Bailey gets the interns whipped into shape.
Bailey (Chandra Wilson) is back in charge of the interns, and things could not be more entertaining. She’s whipping these jokers into shape by taking them back to square one. Will anyone be stepping a single toe in the OR? Absolutely not. Interns are built for boring procedures, like removing tubes from chests, cleaning oozing wounds in the ER pit, and shoving $40,000 worth of $100 bills in a medical waste bag.
A young, unconscious John Doe is wheeled into Grey Sloan with multiple gunshot wounds and a ridiculous amount of money stuffed into his pants. Unfazed by this turn of events, Bailey has no problem barking at Adams (Niko Terho) to collect the bloody cash while Kwan (Harry Shum Jr.) hovers, hoping to be called in to assist. Spoiler alert: No one does.
Winston (Anthony Hill) and Bailey work hard to save the young man, and just as Winston is about to call the time of death, Kwan asks to sub in. Adams questions why he would massage a dead man’s heart. Kwan’s answer is simple. He can’t kill him, so it’s good practice.
Begrudgingly, Bailey nods for Kwan to take over. Moments later, to the literal surprise of everyone in the room, John Doe’s heart starts beating! This is both exciting for John Doe and terrifying for every person watching who hopes and prays that there’s a Kwan standing around should their heart stop beating on its own. To the OR!
While Adams and Kwan watch from the scrub room as Winston and Bailey prep John Doe for surgery, Millin (Adelaide Kane) is stuck helping an unruly group of softball players from the same family in various states of distress. How so many of them ended up bloody and broken is a direct result of competitive DNA mixed with unathletic ability. Sadly, the daughter-in-law, Allie, who just wanted to prove to the family that she’s a team player, ends up with a pulled muscle in her back.
Oh, and she’s 29 weeks pregnant. With stabbing pain. And an uncontrollable bladder. Luckily, a dream team of world-renowned surgeons discovers that she needs back surgery. Link (Chris Carmack) and Amelia (Caterina Scorsone) will operate on her vertebrae while Jo (Camilla Luddington) monitors the fetus. And don’t worry about the baby bump. Amelia has an operating table with a hole in it. Just like a donut.
Of course, things don’t go as planned, and Jo is forced to crawl under the donut operating table to try and reposition the baby when its heart rate decreases. Link and Amelia quickly screw in some bolts, flip the mother around, help Jo perform a c-section, and save the day. Mom and baby are doing very well!
And so are Jo and Link. Amelia is not an idiot. She dated and almost married Link for crying out loud! She encourages Jo to be sweet to Link, reminding Jo that he’s big on remembering the little details. Jo takes her advice and buys him an entire menu of items from a seafood restaurant. Nothing says love like a whole table full of cretaceous entrees. Also, Millin receives the MVP award from the softball family for yelling at them in the waiting room.
On the other side of the building, Richard (James Pickens Jr.) camouflages a grin as his patient Dante flirts with Schmidt (Jake Borelli). He’s in for gallbladder surgery, yet somehow manages to make the word “pumpernickel” sexy. Griffith is stuck doing Dante’s labs, and when she asks about his HIV medication, Dante blanches.
He insists he is not HIV-positive and demands someone other than Griffith run his tests. Richard and Schmidt rerun his labs and confirm what Dante doesn’t want to hear. He demands that they release him immediately. Once he’s dressed to leave, Schmidt attempts to help him understand that living with HIV is not the end of the world. He encourages Dante to stay and have the surgery, and Dante agrees when he admits he doesn’t have the power to walk out of the hospital because of the pain. The surgery goes well, and Dante is able to continue his quest to get the hot surgeon to go out to dinner with him.
Do you know what’s not going well? Teddy’s (Kim Raver) recovery. Yasuda (Midori Francis) has been tasked with making sure Teddy eats her Jell-O and gets some rest. Who cares that Teddy is slipping Yasuda orders to go and check on her patients? Yasuda is at her wit’s end and shouts at Teddy to act like someone who almost died because she did! Teddy almost died!
Yasuda did not expect Teddy to start blubbering like a baby at this reality, but I think it was good for her soul. It was a bonding moment that will never be discussed again. Total discretion for the chief.
Meanwhile, back in the OR, Winston calls Bailey out for not letting the interns step into the operating room to work on John Doe. How else are they going to learn? After saving John Doe’s life, Bailey is once again annoyed by Kwan and Adams, who are bickering over the once lost but now found red medical waste bag of cold hard cash.
They only care about procedures, which she insisted they focus on at the beginning of their shift. What about the twentysomething man without a name in intensive care? Patients before procedures, people.
Later, Bailey watches as a couple arrives at the hospital to claim John Doe. Kwan handles himself beautifully. While walking home with her husband Ben (Jason Winston George), Bailey wonders if she’s the right person for the job when it comes to the interns. She’s changed. She’s seen a lot. She’s felt a lot. Does she still have it?
Ben assures her that she is a better person now than she was back then. Twenty seasons ago. When she was just a scary thing with five rules. Perhaps she needs more rules now that she has some living under her belt. And perhaps those rules can be in the romance department because Griffin and Adams are on the struggle bus for sure.
Look, I admire Adams for stopping Griffith when she wanted to “feel better” by sleeping with him in the on-call room. And I understand she wants to take a break from them to focus on her career. But I also agree with Adams for losing his temper when she said she must put herself first. Fact: She accepted a marriage proposal right after kissing Adams. Fact: Griffith asked him to be her best man at her wedding. Fact: She ran to him after running from the altar.
You can see why he wants to be roommates. He’s done, and I don’t blame him.
