Will Cormac Come Between Meredith & DeLuca on ‘Grey’s Anatomy’?

Meredith Jacobs January 23, 2020, 10:15 pm

Untitled design (6) — ABC/Kelsey McNeal (2)

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Season 16, Episode 10 of Grey’s Anatomy, “Help Me Through the Night.”]

Sure, it looked like some of the Grey’s Anatomy interns might not make it during the Station 19 crossover, but everyone survived and now it’s time to look ahead — and that may be just what Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) is doing when it comes to her love life.

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Things have certainly been rocky with DeLuca (Giacomo Gianniotti) ever since Meredith went before the board about her medical license. After she doubted their relationship would last if she lost her license and had to watch him be able to operate while she couldn’t, he questioned if she respected him, if she’d ever see her as his equal. He asked her to take some time, but as both Link (Chris Carmack) and Nico (Alex Landi) warned him, that could backfire.

They’re right. After all, she thinks he dumped her. And by the end of the winter premiere, he admits to Maggie (Kelly McCreary), “I blew it. I made a big mistake with Meredith. I asked her to take time. I meant some of what I said. I wanted her to see me. I wanted to know she respected me, but I think asking her to take time might have had the opposite effect.”

(ABC/Christopher Willard)

Is there hope for the two of them? Or might Meredith move on to someone new? Cristina (Sandra Oh) even has someone in mind for her — and sent him to Meredith as a gift: “McWidow,” as Yang has nicknamed him.

Cormac Hayes (Richard Flood) first appeared in the fall finale as the new chief of pediatrics at Grey Sloan, and he and Meredith clashed about a patient. She didn’t want to tell the patient or her mother the worst-case scenario, while he went behind her back and did just that. However, by the end of the episode, she’d seen a different side of him. First, she learned that he’s the father of two teenagers, and he used that experience to assure their patient that boys at that age are idiots and scared to talk to girls they like.

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Then, in the elevator (a.k.a. home to many key moments in hospital relationships), Cormac revealed that he likes to tell people all the information and let them figure out how to deal with it. His wife’s doctors didn’t pay him that respect before she died. (Meredith certainly knows what it’s like to have doctors fail when it comes to a spouse’s life.) It was after that conversation that Cristina’s text clued Meredith into the fact that he was her gift.

Or, as Meredith puts it to Jo (Camilla Luddington) in the winter premiere, “Cristina sent an obnoxious Irishman as a gift, and he stole your husband’s old job.” And after Jo meets him, while both are caring for a safe haven baby, she seems to get why Cristina sent him.

(ABC/Kelsey McNeal)

Flood came onto Grey’s Anatomy in a recurring role for the season, but it doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere. After all, the previous head of Pediatric Surgery, Alex Karev (Justin Chambers), isn’t going to be looking to get his job back. After Bailey (Chandra Wilson) fired him, he ended up at Pac North — and it was announced on January 10 that Chambers has left the series.

At the very least, Grey’s Anatomy seems to be setting up a new love triangle for Meredith with the introduction of Cormac and her future with DeLuca uncertain. How it plays out remains yet to be seen, but DeLuca’s probably going to want to figure out how to make up for the hurt he’s caused Meredith sooner rather than later — especially since Cormac seems to have Cristina’s stamp of approval.