Does it feel like we’re going around in circles with storylines on Grey’s Anatomy?
Sometimes, it certainly does, especially when it comes to the introduction of the cold new attending and Amelia’s obsession with her.
Then there’s the patient who tried to give himself a surgery! Let’s dive into Grey’s Anatomy Season 22 Episode 11!
Amelia Has Clearly Learned Nothing During Sabatical
It would be nice to see some character growth, but that’s not happening with Amelia on Grey’s Anatomy.
She just came back from a sabbatical on Grey’s Anatomy Season 22 Episode 10, and she’s already back to obsessing about something in the hospital, and this time, it happens to be the new Plastics attending.
It doesn’t take long to understand why she’s obsessing. The new attending, Toni, has some history, and Amelia says this woman hated her in med school.
Well, if you took a guess that this wasn’t true, you’d be right.
Of course, Amelia was misreading the situation, but part of that was due to the time. And I think we need to consider that throughout the episode.
After Amelia decides to confront Toni, we learn that Toni liked Amelia. “Liked liked” her, as the kids say.
Amelia just didn’t read into those clues at the time, and that’s because she hadn’t considered her sexuality. It’s only been in recent seasons that Amelia has realized she’s queer, and that’s opened her to seeing situations in different ways.
We have to acknowledge the time.
Amelia and Toni went to med school at least 20 to 25 years ago, right? That’s what I’m assuming, which puts us back in the early 2000s. It’s possibly even more like the 1990s.
We’re looking at a time when being queer was a career death sentence and social suicide. Toni wasn’t going to just openly admit things when she thought Amelia had brushed off her advances.
Amelia wasn’t even going to consider the possibility of Toni being interested in her, and then being too shy and nervous to be around her.
Yet, while all this makes sense, Amelia becoming obsessed with Toni ignoring her in the present day just reverts Amelia back.
She does this every time, and going on sabbatical was meant to help her cope with this part of her personality. Of course, there’s no “completely fixing” her, but there is room for development here!
It also doesn’t help that Toni is just another Erica Hahn and Nicole Herman — the cold new attending who is sure to be a great mentor when you get on the right side of her.
On top of that, once the air is cleared, Toni and Amelia suddenly become this potential power couple at the hospital.
The two end up bouncing ideas off each other in the OR when there’s a situation with their patient, and yes, there is a little bit of flirting in there.
Amelia has just grieved Beltran’s loss, and she’s already looking at something with another doctor?
This woman falls hard and fast all the time, and it’s another thing she was supposed to work on while she was off. Yet, it looks like there’s going to be no change, and from a viewer’s point of view, that is eye-rollingly disappointing.
Lucas and Bailey Are Not the Same — But Lucas Is An Early Bailey
Lucas still has a lot to learn about being a doctor, and Grey’s Anatomy Season 22 Episode 11 reminds us of that.
He’s spending a lot of time focused on Katie, and it makes sense. This is the first patient who has meant something to him, and the first one he hasn’t been able to save.
Yet he had no right to claim Bailey had given up on her.
He doesn’t know Bailey, and as she listed off every single patient she still thinks about — including the John Doe in the ICU, making a point that a patient doesn’t even need a name for her to care — I had to stop and just watch in awe.
Bailey is the main character of Grey’s Anatomy. I’ve said it for the longest time, and I will keep saying it.
She has always cared.
We can go all the way back to Mandy Moore’s time on the series, when Bailey obsessively focused on fistulas.
This was a high point of Grey’s Anatomy, giving us moments of doctor-patient relationships, and it is something the show has managed to capture again with Lucas and Katie’s relationship.
For the longest time, I felt like something was missing from the series, and it was these doctor-patient relationships.
When you think back to earlier episodes of the series, what do you remember — apart from MAGYK, of course?
It’s the patients, and it’s the way the doctors have fought for their patients. It’s the way they have exhausted all of their options.
And every single doctor has been where Lucas is. He has a long way to go to learn, but just having the heart to want to fight is something that can’t be taught.
