Grey’s Anatomy – S12xEp19 – “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)”

Episode 19 deals with the ramifications of Ben’s actions, and begins with Ben taking his anger out on his wife over the fact that he’s in trouble for trying to save a patient’s life. Bailey has asked Meredith, Maggie and Owen to comprise an advisory panel to judge the incident, but Webber thinks that Bailey needs to deal with this problem herself, despite the fact that it involves her hubby. Bailey explains that since she knows she will be partial to her husband she’s trying to take a step back so that the results aren’t biased.

The panel talks to the other doctors involved and eventually agree that they believe Ben when he says that he didn’t see the elevator doors open. Bailey punishes Ben with a six-month suspension from the hospital’s residency program, which he declares is a death sentence. Ben and Bailey had decided to separate their personal and working relationships like church and state, but Ben is upset that Bailey won’t reconsider his punishment and give him just a little bit of special treatment. However Bailey declares that it is special treatment; if it were any other resident they would have been fired.

Meanwhile, things are tense between Jackson and April after she serves him with a restraining order, but the situation takes a scary turn when April fears something is wrong with their unborn baby. Arizona assures her nothing is wrong. If fact, what she’s feeling is her baby kicking, something she never experienced with her son who passed away. By the end of the episode, Jackson finds April to talk things out. They share a sweet moment — and Jackson feels their child kick for the first time!

After Meredith tells Maggie and Amelia what she knows about Riggs andOwen‘s sister, Maggie confronts Riggs. He’s a good guy and a great surgeon. Why would he lie? Riggs states that he didn’t lie to Meredith. Everything he told her was true: there was a patient, there was a helicopter. He just left some parts out, namely the part where they fought and the fact that he cheated. He made a mistake and he’s paid for it ever since.

The seemingly well adjusted exes are sure to fight dirty when it comes to custody of Sofia. Arizona’s insecurity about her place in Sofia’s life is surely rising up with Callie’s announcement. I guess we’ll find out if the papers they signed with Mark end up holding up.

 

Grey’s Anatomy – S12xEp18 – ‘There’s a Fine, Fine Line’

Episode 18 begins with concern over a missing child at the hospital. Alex is insistent that Bailey call a Code Pink, but the hospital’s head of security is hesitant. He thinks the kid is probably hiding in the hospital somewhere, and explains that if they call a Code Pink the automatic doors and elevators will be locked, which is a potential risk for all the other patients. Alex appeals to the mother in Bailey, asking what she would do if it were her child. After being asked this it doesn’t take Bailey long to announce that they need to call the Code Pink. The sounding alarm and locked doors create a bit of chaos at the hospital, but Alex manages to find the boy hiding under the stairs.

Bailey gets a message that makes her run through the hospital to find Ben and De Luca, who are trying to save a patient. Ben is holding a newborn baby, while De Luca is pumping at the woman’s chest to try to get a pulse. And there is blood EVERYWHERE.They were performing an emergency C-section on a car crash victim in the middle of the hallway.

It’s now up to chief Bailey, not wife Bailey, to get to the bottom of why exactly her husband pulled a baby out of a patient so close to a vending machine. Various attendings confirm that the patient was stable the last time they saw her, but it’s assumed Warren must have had no other choice with the hospital on lockdown and no way to get to an ER. Still, this is the same guy who sliced open a patient with part of a clipboard in the psych ward.

Though conditions were about as far from optimal as imaginable, Warren had gone ahead and performed the operation right then and there rather than risk losing both the mother and child. Unfortunately, in spite of what Ben would see as his heroism and Richard would see as his recklessness, neither Gretchen nor her baby made it. In the aftermath, security footage revealed that an open elevator door would have allowed the surgical resident to leave the hall with the patient — meaning that he’d had an option, he just hadn’t taken it.

Grey’s Anatomy – S12xEp17 – I Wear the Face

You know how there are some episodes of Grey’s Anatomy where, from the very first second, you’re on that carousel Meredith and her mom are so fond of talking about, and you can’t get off? This was not one of those. This was the sort of Grey’s Anatomy episode where you think about partway through, I could probably watch this and fold laundry at the same time, right?

