‘Station 19’ & ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Crossover: In a Shocker, Grey Sloan Loses Another Doc (RECAP)
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[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Grey’s Anatomy Season 17, Episode 7, “Helplessly Hoping”]
The Grim Reaper darkens the door of Grey Sloan Memorial once again in the Grey’s Anatomy March 11 midseason premiere and, believe it or not, the death has nothing to do with COVID-19.
In the Station 19 hour of this midseason crossover event, the firefighters react with shock and rage after cops ignored a trafficking ring targeting Black kids and then arrested firefighters Dean (Okieriete Onaodowan), Robert (Boris Kodjoe) and even one of the victims’ mothers.
And, separately, Grey’s Andrew (Giacomo Gianniotti) and Carina (Stefania Spampinato), determined to catch the bad guys — we left off in the midseason finale pursuing Opal from the hospital parking lot — track trafficker Opal to a train station, where Opal is arrested… and where Andrew is stabbed by one of her accomplices. Carina finds Andrew bleeding out, and she calls for help, screaming for him to stay alive.
And as Grey’s Anatomy starts, Andrew is transported to Grey Sloan in a tachycardic and hypotensive state, and Owen (Kevin McKidd) and Schmitt (Jake Borelli) are shocked to discover their 35-year-old abdominal stab wound patient is one of their own.
Meanwhile, Winston (Anthony Hill) and Maggie (Kelly McCreary) stay in a hotel and order room service, but because her phone is dead, she’s missing Amelia’s (Caterina Scorsone) many calls about Meredith’s (Ellen Pompeo) worsening COVID-19 condition. (Worse, Zola, Mer’s daughter, played by Aniela Gumbs, overhears Amelia talking about how Mer may die.)
Back at the hospital, Helm (Jaicy Elliot) tells Richard (James Pickens Jr.) about Andrew, and unconscious Mer must overhear their conversation, because all of a sudden, he’s with her on her dream beach. He wonders if he’s dead, but he also says he doesn’t regret his heroism: He took action in an era when so many people don’t.
In real life, Schmitt, who’s supposed to operate on Andrew, recognizes a photo of Opal on Ben’s (Jason George) phone, and starts thinking all of this is his fault. He pages Nico (Alex Landi) because he needs a pep talk, but Nico tells him (with love) to sub out on Andrew’s surgery in favor of a surgeon who’s not a wreck. So, Schmitt gets intern Khan (Nikhil Shukla) to take his place.
Elsewhere in the hospital, Teddy (Kim Raver) goes to see Koracick (Greg Germann) in the hospital room where he’s getting treated for COVID-19, and he tells her about he and Meredith discussing their viruses, which he dubs an “On COVID Pond”-like moment. But Teddy is in no mood for jokes. She’s just there because she wants to be with someone who doesn’t hate her. But then it’s Koracick’s turn to get serious: He wants her to admit that she never really loved him. He already knows her answer, of course, because of “empirical evidence”: If Owen has hated her ever since she cheated on him with Koracick last season, and if she hasn’t returned to Koracick in the time since then, then Teddy must not love Koracick. Teddy admits this is true.
Ron Batzdorff/ABC
Then we get back to Andrew’s life 0r death situation. Owen, who’s also going to be in the operating room, wants to do an ex-lap and a sternotomy on Andrew, and Richard wants to help. “DeLuca saved my life, and it’s only right that I do the same,” he says. But Owen only wants Teddy’s help, arguing that she’s used to working under intense stress and fatigue.
She does — and they save Andrew’s life. Teddy thanks Owen for bringing her on board, and Owen — still feeling spurned by her affair— tells her not to read anything into it. It’s just business.
Of course, the hospital is busy with other patients, as well. Jo’s (Camilla Luddington) patient, Val (Mackenzie Marsh), is still septic two days after her liver resection, but she just wants to see her newborn, Luna. Luna has a bronchogenic cyst and needs emergency surgery, but Jo gets Cormac (Richard Flood) to agree to give Val five minutes with Luna (but only by getting Cormac to imagine Val was Meredith asking for time with her kids).
Jackson (Jesse Williams) eventually finds Maggie at the hotel, and she and Winston go with him back to Mer’s house, where Maggie and Amelia tells Zola about Meredith being on a ventilator. Heartbreakingly, Zola remembers that her dad never came off of one.
Back at Grey Sloan, Owen jokes around with the recuperating Andrew. But then Andrew goes “code blue” with a cardiac tamponade around the same time Val crashes. Owen and Teddy rush Andrew back into the O.R., while Jo tries to resuscitate Val.
Val dies in her hospital bed and, shortly thereafter, Andrew succumbs, too. On the beach with Meredith, he tries in vain to save his sandcastle from a rising tide. (“I had plans,” he rues.) But he thanks Meredith for being an inspiration to him and making him a better man. And then he hears his late mother calling from farther down on the beach.
“I’ll miss you,” Meredith tells him. “If you I go back and you don’t, I’ll miss you.”
His response: “It’ll be OK, Meredith. … I have to go.”
And with that, he runs to the loving arms of his mother as, back in reality, Richard breaks the news to Bailey (Chandra Wilson) — who slept the whole day at Mer’s bedside. As Khan calls time of death on Andrew, Owen and Teddy can only look on in shock.
Grey’s Anatomy, Thursdays, 9/8c, ABC
