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OK, after last night's Grey's Anatomy, I'm even more on the side of the attendings who oppose Eliza Minnick. Apparently, under her method, NONE OF THEM WILL EVER GET TO DO SURGERY EVER AGAIN. Seriously. It's another episode of Stephanie and Jo and Ben doing actual procedures while the actual, trained surgeons stand around and give instructions and look concerned. I'm annoyed about this from the perspective of someone who is overly invested in the training procedures of a fictitious hospital, and that's on me. But I'm also annoyed about it as a viewer, in part because it seems like the past few episodes have all followed the formula of: Eliza insists on her method/attendings object/surgery proceeds regardless/everyone grumbles/patient lives or dies. The biggest problem from a storytelling perspective is that I see Eliza's method is different, but I don't see that it's necessarily an improvement. And if you're going to get me off of Team Webber, you're going to have to do better than that.

Anyway.

This week, Ben, Stephanie, and Jo are working on a mother-to-son kidney transplant. The first bump in the road comes when the boy's estranged, abusive father turns up at the hospital. Once Jo learns about the abuse, she's immediately (and understandably) traumatized, and tries to get Owen to kick him out of the hospital. The father gets in her face more than once, and it seems like it's foreshadowing some big development in Jo's storyline her abusive ex returning? Her opening up more to Alex about her past?

After the kidney is removed from the mother, her other kidney fails, leaving just one functional kidney between the two of them. Everyone goes into a tailspin trying to figure out who the kidney "belongs" to. April's in charge because Bailey's away from the hospital (more on that soon), and because April is really, really bad at deciding things, everyone just stands around and wrings their hands for a while. Then, the boy's father steps forward and says he'll donate the kidney, which sets off another round of handwringing. Jo, in particular, is worried he'll use his status of "heroic organ donor" to try to ingratiate himself back into the family. So she goes into the OR just as he's about to be put under, and basically begs him to do the right thing and disappear after the surgery. Let me just say that I'm pretty sure one of the reasons Bailey thought Webber was failing as residency director was that residents were making emotionally motivated, heart-first decisions. It doesn't seem like Eliza's curbed that yet?

Apparently Jo's successful, because the boy and mother wake up and are informed that the hospital just happened to get a perfect match at the exact right time. They buy it and then Jo winds up crying on Owen's shoulder outside the hospital. It's a sweet moment, but it mostly just makes me wish Jo would talk to Alex and Owen would talk to Amelia. Also, Eliza and Arizona kiss and I am wholly indifferent.

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Meanwhile, a young woman comes into the OR looking disheveled and talking incoherently about snakes. She collapses, and Maggie and Riggs figure out that she has an old pacemaker that needs replacing. Riggs uses the serial number on the pacemaker to identify the young woman, Claire, and locate her parents. (Can we have more storylines where Riggs SOLVES MYSTERIES?) Claire's parents haven't seen her in 12 years, ever since she wandered away from her college apartment. She was gone so long they held a funeral for her. "She has a gravestone," Claire's mother says, baffled, especially because she thinks she was called to the hospital to identify her daughter's body. Because of his past, Riggs takes the whole thing very personally. At this point, I will feel extremely cheated if Riggs's long-lost fiance never emerges from the desert, where she presumably wandered with amnesia for years after her helicopter crash. I don't care how unrealistic that is, I AM OWED IT.

Claire is diagnosed with schizophrenia and given medication. Shortly after, she emerges far enough from her altered state to identify her parents. It's a nice little story, and there are parts of it that are very accurate, but it's definitely Hollywooded up. I wish there were more television about the mundane nature of mental illness, because the reality of it isn't the heightened drama of hallucinated snakes and reunited families and medications that work in an instant. Sometimes it's years trying to get the right diagnosis, months trying to figure out the right combination of medications. Or it's a quiet descent into psychological chaos, not an immediate, easily identifiable break. But it's mostly just an everyday effort that sometimes feels like second nature and sometimes feels like a terrible slog. I can see why Grey's why any media, really wants to frame mental illness as something that dramatically emerges and tidily recedes. And I value storylines that show that severe mental illness is treatable, and can and should be treated. But I'd love to see those stories told in a more nuanced way.

Meredith spends a solid portion of the episode FOLDING LAUNDRY, which is aggravating for a million reasons. Bailey comes over to ask her to come back to work, and Meredith says she's not interested in doing so until Richard is reinstated. Bailey flounces, but later Richard comes over himself. Meredith tells him she keeps hearing her mom's voice in her head saying, "Meredith. It's Richard." But he tells her to go get her job, and she picks up the phone to call Bailey. So at least one thing is as it should be.

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Grey's Anatomy Just Isn't the Same With Eliza Minnick on Board - Cosmopolitan.com