Meredith, Owen and Riggs head off in an ambulance to pick up a heart for a transplant patient. Meredith starts talking to Owen about Amelia and when Riggs overhears that Amelia is an alcoholic he mentions that he bought her a drink one time (in the mid-season finale). Upon hearing this Owen becomes enraged and blames Riggs for Amelia’s relapse. Later on after losing the heart Owen again blames Riggs for what happened to the heart, Amelia, and his sister Megan, telling Riggs: “Disaster happens wherever you are.” After Riggs leaves Meredith tells Owen that he needs to let go of the anger he’s been harboring towards Riggs, but also unveils that Riggs told Meredith a fabricated story about Megan’s death.

Though Richard probably correctly assumed that Catherine’s meddling would be the worst thing to happen to Jackson and April’s fractured relationship since they retained divorce lawyers, Mama Avery insisted on getting her son a high-powered attorney to help overturn the divorce. As she saw it, right now, Kepner had all the power, so Jackson had “better get some power”

The night’s patient of the week is a man, played by Wilmer Valderrama, dealing with an MS hand tremor that’s interfering with his guitar career. He’s supposed to be charming, I guess, but his extreme flirting with the highly accomplished doctors about to poke around in his brain just reads as very creepy. Playing the guitar while your brain is being operated on does seem impressive though, and it prevents your surgeons from using that time to discuss their own personal issues (Richard actually books a surgery with his wife for the express purpose of having a meaningful discussion. Organs, people. Focus on the organs).

April and Arizona are forced to work together, despite not having resolved their issues, to help a 14 year old girl named Jenny who’s experiencing some pregnancy complications.

Arizona and April have no choice but to perform the surgery on Jenny after her artery ruptures, but on the bright side, it looks like this scare helped Jenny and her mom improve her relationship, as well as April and Arizona. The episode ends with April expressing her anger about what she overheard from Catherine to Arizona. She declares that she’s not going to be a victim, as viewers see that April served Jackson with a restraining order. April then returns home to find that Jackson sent a crib along with a kind and caring note that says he will support her and that she has the power. It looks like April made a huge mistake. Do you think Japril will be able to reconcile?

GIRLS – S5xEp08 ‘Homeward Bound’

“Homeward Bound” opens with Shosh at the airport in New York. She’s still rocking Harajuku girl style, and it definitely seems as though her transition back into American culture is going to be a system shock.

Obviously things also haven’t been working between Hannah and Fran for a while now, not with their difference of opinions on pretty much everything. But for Hannah to pack up and go on a three-month road trip with Fran in a “house car” only to bail at the first rest stop is positively batty—not to mention selfish. Only Hannah could flee an R.V. in her pajamas and hide from the guy who is only trying to figure out what’s wrong with her.

Rather than being an adult about the whole situation she refused to let Fran take her home, demanding that her friends come and pick her up instead. Then in another sheer move of idiocy, she decided to repay Ray with some road head that he clearly didn’t want, resulting in damage to his $50,000 coffee truck. Naturally, she also left him at the side of the road when a better offer came along.

Adam’s been calling Caroline for a couple days and she hasn’t been picking up the phone — which, Adam discovers, is because she’s taken off. Laird just assumed that she was off doing her own thing for a bit, Caroline-style. But Adam unearths a note that she left, which wound up under the fridge. In it, she tells Laird that she loves him and their child, but that she’s afraid she might hurt the baby. The truth is, it sounds like she’s exhibiting some classic signs of postpartum depression. Laird is heartbroken but now very worried about Caroline, so he heads out the door to look for her, leaving Adam behind to watch the baby.

When it comes to Adam, he’s mostly internal and inscrutable and yes, Jessa is acting like a child, but is this the first time? Has he willfully been ignoring this as she pursues her noble therapist goals, or is Jessa so freaked out at the idea of Adam being a responsible grown up that she turns into a child instead? Empathy for him, revulsion for her…and then for him, for being with her. I never said I wasn’t judgy.

