Grey's Anatomy Season 19 Episode 13 Review: Cowgirls Don't Cry
Jasmine Blu
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We need to protect Miranda Bailey at all costs!
All these anti-choice people have been wreaking havoc this season. Now we have to be worried about Bailey and her family's safety too because, by the end of Grey's Anatomy Season 19 Episode 13, she's been labeled a baby killer with her home address broadcasted to the world!
The hour also set up Maggie's exit, and it was brutal.
The installment opened with Maggie and Winston in couple's counseling and closed with Maggie reading that man for filth, snatching every follicle out of his head, and stomping off leaving.
And even with all that, we're still supposed to be in limbo about whether their marriage will survive and whether they'll be together in the long run.
If we have to take this to a vote, you can firmly put me at a "Hell no." They need to divorce and put each other and everyone who has to witness this out of their misery.
One can only conclude from this that they've built up that Maggie is truly and ultimately Ellis Grey's daughter. She's an ambitious, self-consumed woman with big goals and a great purpose, and she won't let anyone or anything get in her way.
I already moved across the country for you once, and then when I tried to change my specialty also for you, you lost respect for me.
Winston
And unfortunately, her greatness comes at the expense of other people's feelings. Her treatment of Winston, her lack of consideration for him, and the weird gaslighting she does with him, while lowkey accuses him of being mediocre because he can't rise to her level -- it's right from the Ellis Grey playbook.
Maggie is a phenomenal surgeon and doctor. She's in the prime of her career, and things can only get better and look up for her. In that sense, good for her. How can you not respect that?
But she's not cut out for a serious, equitable relationship at this stage in her life, and it's best if she lets Winston go. She's only causing hurt and pain.
Like Mer, we're supposed to get so wrapped up in their greatness, applaud them for it, herald them extraordinary, and ignore everything else about them and their treatment of those around them.
It's hard to blindly worship someone when we constantly see their flaws, but we're not supposed to acknowledge them.
Maggie blowing up at Winston in the parking lot mainly felt unprompted, and she dug into the archives to pull out that weird moment when he ditched her on a video call dinner with his family.
And while it was messed up when he did that back then, it also felt like such a reach when she brought all of that up and spun it into how he's not fighting for them, running away, and so forth, and even invoked a quote by the late, great Maya Angelou that didn't feel applicable.
It's like they were trying to cash in on women's empowerment again but didn't correctly showcase why it was applicable in this instance.
It has never felt like Winston wasn't fighting for their relationship. More than anything, it always read as if he was constantly trying to do things to accommodate and make her happy, but it never met her approval, so at some point, he was at a loss.
Even the fact that Maggie has all but decided that she's going to Chicago without factoring him in much and just assumed that he'd follow her there or something when he had already come to GSM for her speaks volumes about who and what Maggie prioritizes.
I don't see how Winston can win here, so it's best to call it quits.
And the case with the bull rider also tapped into something for Maggie. She identified with Georgia and the sentiment that people didn't understand their dreams and desires and wanted to discourage them.
But in the case of Georgia, she's a teenager who is one bull ride away from death. Georgia's mother tried to put some things into perspective so they could understand Georgia's passion and why they cosigned their 16-year-old participating in this sport that gets her trampled and could cost her mobility or her life.
Cody: Do the spinal surgery.
Amelia: Sir, I don't think you understand --
Cody: We do. Save our daughter's ability to ride.
However, no matter how much they tried to sell us on Georgia's perspective, it was hard to accept it for what it was because the risks were too significant.
And you could only wish that her parents did the responsible thing and refused to sign off on this until Georgia was legally an adult.
It was a hot-button issue as they all worked on Georgia in the OR, and the girl nearly died on the table. Owen wasn't a fan of it, and Blue was incensed by the animal abuse of it all.
But Maggie saw herself in this girl.
I'm afraid I might be losing another sister.
Amelia
Another angle of things was that Amelia slowly realized that she was losing yet another sister, which sucks.
Maggie doesn't owe Amelia to stay in GSM. But you can definitely sympathize with Amelia, who found sisterhood in women in her life like Addison, Mer, and Maggie, and now all of them are gone. She doesn't do well when she feels like she's been abandoned or she's alone.
It was nice to see her and Richard talking about it. We can trust that she won't go down a dark path. But we already know Amelia will feel Maggie's absence the hardest. She's her best friend.
Lucas was another Shepherd who was going through it during this hour, but I was so beyond proud of him for having his moment to shine.
He's routinely insecure about being the screwup of the bunch, and it doesn't hurt that the others always treat him like the butt of the joke or the worst of the lot.
