Grey’s Anatomy’s Season 20 has pulled no punches in its first two episodes. But Espidoe 2 of this season has even more surprises and drama than ever.
It’s clear that Atticus “Link” Lincoln and Jo Wilson are enjoying finally being together, as “Keep the Family Close” opens with them in bed together. Mika Yasuda and Taryn Helm are also enjoying their time together, much to the chagrin of Yasuda’s roommates, Lucas Adams and Simone Griffith. Across town, Amelia Shepherd is talking to her cat when Meredith Grey texts: “Did you read the article about the entorhinal cortex of the brain?” Amelia responds: “Do you ever sleep???”
In the morning, it’s clear things are uncomfortable in the intern house. Griffith and Adams are dancing around each other, because Simone still needs time. Neither is pleased with Yasuda keeping them up all night, but they carpool to Grey Sloan Memorial with her and Helm anyway.
At the hospital, Miranda Bailey and Ben Warren are walking in with Pru. Ben asks Bailey if she’s nervous, and Bailey says the interns should be nervous. Bailey asks Pru who the boss is, and Pru says, “You’re the boss!”
At the coffee stand, Link notices that the barista is hitting on Jo and mentions that he also saved her from someone hitting on her the first time they met. Jo doesn’t remember, but Link can tell her all about it.
The interns start off late. “Your days as surgical cowboys are over,” Bailey tells them and then says that they are going back to the basics. She hands out procedure logs and says they must complete all the procedures and have them signed off by an attending if they even want to consider seeing an OR.
The interns are frustrated, as they’re also cramming for the ABSITE exam. “If it’s too much for you, feel free to choose another career,” Bailey tells them and then hands them off to Helm. Griffith is assigned to Schmitt, Yasuda is assigned to Ndugu, and the rest go to the pit. Adams asks Helm if her class had to play surgical bingo. “My class didn’t screw up like your class,” she says.
In the pit, a large family arrives because their softball game turned into a bloodbath. Millin is assigned to the whole family, whose last name is Best. A gunshot victim, a “John Doe,” shows up, and both Kwan and Adams are helping. Kwan says the guy smells like Pike Place Market and has trouble cutting into his pants, but when he finally does, money comes flying out.
Griffith presents Dante Collier to Levi Schmitt and Richard Webber. He has cholecystitis, but he’s worried about getting back to work. Webber tells Schmitt and Griffith that Dante owns “Bread for This,” a local bakery. Dante hits on Schmitt, who then gets flustered when Webber says that Schmitt is the lead surgeon.
Back in the trauma room, Adams is cleaning up the money while the gunshot victim is getting worked up. Yasuda comes in to ask about a patient, and Ndugu tells her, “Now is not the time to ask about that.” Both Kwan and Adams want to do a chest tube, but Adams is sent to take the money to security. John Doe starts coding, and they have to do a thoracotomy.
Simone is back with Dante. They’re talking about baking shows when Simone asks him about his medications, and he tells her he told the ER doctor. She specifically asks him about medication for HIV, and he says, “I don’t have HIV.” She tells him that the test is part of the standard screening for the ER, and he has tested positive. Dante says she’s clearly made a mistake and asks for another doctor.
On the other side of the ER, Ndugu is pumping the gunshot victim’s heart with his hands. Adams opens the door to the trauma room, money still in hand, and there is blood everywhere. Kwan tells him that trash duty suits him, and Adams says that security was busy on the psych floor, so he has to hold on to the money. There is no cardiac response for 20 minutes, but when Ndugu starts to declare the time of death, Kwan asks to try the cardiac massage for his procedure log. Kwan ends up reviving the patient and asks to scrub in, but Bailey says no.
Webber, Schmitt, and Griffith go back to Dante and Webber tells him that they repeated his lab test twice. Both came back positive for HIV. He offers to postpone the surgery and provide counseling, but Dante tries to leave, saying his surgery is the last thing on his mind.
While Allie is in MRI, Shepherd sees a protruding disc at L5-S1 and says she needs surgery. Wilson brings Link donuts, and Shepherd can tell they are together. When Shepherd says they need to do back surgery, Wilson tells her that they can’t go in posteriorly because she can’t lie on her stomach, and they can’t go in anteriorly because they’ll have to deliver the baby. Don’t worry, Shepherd has an idea!
Yasuda is sharing patient updates with Altman as they pace around her hospital room. Altman hands her another patient, and Yasuda says she has to finish rounding on Ndugu’s patients. Altman tells her the patient has a possible central line. Yasuda asks if Altman needs help, and she says, “Yes, with my patients,” but after Yasuda leaves, it’s obvious she’s in pain.