Hector, the passerby who gives Hannah a ride earlier in the episode, registers poignantly with his kind eyes, sad story, and joyful whoop at the sight of the New York City skyline. More importantly, though, he serves as a catalyst to bring out both the worst and the best in Hannah. First he surfaces her capacity for self-involved insensitivity when she laughs as he talks about having been abused by his girlfriend. Then, after she hears his story, his unguarded excitement at the sight of New York puts her back in touch with her own sense of adventure. “It’s a good place to start over,” he says. Eyes shining, she agrees, ready to do just that.

There are only two episodes left this season, and a lot is set to unravel, but I really hope this Caroline PPD storyline is addressed before the season wraps.

GIRLS – S5xEp07 – HELLO KITTY

This week Hannah’s insistence on bad-mouthing the other teachers to the students caught up with her when the principal called her in yet again, but rather than deal with it in a mature and rational way, Hannah did what Hannah does. After pulling a Sharon Stone from “Basic Instinct” by flashing her skirted goods, she later bragged to Fran about the move — naturally, she didn’t understand why her boyfriend would be upset about the whole thing, leading to yet another argument between the two.

The Episode is all shaped around a play the girls and boys are attending, Based on the murder of Kitty Genovese, the play is a spoof of those audience-participation plays in which the viewers turn into some ungodly hybrid of extra and editor as they move from room to room, seeing random snippets of scenes—and, in this case, pocketing candy from a bowl or talking loudly over dialogue since, as Marnie (Allison Williams) puts it, “It’s not like the actors are doing anything interesting.”

I can’t quite explain why, but the sight of “Joan,” one female “38 Neighbors” character, aggressively dancing at her sister “Ellen” with that pissed-off look on her face was completely hilarious. I think I watched it about five times. For me, it was the highlight of the installment, and maybe one of the funniest gags all season.

Just when we thought we’d finally gotten rid of Desi for good, the cat came back—and he brought with him some good news. With “Grey’s Anatomy” interested in using “Matter of Waiting” for an upcoming episode, the time has come for Marnie and him to tour the crap out of the song. Unfortunately for Desi, that meant working on rekindling his relationship to his ex, while for Marnie it was a professional thing. Obviously this will result in some massive explosions or a complete meltdown, but it’s good to know that Marnie’s basic oblivious nature hasn’t really changed that much since her revelations last week.

Hannah figures out what’s going on between her old friend and her former lover during the play, when she sees Jessa beaming at Adam from the balcony of an apartment across the courtyard, while Adam smokes moodily in a window, gazing at Jessa in what’s obviously not part of the script. Hannah is as hurt and angered by the realization as Jessa guessed she would be, her cheeks reddening and lips tightening as she looks back and forth from one to the other. After all that, the post-play encounter between Jessa and Hannah is surprisingly tame: just a cordial hello and an awkward wave. Hannah had plenty to say to Marnie about how she feels, though, so her uncharacteristic diffidence with Jessa is likely just a subterranean rumble signaling a coming eruption

“Hello Kitty” managed to make us really feel for Hannah. Despite the fact that we know her devastation over Adam and Jessa being together is technically irrational, we feel her pain when she breaks down while Fran is trying to coax a reconciliation out of her.

That moment really spoke volumes about both characters. Fran is the type of person who, after cooling off and spending a few hours apart, is fully capable of getting over their argument and moving on. Hannah, left on her own a few hours, has basically forgotten all about Fran and their argument, instead zeroing in on her new problem – Adam and Jessa.

Grey’s Anatomy – S12xEp16 – When it hurts so bad

There were break-ups, break-downs, and the phrase “I love you” was scattered through out. But Meredith’s spring cleaning jag must have gotten into the air, because for once, everything was resolved in under 45 minutes.

I loved Alex sitting eating chips as the girls struggled with the carpet cleaner, but I was also terribly amused that she thought the stove and oven could be dirty. How many times do we think they’ve been used since Izzie moved out? I’m betting I could count that on one hand.