Even Simone was getting into the action, which probably stung a bit for Lucas in more ways than one.
I loved that he took the initiative with his patient. After what happened to the last patient they lost, he's been inspired to do better and be more confident in his assertiveness and advocation, and that's growth.
He enlisted Simone's help with his endeavor, reminding her how he's always had her back, which was the gospel truth, and even though they potentially faced Webber's wrath, they got a nice save out of it instead.
I've always had your back, can you at least have mine?
Lucas [to Simone]
I felt for the poor man who knew that his past drug addiction would prevent doctors from believing that anything was wrong with him and he was only there to score drugs.
It wasn't the primary focus of the hour, but it's a solid storyline that dug a bit into the stigmas that recovering addicts may face in situations like this and how that bias could cost them their lives.
But things took an awkward turn when Simone asked Lucas to be her Man of Honor. Bless this girl's heart; she's so damn messy!
She's constantly trying to convince herself and everyone else that this wedding to Trey is actually going to happen, even though every time she brings it up, she has zero investment in it.
Now, she's asked her version of a "person," Lucas, the man who literally had her pinned to a door and was seconds away from rocking her world not long ago, to be the man who stands beside her as she marries another guy.
Simone is a deliciously hot mess, and Lucas cares about her enough to rock with all of this. They're definitely becoming each other's person.
Blue and Jules feel that way, too, and their fun, flirty, sexy exchange is always nice.
And Mika's standout moment was her ability to connect with the working-class woman who would damn near drop dead working rather than assume more debt.
I loved her ability to connect with her patient with her financial situation and that she sells plasma to make rent. Mika continues to shine when she's working with cases, and she's becoming one of my favorite interns.
Another great moment from the hour was Helm and Bailey checking Levi for being a jerk to the interns. Bailey's vagina metaphor took the cake!
While many of the other relationships have been in limbo or strained, the JoLink situation is on the cusp of greatness, and I say this as someone who wasn't mainly a fan of the romantic pairing.
Link is right back in his romantic lead bag with how he cared for Jo. And doughnuts are clearly his thing. He used the same thing when he was getting Amelia to fall in love with him by also supporting her in a time of need.
You said you wanted to be the vɑginɑ of the program because vaginas are so strong. Well, vaginas also bring pleasure. They bring joy, bring life. You got to be the whole vɑginɑ, Schmidt, not just the muscle.
Bailey
So, yes, things between Jolink feel recycled in that way, and I'll forever be bitter over how the writers broke Amelink up in the most contrived way.
However, even I can acknowledge that what JoLink has right now at least feels mutual and equal, which is refreshing.
Where they are now, it doesn't feel like one of them cares more than the other. It's not an imbalanced mess of things that make you frustrated.
And their moments of intimacy in bed as they managed to pierce through the heart of one another, understanding the other at their core, was an effective and great ship moment.
Jo: You don't feel safe when you're not taking care of somebody else. It makes you feel anxious.
Link: And I think you can't rest because you never had anyone to take care of you. You stay busy all the time taking care of yourself and when you're still, you feel that pain.
Jo absolutely nailed Link's reasonings for why he couldn't rest. Her shocking astute observations caught him short, but he could also return that level of precise profiling with her.
Jo has become more likable through her friendship with Link, which could very well continue via a romance as well. And Link is back to being his awesome self and gets to be happy again when he's with Jo.
Are you on the JoLink train these days?
Just when it seemed like the hour would end on a less dramatic note, we got that ending with Bailey and Ben, and now we have to be concerned about their safety.
Now that Bailey has gotten doxxed, there's no telling what can come her way. With Addison, we heard about it, but there's the knowledge that it was happening offscreen that felt different.
But Bailey is right in Seattle, so we'll have to see the ramifications of this on her, and it heightens the stakes.
Over to you, Grey's Fanatics.
Are you ready for the Maggie/Winston breakup? What do you think about Maggie leaving?
Are you shocked that Simone asked Lucas to be her Man of Honor? Are you worried about Bailey? Sound off below.
To catch up on the season, you can watch Grey's Anatomy online right here via TV Fanatic.
Jasmine Blu is a senior staff writer for TV Fanatic. She is an insomniac who spends late nights and early mornings binge-watching way too many shows and binge-drinking way too much tea. Her eclectic taste makes her an unpredictable viewer with an appreciation for complex characters, diverse representation, dynamic duos, compelling stories, and guilty pleasures. You'll definitely find her obsessively live-tweeting, waxing poetic, and chatting up fellow Fanatics and readers. Follow her on X.