Dante is waiting for discharge papers to leave AMA, and when Schmitt brings them in, he talks to him briefly about his HIV options. Dante says that when Schmitt walked in, his first concern was how to ask out the hot surgeon. Now, he’ll always remember his face as one of the ones who told him that his dating life would change forever. Schmitt tells him that he gets to disclose his status, how and when he wants to, and that the person he wants to date might be on PrEP. When Schmitt makes a joke, Dante laughs and then folds over in pain. Schmitt tells him if he leaves, he could get septic and die, and Dante says, “OK.” Schmitt seems surprised and says, “That’s it?” and Dante says, “Yeah, because I don’t think I can walk.”
Bailey and Ndugu are in surgery, but it’s clear that Ndugu is frustrated with Bailey, so she tells him to speak his mind. “You learn how to be a surgeon in the operating room. Full stop,” Ndugu says. “Suspending the interns is stunting their education. And what’s worse, it’s impeding my work. They should be in the OR, pushing past their mistakes and learning from them. Growing, Bailey.” Bailey reminds Ndugu that she won a Catherine Fox Award — he knows she beat him — and then says, “Most people think it is because of my work in reproductive care, but really it’s for teaching reproductive care.” The only thing Ndugu says after that is when he tells Adams to run the bullet they pulled out of John Doe to pathology.
Shepherd has configured the operating table so that it has a hole in the middle for Allie’s belly. Allie gets worried about the baby, and her husband, Billy, says, “It’s going to be okay, and no matter what happens, we are all going to be there for you when you wake up.” When she asks him if everyone will be there, he promises that he “will tell whoever you want to leave.”
Yasuda runs into Webber and asks him about a patient whom he says he passed off to another doctor. Both Webber and Hunt ask her what is going on, and she pleads the fifth, but when Webber steps away, she finally tells Owen that she’s helping Altman by checking on patients for her. “Chief Altman said I might get to do some procedures for my log if I checked on her patients. Don’t worry, the joke’s on me. I haven’t done a single procedure, and I’m behind on Ndugu’s patients.” When she tells Hunt that she is worried that Altman is pushing it, Hunt takes her procedure log and signs off on two procedures that he saw her do on Altman. “You helped save her life, Yasuda. I won’t forget that,” Hunt says before asking her to help get Altman to rest without telling her that the request is coming from Hunt.
In the OR, Wilson and Link are still talking about the day they met, which Wilson doesn’t remember. Shepherd and Link work on the spine as they talk, but then the baby’s heart starts decelerating. Wilson is unable to manipulate the baby from outside the womb, so they have to get as many screws into her back as possible and flip her to deliver the baby.
Griffith is in an on-call room when Adams comes in to comfort her about the HIV patient. She kisses him, and he asks if she’s sure. She tells him that she wants to feel better, but he stops her, suggesting that they talk. Griffith leaves, embarrassed and annoyed.
Link and Shepherd successfully stabilized Allie’s spine and are expecting a full recovery. While the lungs of the baby aren’t fully developed, and she’ll need a little time on a ventilator, she is strong for her age. The doctors take Billy to see the baby, and he tells the baby that their family is loud and obnoxious, but “We are the Best family.” While Billy is talking to the baby, Shepherd talks to Wilson about Link, telling her that he “can be sentimental” and that it’s “even more intense with people he loves.” Wilson seems worried that he already told Shepherd about them and Shepherd tells her that he didn’t have to, she could see it.
Griffith asks Webber about Dante. He says the surgery went well, and Schmitt will tell her about the post-op orders. She says she’s struggling to trust her instincts. Webber says he’s mismanaged plenty, and she asks when he stopped. “I’ll let you know when I do.”
Yasuda brings in jello for Altman and tries to convince her to rest. Teddy pushes back and says she’s fine again. Yasuda has had enough. “You are not fine. And that is not coming from Hunt or Ndugu. That is fact,” Yasuda says. “I know because I was standing next to you when you collapsed in the OR. We pounded on your heart to keep you alive. It was traumatic and awful, and I’m still not over it, but here you are, acting like business as usual when you almost died!” Altman looks startled and then begins wailing and sobbing, and when Yasuda goes to leave, Altman says, “Please don’t tell anyone this happened.” “Discretion. Total discretion,” Yasuda promises.