While I’m not that invested in Callie and Penny – this and Meredith’s failed dinner party seem like the only time we’ve seen them as a couple – I appreciated the way they handled this situation. Although it wasn’t discussed, it was a nice tie in to Meredith’s situation.

In the episode’s only real patient drama of the night, a very tall man has sex with a very short woman, and a slip ends up dislocating both her legs. When she describes the unlikely match-up to the docs as “climbing Mount Everest,” it’s funny. But later, when complications have her spooked and she tells the seemingly very sweet bigger gentleman, “no one wants to climb the mountain twice,” it seems like she thinks that’s a totally okay thing to say. I mean, it’s okay to be scared of what another date will do to your limbs, but you probably shouldn’t call someone you’re rejecting a mountain. Not cool.

In news that isn’t really news, Mama Avery continues to be terrifying. Jackson makes her promise to leave April alone, but she shows up anyways, sharing stories from her own pregnancy to inspire a little girl talk. And it’s kind of heartbreaking to see April so quickly put at ease now that she finally has someone to talk to. But her not-quite mother-in-law looks like she’s hatching a plot, and it turns out she didn’t want to bond — she wanted info she could use against her in a legal case, like the fact that April knew she was pregnant when she signed the divorce papers. So I guess they won’t be shopping for maternity clothes together.

The couples did not fare well tonight. DeLuca and Maggie are no more, because, I guess he realized she had all the power in the relationship? Which she kind of proved when she kicked him out of the on-call room. Still, he’s never going to do better.

Amelia kicked Owen to the curb to protect her sobriety (normally that would be an excuse to protect her heart, but it seemed pretty genuine).

And even after Mer’s screaming session, her stalker doctor promises he’ll wait for her because she’s “worth waiting for.” Which, yeah, she is, and we know that after 12 seasons, but does he really know that after two dates? Do you think she told him she nearly dies on almost an annual basis?

 

Grey’s Anatomy – S12xEp15 – I am Not Waiting Anymore

There’s certainly no reconciliation between Arizona, who we saw telling Jackson at the end of last week’s episode, and April — or Arizona and anybody else, for that matter. She spends the entire episode trying to get someone to validate her decision. She tries Callie first, who’s compassionate but tells her she’s in the wrong, in what I think is the first one-on-one conversation we’ve seen the two of them have all season. Amelia says what’s ultimately the best thing: what Arizona did was indefensible, and now there’s nothing to do but wait it out. And the hardest conversation is probably with Bailey, who says that as Arizona’s boss, she should be firing her for breaking confidentiality, and as her friend, “I’m fresh out of words of wisdom for you.” From Miranda Bailey, that’s harsh.

The whole thing’s a mess — Jackson accusing April of waiting until it was too late to abort is a particularly brutal moment, as is April’s admission that she didn’t tell him because she knew he didn’t want to be with her and didn’t want him to stay for a baby. There’s no reconciliation between the two of them by the end of the episode, but there’s conversation, at least.

Since Maggie moved in, she’s become the one we see with Mer more than others, and I enjoyed how Alex put her in her place in his very Alex way. She may be Mer’s biological sister, but despite what she said, she doesn’t really know Meredith. Not the way Alex does.

“It hurts to tear that bandage off. We don’t want to see what’s underneath. But maybe it’s not the fear of the pain that holds us back. Maybe we’re really afraid to see if the wound underneath is still open or if it might actually be healing.” – Meredith Grey

Riggs yells at Owen for “abandoning” his sister, because apparently Riggs stayed behind and searched for her after the helicopter crash, and Owen “gave up” and came back to the States. which led to the scene of Amelia showing uo at Owen’s trailer for a celebration dinner, only to find him dead silly drunk… Ouch!

Bates Motel – S04xEp04 – Lights of Winter

Norman’s escape didn’t do much for his freedom, but the first 20 minutes were very entertaining, because watching Norman being so flippant while at Pineview, so certain he wasn’t crazy with the idea that Dr. Edwards was freeing him, after his confession about his mother, lightened him up well beyond reality.

