Grey’s Anatomy Gets Deadly and Battles Parasites In The Penultimate Episode

Okay guys. We all really want to just talk about the last thirty seconds. We want to break down the preview for next week. We want to wallow in the misery coming our way and never let go. I get it. But apparently a whole episode happened before those final moments. An episode that saw some reach their zenith and saw others crumble. There was the spark of new love and the dying embers of old love. People passed torches and people passed away (off camera and a few months from now). It was a great episode.

And it was all building towards those final few moments. This show has always had impeccable structure. Though not serial like Lost or The Vampire Diaries it carries these characters week to week and forces change upon them. It builds towards crescendos and then carefully guides it characters out of the chaos it has wrought.

And every moment of the episode was building towards that ending. A multitude of stories spread across the season dovetailing into one perfect moment where a bunch of doctors get on a plane, which promptly plows into the backwoods of Idaho.

Like Arizona’s story. Long the calm and quiet outsider of the show she was pushed and prodded into an emotional breakdown this week only to be comforted by the best wife in the world. As she stood outside in the rain weeping over the loss of her friend and the inexorable march of mortality, Callie joined her and promised to never die and leave her alone and maybe, just maybe I threw up a little.

Some of the vomit was related to their PERFECTION.

BECAUSE WHAT THE HELL KIND OF FORESHADOWING IS THAT? I won’t lie. I spent the next few scenes convinced she was a goner. That is until they all boarded a plane while she stayed home to play with her child, which she’s held maybe once this season. I bet there was a whole thing where she got home and the baby stared at her and she stared at the baby and they both had no idea whom the other was.

Helping in the “let’s crush Arizona’s soul” department was Alex, who for the first time ever was number one. This isn’t a guy who gets that. He’s always been the dark horse in his “class.” The guy who succeeds despite expectations of failure. No one, besides Arizona, has ever considered him a good doctor. But now he’s choosing to go to Hopkins and Cristina is telling him he did good (praise from her is more valuable than super sweet job offers people) and he’s finally–finally got the brass ring.

Which leads to Arizona snatching it from him in a fit of rightful rage and taking his spot on the plane. So if she dies we can all blame Alex’s success. Thanks Alex.

And thanks Cristina, who failed to remove the bff who appeared out of nowhere’s tumor. I briefly considered mourning the guy but as he waited six years to seek treatment and as he was dead man walking as soon as his character was conceived I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Instead I will wave farewell to him as he goes to that beach in the sky and hangs out with Denny and Henry. They can play beach volleyball. It will be a thing.

Cristina isn’t hung up over her failure. Mainly because it wasn’t actually a failure. Instead she’s hung up on Owen. Falling into bed and trying to forget everything that’s gone wrong. While Meredith and Alex and Jackson wrestle with which hospital will be the best fit for them Cristina’s crisis is far larger. She must wrestle with which life, because she can go and lose her best friend and her husband or she can stay and keep drunkenly falling into bed. Her ultimate decision, to leave Seattle and Owen, is one she’s been moving towards all season. Really since last year. There was a ring of inevitability to the end of Cristina and Owen.

And one too, to the end of Meredith and Cristina. Let’s face it. That was the real breakup of the night. These two coined the phrase “my person” to perfectly describe their platonic passion for each other. They’re it. Guys come and go. Jobs come and go. Meredith and Cristina are forever.

Like diamonds.

Then Cristina, in her bid to be emotionally detached and shut it all down (she could hang out with Arizona and quietly stare into space together) tells her Owen is her person. Gut. Punch. It leaves the women strangely frosty with one another on the plane. They’re trying to shut it all down. To pull apart the attachment that’s developed over the last eight years.

Cristina resolves to go to Mayo, and Meredith resolves to throw away her epic dream home and move to Boston. But first she had to check out worms the crazy guy from Mulholland Drive and CHLOE had in their bodies. Because they ate sushi. In a train station. In Thailand. There was probably a sign on it saying “guaranteed to land you in a medical journal.”

She’s joined by her husband, the crabbiest happy man ever, and Bailey; who blindly bowls over her boyfriend in scene after scene of him clearly trying to propose. BUT BAILEY CANNOT BE BOTHERED. Because there are worms a foot!

In an episode full of bittersweet moments Bailey and her boytoy brought the levity and brought it hard, until in the final moments she learns that he’s been offered a surgical internship in a distant land (California). She can stay or go or convince Hunt to hire him as a surgical intern there and solve all our problems. But first she will have to change into something besides a thong and a jacket.

GO FORTH BAILEY. GET LAID. BE AWESOME.

And finally there is April. Poor poor April. She’s been trying to take over Alex’s role as the saddest person on the planet and succeeded. No one likes her. No hospitals want to hire her. And Christina Yang and Alex Karev actually pity her. Really all she has going is her Seattle Grace security blanket and Jackson. Until Owen yanks the former out from under her and the latter realizes he might be falling for her around the same time her self-pity bout hits overload and she walks out on his ass.

But they weren’t on the plane. Nor was Bailey’s thong. Or Richard’s sage advice. Or Owen and Teddy’s slow build towards a friendship again. Nope. Derek, Meredith, Cristina, Mark, Lexie (and their unkillable love that needs to make a decision already) and Arizona were on the plane. Each there wrestling with the end. Of eras, of loves, and of lives.

And next week. One of them is going to bite it and we will all weep tears forever and revel in ugly crying gif spam on Tumblr. Oh how we will revel. I’m up to 6 gifs readied for the onslaught. What about you?

Notes

• Props to Capshaw and the guy playing Nick for making me feel like their friendship was genuine. Also their faces when they both realize he’s going to die soon. Ouch.
• Lexie and Mark. I mean. I get it, but then I don’t. Either way I suspect next week will put to rest their relationship.
• Jackson and April should make out all the time. I’d watch that show. Just don’t talk April. You depress me.
• That was CHLOE from 24. For some reason I can’t use her real name or type CHLOE in anything but caps.