'Grey's Anatomy' Season 16 Episode 17 Review: Will Teddy's character be butchered like Alex Karev too?
'Grey's Anatomy' has been serving steaming plates of disappointment lately with a side-dish of absurdity. So, when a mixed bag of an episode like the recent one does air, it's more of a polite surprise. This doesn't mean this was a great episode by any means, it just indicates that it was fairly tolerable and less painful than the ones before this.
So after the travesty we witnessed last week - Alex Karev's (Justin Chambers) character assassination after 15 years - Jo Wilson (Camilla Luddington) is struggling to pull herself together. Her close friendship with Dr Atticus Link (Chris Carmack) is one of the highlights, as both of them give fabulous shade to a rosy-eyed teenager, who is very much in love. Link is not himself either and the break-up with Amelia Shepherd (Caterina Scorsone) is weighing heavily on him.
Initially, there was a bit of trepidation to watch these two together, because the writers seemed to hint that a romance could between them, but thankfully that doesn't happen. We can let friends be...just friends right? It isn't a compulsion to see them in the throes of passion? Nevertheless, after Jo gives a fiery speech about how she will show Alex what he's missing out on, she ticks Link off and tells him to mend things with Amelia. And so, he does. That scene is particularly sweet to watch, as Link gives a romantic speech to Amelia in the rain, with a guitar in his hands. Whew.
The most annoying and cringe-worthy part of the episode? Yup, that's Teddy Altman (Kim Raver). Honestly, what's happened to the once-upon-a-time steady cardiothoracic surgeon? She's flitting from Tom Koracick to Owen Hunt (Kevin McKidd) in a span of minutes. The hilarious part is that she is trying to get the upper hand with Owen and demanding who the father of Amelia's child is, after sleeping with Tom last week. And then, she does it this week, again, following which she returns to Owen. She does give a speech of what unbearable pain she is in, but it's seriously difficult to feel invested in her story at all. The Link-Amelia baby drama is over and now can we end this Teddy-Owen-Tom triangle, once and for all?
Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) is there in this episode and for that you would need this reminder. She says that she doesn't want to talk about Alex and then at the end of the episode while staring at the rain, she talks about how much she misses him to Miranda Bailey (Chandra Wilson). However, Bailey couldn't care less about Alex right now, she's more worried about Richard Webber (James Pickens Jr) who seems to be on a downward spiral and has handed over his services.
Urgh, do we have to mention Andrew DeLuca? The show is doing a terrible and shoddy job of trying to address his bipolar disorder. This suddenly came as a surge, and his character is almost unrecognizable right now. Like Jo says, go get help. Oh yeah, Jackson Avery (Jesse Williams) and Vic break up, but do you really care about them enough to feel anything?
The Amelia-Link and Link-Jo scenes made this episode a fairly tolerable one.
'Grey's Anatomy' airs on ABC Thursdays at 9pm.