Written by Aria Clarke
An explosion. Meredith (Ellen Pompeo, Old School) looking up at Grey-Sloan Memorial in shock and horror. A title card. A cliff to hang from. Sound familiar? It should, because it’s happened TWICE now on Grey’s Anatomy. It was the end of Season 13 and the end of Season 21.
How can a show with seemingly endless medical miracles and spontaneous deaths run out of jaw-dropping disasters? Well, it seems that disasters aren’t the only thing the Grey’s Anatomy writers are out of. Plotlines from earlier seasons are also being repeated. Adams risks repeating his intern year (like George in Season 3), Millin (Adelaide Kane, Teen Wolf) is in love with an attending (like Christina and Burke), and Griffith slept with one of the interns right before he started work at Grey-Sloan (just like Derick and Meredith in the pilot episode.)
The largest cause for concern in the Season 22 premiere is the fate of Link (Thomas Barbusca, The Mick), who was in the OR where the explosion occurred. He was seriously injured, though surprisingly, did not die in the initial explosion. Link just got married to his fiance, Jo (Camilla Luddington, Californication), and they are currently expecting twins, adding to the dramatic stakes of this episode.
When doctors Bailey (Chandra Wilson, Station 19), Ndugu (Anthony Hill, Scream: The Series), and Hunt (Kevin McKidd, Kingdom of Heaven) are forced to carry him down the stairs because the elevators have been turned off (reminiscent of the much better written shooting incident in season 6) they are faced with the reality that Link will likely not survive the trip they were planning to take to Seattle Presbyterian, the hospital that Grey-Sloan inevitably transfers or re-routes their patients to when something goes horribly wrong. Dr. Bailey allows Link to call Jo, and he attempts to say his goodbyes and last wishes to her, who tells him not to talk that way, which was incredibly frustrating.
Fictional characters never let someone say their final words without resistance. It’s always “no, you’re gonna be fine, don’t talk like that.” But, he’s the one that’s in mortal danger. She should have just let him say what he needed to say. However, Link’s rushed declarations of love weren’t necessary, because he was not the casualty of this episode. Dr. Beltran, who guides Dr. Millin through a surgery on a six year old while trapped under a heavy piece of debris, succumbs to her pelvic injury just after Millin finishes operating.
Grey’s showrunner Meg Marinis said she didn’t want to kill any of the characters in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. However, she said the impact of the disaster was minimized if everyone survived, so someone had to die.
It might not have been as big of an emotional impact as they expected, though, because Beltran (Natalie Morales, Parks & Rec) had only been there for two seasons, and didn’t do much to shape or shake the fabric of the Grey’s storyline. Her biggest storyline was the almost relationship she had with Amelia (Caterina Scorsone, Private Practice).
Speaking of Amelia the Martyr, she’s having a classic Shepard meltdown because she thinks it’s her fault the explosion happened. Leave it to her to make another terrible disaster all about her and her feelings.
The episode is also filled with boring B-plots, like Griffith (Alexis Floyd, The Bold Type) trying and failing to avoid the intern she slept with during the break she and Adams (Niko Terho, The Thing About Harry) took. She tries to make him keep quiet about it for the entire episode, but in the end she breaks it off with Adams (again) and tells him the truth.
Nora, whose character was seemingly only introduced to cause relationship problems between Owen and Teddy (Kim Raver, Designated Survivor), is in mortal danger (again) when she needs to be transported out of the ICU. Adams and Kwan (Harry Shum Jr., Crazy Rich Asians) have to do some uninteresting medical things in the hallway until she’s stable, and it takes the entire episode to get her out of the hospital.
The most interesting sub-plot in this episode was the introduction of one of the new interns, who was injured in the explosion. She doesn’t do anything particularly interesting, but she has a memorable storyline, which is integral in a show that’s a revolving door of characters.
The Grey’s Anatomy Season 22 Premiere was a good enough set up for a season’s worth of drama and “will they won’t they” dynamics. But if they’re recycling plotlines, it might be time to pack it up. 22 seasons is an impressive run.
