Grey’s Anatomy Season-Premiere Recap: A Slap in the Face

Grey’s Anatomy
If Walls Could Talk
Season 21 Episode 1
Editor’s Rating ★★★★
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What the hell happened to Catherine Fox? Yes, she’s always been a manipulator, but remember when she was a manipulator with trailblazing hot-surgeon energy and a libido to match? Now she’s a Scrooge-like money-grubbing villain whose gratuitous corporate cheapness feels a little too close to home in these layoff-ridden times. Not only has she fired half her staff, but during this week’s season 21 premiere, she decides to do the unthinkable and call Miranda Bailey — the Miranda Bailey — replaceable. This used to be a woman with vision and va-va-voom; now she’s the kind of person who’ll admit that she only kept her (excellent) intern class around to save her government funding. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Where’s George “Union Guy” O’Malley when we need him? Can we resurrect his spirit to kick Catherine’s cheap butt around Grey Sloan until she sees the light?

We open this week on Bailey dreaming about slapping Catherine in the face (great work if you can get it). As if waking up from that beautiful dream isn’t rough enough, our surgeons also get stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the way to work, thanks to some pesky climate protesters who shut down the bridge. Of course, one of those protesters — a grandmother named Wanda — becomes our Problem Patient of the Week when she decides to crawl into the ceiling to avoid arrest and then collapses. Sigh. As if that’s not enough drama, one of the protest’s bungee jumpers (why were there bungee jumpers again?!) decides to make like Hilary Banks’s ill-fated fiancé in Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and go splat thanks to a defective cable. Unlike that fiancé, however, this guy crashes into a windshield, so the panicked teenage driver promptly races him to Grey Sloan for life-saving care — right after Webber tells Winston that he’s thinking of giving up the surgical gloves for good this time. If anyone needed confirmation that Grey’s is so back, look no further than Windshield Guy pulling up right after Webber says, “’I’m not scrubbing in on complex procedures.” Welp!

All of this honestly feels secondary to the interpersonal drama unfolding up and down every hallway in the hospital. Catherine is burying Meredith and her research project in cease-and-desist letters, effectively killing her funding. And if any of us thought that the return of Jackson might introduce a little sanity, think again; he might know his mom is being petty, but he’s here to back her up and tell Meredith to apologize. (I know Jackson has fully stepped into “running the foundation” mode, but did anyone else find his corporate-stooge routine a little disappointing?) Meanwhile, Adams is still thinking over that residency offer in Chicago, and Griffith is doing her best not to interfere, even though she is clearly dying inside at the thought. Mika and Jules spend the episode trying to act like they didn’t almost kiss during last season’s finale, and Kwan is reeling from seeing his ex-fiancée, who drove away from him after a fight only to get into a car accident that destroyed her memory — rendering him a stranger. And in perhaps the most comical turn of events, Link has yet another baby on the way from yet another mother who has yet to tell him that he’s going to be a father. This poor guy will always be the last to know.

Worthy as these struggles might be, they all pale in comparison to this week’s emotional albatross: Bailey getting replaced by the one, the only, the absurdly annoying Sydney Heron. As if being called replaceable to her face was not bad enough, now Bailey’s archnemesis has returned from Florida to take her job and probably do worse at it. Did you see how devastated Bailey looked when Heron shooed her away after she freed Wanda from inside the hospital wall? How much more heartbreak can we be expected to take? There’s nothing worse than getting replaced by a person whose biggest claim to fame might just be going on one passionless date with McDreamy way back when. Thank God Bailey decides by the end of the episode to fight for her job — and you know she’s serious, because she takes off her earrings when she says it.

By the end of the episode, most of our favorite surgeons have found at least some catharsis. Adams shows up at Griffith’s doorstep and makes our dreams come true by saying he’s not taking the job and sealing the deal with a kiss. (Thank GOD.) Mika tries to give Jules a “just friends” handshake, only for Jules to twirl her around and make out with her against a locker. (First of all, !!!! — but wait, isn’t Midori Francis on her way out? Damn it!) Kwan’s ex-fiancée recognizes him from their old photos and basically tells him that she thinks he’s the piece that’s been missing from her life ever since she pieced it back together, which almost made me ugly cry into my Doritos, and Link figures out Jo is pregnant when she turns down a glass of wine, and he’s totally cool with it. All’s well that ends well.

Except, maybe, for Meredith, who approaches Catherine to apologize (well, “apologize”) for using foundation funds for unsanctioned research only to watch her collapse. Her only reward for saving her boss? Some good old-fashioned blackmail: Catherine swears Meredith to secrecy about the return of her sinister secret spinal tumor and refuses the interventions that Meredith recommends. She also swears that if Meredith tells Richard or Jackson about her tumor’s progression, she and her colleagues will never get their jobs back. By the end of the episode, Meredith confirms that everyone can have their jobs back — except, it seems, for her. While Amelia and others can return to work in Seattle and the cease-and-desists will stop, Meredith says, “the research will just go in a different direction.” Huh? I’m guessing we’ll get more clarity on this next week, but for now, what the hell?

Grey’s might’ve hit a(nother) slump for a season or two, but ever since this new intern class joined the team, it’s been pure magic again. Not MAGIC magic, but pretty damn close. I just wish that some of these characters — cough, like Catherine — felt a little less two-dimensional. As much as I love Meredith, even she could use a quick sit-down from someone about just how ridiculous it is to flout black-and-white contracts and expect to get away with it just because you’re researching a worthy cause. Jackson, if you’re listening, this could be your time to shine.

The OR Board

• Is it just me or is “When was the last time you actually stepped into an OR?” the most brutal insult anyone can hurl on this show? I swear, when Miranda lobbed that one at Catherine in her dream, I gasped louder than when she slapped her. 

• I love that Bailey’s interns immediately miss her yelling at them when Heron takes over. And what the hell was that Get to Know You game about? Will knowing what novel her residents have always wanted to write really make them better doctors? I didn’t think so. (That said, I firmly believe that there’s a nonzero chance that Jules writes vampire fiction.)

• Which specialty do we think Schmitt will finally pick? Because it sure won’t be peds. There’s no way he becomes an ortho god, right? Right now, it seems most likely he’ll go the way of Meredith Grey and stick with general surgery, but who knows! To extend the quidditch metaphor Link uses with him this week, maybe it’ll just take a little more time for Schmitt to find that golden snitch of inspiration.