.” Teehee!

Next time on Grey’s Anatomy… more Ben and Bailey innuendo? I sure hope so!