It was almost sad that Norman was worried about getting into a car with strangers and that Julian had to remind him they were the crazy ones.

Dr. Edwards seems to be the only person that can still get through to Norman and still reach the little that’s left of him that wants to get better. And in a fantastic performance, Damon Gupton’s turn as Dr. Edwards is so comfortable and believable in this role that even I feel much more calm and collected after his scenes. Meanwhile, Freddie Highmore has really crafted the crazy of Norman so well, as the escalation of paranoia, mistrust and rage is steady and scary as hell.

Again, my heart just breaks for Norman in a way that, sometimes, BATES MOTEL is hard to watch.

Meanwhile, Norma and Romero play husband and wife over breakfast, talking about joint checking accounts, Emma’s surgery and her burgeoning relationship with Dylan. Norma says “It’s weird how people aren’t at all together and then all of a sudden they are,” and Romero takes her hand in a really beautiful (but brief) moment that suggest this fake marriage may not be as pretend as either could have predicted. Yet that kitchen, that very table, has seen such violence; just weeks ago, it was exactly where Norman’s psyche broke before her eyes, and that’s not even touching upon the most despicable actions that happened beforehand. But in that moment, that table hosts this very beautiful moment; something about that touched me in a very profound way. It is a true testament to the perseverance and strength of Norma Bates, and one of the many reasons I admire the character.

The relationship between Emma and Dylan is now moving at lightning speed, with Emma asking Dylan to come with her to Seattle as he impulsively agrees. Obviously, this isn’t quite in character to the fiery, independent Dylan we’ve seen in the past; rather, this Dylan is forging a new identity altogether, a lovesick puppy who barely considers the impact of moving away with his brother’s ex-girlfriend.

GIRLS – S5xEp06 – ‘The Panic in Central Park’

“The Panic in Central Park” belongs to Marnie, who breaks the seal on the superficially successful but spiritually unfulfilling life she’s clung to up until now. The least self-aware of the show’s main characters, Marnie generally can’t be counted on for much of anything but loyalty to Hannah, as she ricochets from one man to the next, unable to maintain respect for anyone foolish enough to fall in love with her. The last time we saw her, she was trying out a new, nurturing persona, assuring hubby Desi that he only felt bad about himself because she’d been “picking at” him.

This episode opens with Marnie back in her customary ice-queen mode, giving Desi the silent treatment and then scoffing, when he says her “cruelty” makes him want to kill himself, “You don’t want to kill yourself. You are far too narcissistic to kill yourself.” But she’s knocked out of that familiar groove when she runs into Charlie, the old beau she fell desperately in love with only after he gave up on her and moved on.

 

Most importantly to me is how much time the show spent showing us that Desi was a bad guy. Or thought he was a bad guy, or both. He moaned over and over again that he was going to hurt her, and yet he winds up sobbing on the stairs (but also, sobbing about her not wanting to get a scone, so I’m not sure she’s wrong here).

She never thinks about Desi once, despite all the threats that she’d be left at the altar. None of it comes true. If he did hurt her maybe patterns would be the same. Now, though, it’s different because it has to be.

When the two got to Charlie’s party, Marnie found out that Charlie was selling cocaine. Oddly, this didn’t seem to bother her much at all. She was basically fine with that.

Marnie’s brief stint as “Magita Perez” was hilarious. It was a little difficult to suspend disbelief enough to think that this old rich guy would just drop $600 with no actual guarantee of action later in the night.

It’s been a long time since we’ve seen or heard from Charlie, so it’s easy to forget the early impact he had on Marnie, when he called her out for all her terrible traits and made her take a good, hard look at her life. The revelation that half her album is about him and the effect he had on her makes perfect sense, though, so it was easy for her to fall for him again despite his obvious fall from where we saw him last.Perhaps the needle she found in his pants pocket towards the episode’s end was a stark reminder of just how low her life could have gotten, had she stayed with a person who thought so little of her — giving her that one final push she needed to finally ditch Desi for good.