Millin comes down the main staircase on the surgical floor to talk to the Best family. She tells them that Allie is okay, the baby is fine, and they’ve all been seen, so they are free to go. When they start going back and forth about who the MVP of their game was, again, Millin lectures them about arguing and tells them that they should be grateful instead of fighting. They give her MVP, which comes with a trophy.
Kwan is with John Doe when Adams comes in, frantic. He has lost the bag of cash. Kwan gets him to agree to cut work for two weeks and then tells him he found it in the on-call room. When Dr. Bailey arrives, Kwan asks her to sign off on his procedure log. She says no, and he says, “I don’t get credit for the cardiac massage?” That’s when Bailey gets frustrated and says, “You didn’t do that for credit. You did it to learn to save a life. This man is a human being. He’s someone’s son, maybe someone’s brother. He’s just like you at the beginning of his adult life. And then he was shot multiple times and might not live. Yet, the only thing the two of you seem to see is blank boxes to be checked. This exercise is not a game. It is to determine whether or not you will ever regain the privilege of operating inside someone’s living body. And if I hear that you put procedures over patients again, I will make sure that you never do.”
While Schmitt is telling Dante that the surgery went well but that recovery will take longer since they couldn’t go in laparoscopically, Griffith comes in and asks to apologize for how she told him that he was HIV positive. Dante forgives her and tells her that he missed calls from the health department a few months back. He had to find out at some point. Dante then asks Schmitt if he has dinner plans, and though he has other patients, Schmitt decides he can spare 20 minutes and sits down to chat with Dante.
Two people come in about John Doe and are directed to Kwan. Their son, on a break from grad school, was working on a fishing barge. It docked recently, but the parents never heard from him. They show him a picture and Kwan has them sit down. He confirms that their son is in the hospital and very gracefully talks them through how he came in and what has happened since. Bailey overhears Kwan talking to the parents and seems impressed.
Altman, who has finally gotten some sleep, wakes up to find Hunt sitting by her bedside. “Yasuda told you that I cried?” “No,” Hunt says, “but you just did.” Altman tells him that she can’t get the image of Sam on the OR table out of her head. She was supposed to save him, but she couldn’t. He tells her that she needs to stop worrying about things out of her control. She agrees to no work and gives him her notepad, but then he discovers she’s hiding a tablet on her other side and takes it, to her disappointment.
Shepherd chases down Ndugu and tells him she got a cat. When he asks if she means to be talking to him, she tells him, “I miss my family. I miss Meredith. I miss Maggie. I miss Kai. So I got a cat.” Then she tells him that she knows things have been rocky, but she wants them to be “the kind of family that could fight and still eat meals together.” She asks him to go to Joe’s, and he says, “I could do that.” She clarifies that it would be with her, and he laughs and says yes.
Ben is waiting for Bailey in the main part of the hospital. She tells him about John Doe and says that the interns are the same as any other class, but she’s different. She tells him that Ndugu openly questioned her methods today and “maybe he’s right.” Ben reminds her about the things he has had trouble with when it comes to Pru that have been easier for her because she has parented before and knows when to yell and when to hold a hand. So yes, she’s different, but she’s changed for the better, and she knows what she’s doing.
At Link and Jo’s apartment, she has laid out a seafood spread and tells him about a day when they worked together at Jimmy’s Crab Shack. The restaurant did all-you-can-eat crab day but forgot to put a time limit on it, so they got almost no tips. Her tuition was due, and she was miserable. “After that awful shift, you and I sat in the back booth eating oyster crackers, and you told me that someday, I’d become a doctor and make enough to afford everything on the menu. You made it all better. Just like you’ve done so many times since we first met.” Then she tells him that she has ordered everything on the menu from The Fisherman’s Lure.
Griffith shows up at the intern house, where Adams is studying by the fire. “I avoid hard truths.” She tells him. “I avoid them till they are staring me in the face. I ran from Baltimore. I ran from my wedding. After everything with Sam, I ran from you. And I think it’s because I am too scared to admit that right now’s not a good time for us. I’m not sleeping. I’m slipping up. I’m hurting people. I’m hurting myself. And I need to put me first. I need to put my career first.”
Though her speech seems reasonable, Adams is frustrated. “When haven’t you?” He asks, reminding her of all the times she has put herself first, like when she kissed him right before accepting a marriage proposal and then asked him to be the best man in her wedding. Or when she said she needed time to sort things out, but that was over as soon as she needed him to help her feel better. He assures her that she has put herself first.
She tries to clarify, but he’s not interested in listening. “From now on,” he says, “we’re roommates. You and I are done.”
