After complaining of a toothache throughout the episode, the new chief of Grey Sloan Memorial was called in to perform an emergency heart surgery on Sam Sutton (Sam Page) when she suddenly collapsed.
Her husband Owen Hunt (Kevin McKidd) rushed to help and used a defibrillator to try to save her. Amid the chaos in the OR, Sam went into cardiac arrest on the table and Lucas Adams (Niko Terho) decided to perform the surgery without an attending present while Simone Griffin (Alexis Floyd) jumped in to help him.
Meredith and Maggie’s Return
Dr. Winston Ndugu (Anthony Hill), Nick Marsh (Scott Speedman), Amelia Shepherd (Caterina Scorsone), Miranda Bailey (Chandra Wilson), Richard Webber (James Pickens Jr.) and his wife (Debbie Allen) made their way to Boston for the Catherine Fox Awards where they would be reunited with Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) and Maggie Pierce (Kelly McCreary).
On the private jet to Boston, Amelia told Nick that he made Meredith “really happy” but he responded that she had “a funny way of showing it.” Amelia also confronted Winston about his relationship with Maggie. He replied, “I didn’t fail Maggie and Maggie didn’t fail me. If you think I was the problem, you might be the reason she left.”
When the turbulence on the flight increased and they thought the plane might go down, Winston gave Amelia his hand to calm her, despite their disagreement, and Richard, an alcoholic, grabbed his wife’s martini before Bailey knocked it out his hand. The plane soon destabilized and they were back on their way to Boston.
Richard later confessed to Amelia about how their experience on the plane made him think about drinking again and she encouraged him to find a meeting with her, but he wanted to wait for Catherine before a vodka tonic was delivered to him.Nick raced to Meredith’s house as soon as he arrived in Boston but to his surprise, a man named Michael (Gilles Marini) answered the door. However, the wait to see Meredith wasn’t long when she texted the group to meet her at her new lab where she is doing research. She then tells them, “We have to question everything we know about Alzheimer’s if we’re going to cure it.”
Meredith presented them with her “possible new theory” on Alzheimer’s disease. After seeing her findings, Richard told her that it was “huge” but advised her not to share her discovery with anyone else in order to protect her reputation and funding. However, Nick encouraged her to break the rules and let people know she was going against the traditional school of thought, which he later did by telling a donor they were focused on the wrong things in their research.
Meredith then took the stage to make a surprise announcement that the Catherine Fox Award would be going to a non-nominee for a non-surgical project. She presented Bailey with the award for her work in training the next generation of doctors in reproductive care.
Meredith ended her night by trying to deliver a letter to Nick’s hotel room but he stopped her in the hallway. She admitted that she pretended not to hear him say that he loved her before she left for Boston. She shared, “I was tired and scared and overwhelmed. And I know that sounds stupid but I thought what I should do in that moment was to focus on the children so that’s what I did… but I miss you.”
He responded by telling her that he had met Michael at her house and she revealed that Michael was, in fact, Zola’s tutor. While she was surprised to learn that he went to her house, he admitted, “I wasted years of my life trying to avoid pain and I went to your house to say that I never shouldn’t have let you walk away and say I want to live a whole life with love and mess and pain with you.”
She responded: “Well, okay then” before they shared a kiss.
Meanwhile, Maggie found Winston in the hallway of her hotel and asked him for help in zipping up her dress for the banquet. After exchanging some witty banter, Maggie couldn’t resist kissing him and they hooked up.
After the hookup, Winston and Maggie discussed the status of their relationship. He asked, “Is this what we are now, married but apart and having mind-blowing sex whenever we’re in the same room when we pull off medical miracles together?”
“Sex and medical miracles are two things we always got right,” she responded. He then asked if it was time for them to get divorced. She didn’t answer but encouraged him to focus on his career.
Simone’s Wedding Day
After Lucas’s declaration of love on last week’s episode, Simone went to find him, despite it being her wedding day.
When she found him at Grey Sloan Memorial, she told him that she still planned to tie the knot. She explained, “I can’t deny what you feel. I can’t deny that we have a connection but Trey does love me and I think what he and I built together deserves this chance and I don’t want to hurt you and I don’t want to lose you from my life. But, I’m getting married today.”
As she made her way down the aisle on the arm of her father, she realized the mistake she was making and decided to call off the wedding. She then ran back to the hospital in her wedding gown to tell Lucas, “I didn’t get married.” They made their way to the on-call room where they hooked up.
Their happily ever after didn’t last long though, as Trey arrived at the hospital in an ambulance following a car accident. Despite an injury to his arm, Trey realized that Lucas was to blame for Simone leaving him at the altar and punched him in the E.R.
When Trey asked if she had feelings for Lucas, she shared, “I didn’t leave for another man. I didn’t. I left because I’m not the person I was when we got together after everything that happened. Blowing up my life, moving here. It’s just changed me. I’m a different person. I want different things.”
Trey insisted it was still about Lucas and replied, “Adams isn’t good enough for you. He’s a screw-up. He’ll never learn because he has a family name to back him up and if you decide to be with him, your whole trajectory changes.”
The Love Triangle
Before Sam’s emergency surgery, Link’s (Chris Carmack) jealousy over Jo (Camilla Luddington)’s budding relationship with him continued to grow and she finally asked him, “Is there something you need to say to me?” He denied his feelings and blamed his concerns on the doctor-patient relationship dynamic.
Jo later found Link outside the hospital and revealed that she thought it was time for him to move out of their shared home because she was ready to “meet someone.”
Link was clearly unhappy by her decision and said, “I’ve changed my entire life to revolve around you. Us.” She responded, “I never asked you to.”
After a back and forth over their status as roommates, Link finally admitted his long-standing feelings to her. He said, “I love you and I’m gonna love you forever.”
“You unbelievable dummy. I love you too,” she responded and they kissed in the rain.
A Love-Hate Relationship
Benson “Blue” Kwan (Harry Shum Jr.) went rogue when Jules’ elderly roommate, Maxine Anderson (Juliet Mills), who had been at the hospital due to delirium caused by urinary tract infection, coded during the middle of their conversation. He decided to resuscitate despite her DNR order, putting Jules, who was her medical proxy, in the awkward spot of deciding how to proceed with her care.
Jules ultimately decided to move forward with the treatment and Maxine eventually woke up and wanted her breathing tube removed. Blue told her that he was “right” to go against her wishes and “fight” for her.
Despite her improvement, Jules admitted to Blue that she was “enraged” by him and called him out for putting her in an impossible situation by his decision to treat Maxine.
“The worst part is that you saved my favorite person, so now I don’t get to just hate you, I have to love you too,” she said. When she broke down in tears, he simply offered her a tissue.
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Grey’s Anatomy season 19 is now streaming in full on Hulu.