Hannah and Marnie’s relationship once took center stage on this series, but for the past couple of seasons it’s fallen away as love lives and personal drama has stepped in. By episode’s end, when Marnie crawled into bed beside her bestie, there was a sense of a core relationship reuniting. No words were needed to show us that when it really counts, these two have each other’s backs. It’s nice to have that dynamic somewhat reinstated for now; here’s hoping it continues to be intact, moving forward into the back half of the season.

GIRLS – S5xEp05 – ‘Queen For Two Days’

At the beginning of this week’s episode, Hannah and her mom are in the car together, en route to a retreat. Loreen is trying to decide whether or not she wants to actually get divorced from Hannah’s dad. Hannah seems to be leaning toward wanting them to split up — and Hannah’s mom admits that, for whatever problems that Tad’s coming out has created for their marriage, the sex is actually better than ever. Hannah is clearly taken aback and more confused than ever.

Loreen tells Hannah about her decision in a speech that’s a realistic acknowledgement of what home means to her: “I know it sounds sad to you,” she says, “but I like our house, and your father’s very nice, and he makes me laugh when he does that Chris Rock. And he plays Scrabble really well. These things count for a lot.”

If one is deciding to go down the experimental road and cheat on her boyfriend with a woman, perhaps a steam room with an instructor isn’t the best way to kick off those sexual urges. There was nothing hot about Hannah’s hookup other than the physical temperature; instead we were left with pure awkwardness. To be fair, that’s kind of how we’d imagine that kind of thing going down in real life, so we can award some points there.

Anyway, who knows what this means for Fran and Hannah. I would assume that Hannah will eventually come clean (since she was about ready to dump Fran anyway) and their relationship will end, but this show tends to subvert expectations so most likely something far more eccentric will happen.

In the city, Jessa and Adam are mid-thrust, engaged in a bizarre sex fantasy that they’re both super into. (I’m pretty sure we’re supposed to interpret it as further proof that they are totally on the same page/meant for one another.) Jessa confesses that her half-sister is in town and wants to have dinner together the following night. Before she can even ask if he wants to go, Adam volunteers. She’s unconvinced for a moment that he really wants to go, but he assures her that he does. And so, it’s a plan.

After Adam’s often brusque treatment of Hannah when they were a couple, it’s nice to see him so unhesitatingly have Jessa’s back when her sister undermines her, with one in what has clearly been a lifelong barrage of passive-aggressive attacks. On the other hand, his impulsive offer to pay for Jessa to get a degree in psychology could be a mistake, since introducing money on that scale into a relationship generally leads to trouble.

We may have thought Japan looked good on Shoshanna, but as it turns out she was just masking all of her American pain under Hello Kitty stickers and a new job as the assistant manager at a cat café. Some of the best parts of the episode were of Shosh and Abigail (guest star Aidy Bryant) having a grand old time on the town, marveling at the fact that they felt as though they had been transported somewhere inside Katy Perry’s vagina. Bryant as Shoshanna’s boss is always a fun addition to an episode, thanks to her quippy one-liners and surefire delivery. So it was great to see her come out to Japan and attempt to talk some sense into Shoshanna, rather than having it be Scott doing the old hero-to-the-rescue routine. As much as we would love to see Jason Ritter again, Abigail was much better suited to lead Shoshanna into self-discovery territory than he would have been. The only loss is that “Yosh & Sosh Take the City” may now never happen, and that’s a TV show pitch we could have gotten behind.

Girls is so good partly because the decisions they’re making now, as opposed to five years ago, are pretty sober. They’re decisions that could actually affect how the next parts of their lives go. They’re constructing trajectories. So even though Hannah is a narcissist, I assume she’ll never think about the yoga instructor again and that’s great. Her focus remains on whether Fran is good for her or not. What else is good for her or not. Similarly, Shoshanna, in ‘outer space’, has to figure out how or if she’s going to make herself happy again. These are big decisions. They make for good TV.