Grey’s Anatomy Gets Odd When Babies Get Split And Teddy Grieves

Last week on Grey’s Anatomy Owen was a massive wang and forced his wife to do surgery with his ex-girlfriend whose husband just died on his wife’s table. Also apparently some people adopted a baby.

This week kicks things off with the most adorable under two kiddo on television. Maybe not, but I’m rating adorableness by how much my ovaries ache at the site of said child and there was some serious ovary acheage going on her. After doing that thing that all parents do where they make it clear their children are cuter than all other children Meredith and Derek head to work to do some groundbreaking surgery.

Only separating twins isn’t exactly ground breaking surgery. TLC features such a surgery once a week. Also isn’t this usually a surgery performed exclusively by pediatric surgeons and not by one peds surgeon and the rest of the cast of Grey’s Anatomy? I mean…yeah just saying.

Much of the episode is dedicated to these two kids and their parents who are dressed like slackers but can afford gift shop onesies and are thus good people.

It’s also dedicated to showing what an asshat Arizona can be. As the only pediatric surgeon at this shindig she’s understandably excited (though I still don’t get why the trauma surgeon/chief of surgery is coordinating this shouldn’t he be busy fixing his broken BFF/cardiothoracic surgeon?). Her excitement turns into neurotic bossiness which is only remotely loveable because Jessica Capshaw is charming as hell. Can you imagine Kim Raver being stuck with this part? The viewers at home would have revolted and punched someone.

Speaking of Raver. This show seriously likes to shit on her and her character but giving her the worse things. This week she’s busy doing surgery after surgery while Cristina recounts the events leading up to Henry’s death. The very first time we see it happen we realize it has been going on for two weeks and no one has said anything. No one.

It’s horrific. Disgusting. Perverse. I know we’re supposed to be all “poor Teddy her husband is dead” but it’s a revolting use of power to force Cristina to recount the death and it’s bad management on the part of Owen to knowingly allow it to happen. Which I suspect is part of the point. It’s another example of the subtlety at play in developing Owen this season. We’re so used to people saying exactly what they feel on soap operas. It’s the entire point of melodrama. When a character like Owen suddenly turns passive aggressive it can be difficult to grasp. Unfamiliar. You find yourself wondering if there is a deficiency in the writing or if it’s all intentional.

The superhero of the hours turns out to be April, who is just as horrified by things as I am. First she expresses her horror with great faces.

If you've ever wondered why they kept that actress around there's your answer. She's incredibly expressive even when half her face is covered.

Then finally it becomes too much for her. It wears on her. And she speaks out. But that’s April. She’s a powder keg of emotion. Her explosion is incredibly satisfying even if Cristina and Teddy all but ignore it, because really it was all about them and Teddy’s attempt to understand what happened. While the whole world thought she was punishing Cristina (including Cristina) she was really just trying to understand.

As touching as that is and as great as it was to see her finally tell Cristina it wasn’t her fault it was still pretty flipping awful and emblematic of the major problem with Owen. Guy does not have his house in order.

Nor does Bailey, for that matter. She’s being seduced at the office.

It’s adorable for the audience and nerve-wracking for the her. Yet as much as I’d like to be delighted by this romance it seems to be moving awfully fast. Ben isn’t being integrated into that cast as much as he’s being forced. It’s a bit like the addition of Owen and Teddy. Only those characters had more than a great smile to keep things interesting.

Maybe they should let Ben branch out. Bring him into other stories. Look how well that worked in early seasons with Callie or Arizona. Those were characters integrated into the main cast correctly.

At least it was amusing. Meredith asking if good in a man’s torso was a spleen and Bailey freaking out over a sponge was a fun counterpoint to the relatively dull main surgery (HOW WAS THAT SURGERY DULL THAT IRRITATES ME SO MUCH) and the very hard to watch Teddy/Cristina sobbing hour.

This episode seemed to be suffering a bit from treading water syndrome. It was the calm before the storm. What I don’t get is how “calm before the storm” can be so boring when you’re watching characters that you’ve known for eight years now. Alex losing surgeries to the ex-Chief, Arizona’s passion for babies and Bailey’s flustered romance should have felt more engaging and less distanced than they did. We could have skipped the whole “Lexi looking sadly at a couple making out” scenes and added a few scenes from the aforementioned plots and had a MUCH more satisfying episode.

At least Teddy’s grief seems to have been laid to rest for now. I don’t think I could have suffered through another week of her weeping over a guy we all knew was dead the moment he appeared. Dude had TERMINAL CANCER. It was always going to end that way and the show treating it like it wasn’t is just manufactured melodrama.

NEXT WEEK

The Owen/Cristina blow up we’ve all been needing and waiting for. 12 episodes of angry and passive aggressive Owen Hunt explode in what should be an orgy of delicious pathos. Also Derek and Lexi team up for a surgery while Lexi pines for Mark some more because that hasn’t gotten old yet.