Bailey does need to remember that. While he definitely deserved the dressing-down, Bailey still needs to teach him how to be a better doctor from this point forward.
It is a teaching hospital, after all!
She also needs to help him be a better teacher, because Dani had a point in expecting an apology. She needs to learn from her mistake, but that mistake stems from a teacher who didn’t even bother.
To be honest, as you think about past Bailey, she did end up obsessing over just one patient. She’s had the time to learn how to manage her whole caseload, which comes with time.
It’s time for her to take a step back in her own fears and stress and remember that Lucas needs to grow in his skills as she has had the time to do.
A Topic of Parenthood — On Both Sides!
One of the big operations of the week involves a man who comes into the hospital after claiming he’d walked into his dresser in the middle of the night.
Well, it turns out that wasn’t true, and he gave himself a vasectomy.
He has a younger wife, and he doesn’t want any more children. While that’s perfectly understandable, what isn’t understandable is why he wouldn’t talk to his wife about it.
He took the choice away from her, meaning that she couldn’t even go into a marriage with all the information.
There’s always a lot of focus on women making choices that affect men, but Grey’s Anatomy did it the other way with this episode.
We get to see what it’s like for this man’s wife, as she realizes that she won’t have children of her own if she remains married to him.
I just can’t help but question why he wouldn’t give her this choice. It isn’t fair to her, and I would say the exact same thing if this were a woman doing it to a man.
These conversations are necessary, and it’s okay to be honest. It’s just clear that this man was too afraid of losing his wife rather than just being honest with her, and you can’t start a relationship on a lie.
While all this is going on, we get Simone and Jules thinking about their futures and motherhood, as they consider freezing their eggs.
To be honest, I have full respect for women who choose to be child-free, and I respect knowing you want to be a mom.
With all that said, I can totally empathize with Jules, who admits she doesn’t even know she wants to be a mom.
I get Catherine’s realization that while she didn’t know she wanted to be a parent, Jackson became the best thing that ever happened to her.
Jules is one of those characters who is a sponge. She’s taking in experiences, and she’s trying to figure things out for herself.
Despite initially saying she definitely didn’t want kids, she listens to Catherine and is open to the possibility that she might change her mind in the future.
Sure, she might never change her mind and be another Cristina, and that’s admirable.
This isn’t a failure as a woman, and I respect Catherine for not phrasing it that way.
I had worried at first that Catherine would, because if you don’t think like her, then she looks down on you, but she doesn’t make the conversation about Jules. It’s all about herself and her own experiences.
That’s the way to have these types of conversations. It wasn’t preachy, but it was informative.
In the end, Jules realizes that there’s nothing to lose by freezing her eggs, and it’s the support that Simone needs at the time.
Simone does think she’ll want to be a mom in the future, but she’s not ready to deal with the trauma of her mom dying in childbirth.
There is so much fear that comes with this, because what if it happens to Simone? What if she leaves her child behind without a mom?
I do hope we see Simone deal with this fear. Grey’s Anatomy used to have a lot of scenes with the in-hospital therapist, and we need a little more of that.
With the state of the world as it is and the continued stigma of mental health problems, Grey’s Anatomy has a duty to show that there’s a strength in facing your own trauma and fears.
This is the storyline to do it with, especially as Jules and Simone go through the egg freezing process. There are hormones involved, and deep emotions will come up.
Simone having Jules with her while going through it all is a power move by Grey’s Anatomy, and it’s a storyline I’m here for — much more than the Amelia/Toni storyline.
I don’t want a rehash of an old storyline. If you’re going to repeat a topic, come up with a new way of doing it, and that’s what the Jules/Simone story offers.
Will it stop me watching? Oh, hell no. I’ve been here from the start, and I’m going to be around until the very end.
Grey’s Anatomy is the soapy drama that keeps on giving, but I would like something slightly different.
Grey’s Anatomy airs on Thursdays at 10/9c on ABC, and I’ll be back with weekly reviews and so much more!
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