“Grey's Anatomy” recap: There's a new Bailey in town

Catherine and Meredith reach an agreement

Remember the Season 20 finale when Catherine (Debbie Allen) threatened to fire half the hospital for insubordination? My Spidey senses told me she was bold enough to go through with it, and sure enough, that’s exactly what she did. It’s been two decades, for crying out loud. Losing half the roster is nothing to Grey’s Anatomy. We’ve all learned to hold things loosely when it comes to this show.

Luckily, there are all sorts of distractions to keep the fired people busy. Even though she literally dreams of slapping Catherine across the face for calling her “just another doctor,” Bailey (Chandra Wilson) has the clinic to run with the sweetest volunteer you ever did see. No one told me that Ben (Jason George) left Station 19! And in a fit of solidarity, Bailey’s husband refuses to apply for a job at any Fox hospital. And Grey Sloan is number one on the blackball list.

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Unfortunately for Bailey and Ben, they share a parking lot with the hospital, so when a young boy screeches his car to a halt in front of the ER doors, medical people fly out of both institutions to gawk at the bungee jumper who has fallen head-first into the windshield of a car. Bailey about faces back into her clinic. Ben runs to help Richard (James Pickens Jr.), Winston (Anthony Hill), and Adams (Niko Terho).

That’s right. Catherine decides to keep the interns, including Adams, who was in deep trouble during last season’s finale. He is now weighing his current job in Seattle with the opportunity Maggie (Kelly McCreary) gave him to work with her in Chicago. He has to make a decision by the end of the day. But first, he must locate a missing digit.

Bungee jumper Charlie may have lost a finger, but he does manage to survive the fall, as well as the shattered glass in his head and chest. Since he pretty much has fractures everywhere, Winston enlists Link (Chris Carmack) and Schmidt (Jake Borelli) to help in the OR. Then he orders Richard to join them.

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Richard balks. He’s ready to lay down the scalpel and just shake hands as Catherine’s wife. Winston isn’t having it and demands help since Teddy (Kim Raver) and Owen (Kevin McKidd) are no longer with Grey Sloan. Richard relents, begrudgingly scrubs in, and ends up saving Charlie’s life when things turn grim during surgery.

While Charlie’s life is saved and his finger is located, Kwan (Harry Shum Jr.) handles the young man who took his father’s car without permission or a driver’s license and now is reeling out of control, worrying about Charlie. Kwan assures him it was his fault, and even though the scenario sucks, he has to move forward. Accidents happen. How will he choose to respond?

I’m happy to report that Charlie lives, and even though we don’t technically have a sliver of emotional connection to the kid who was driving the car, in true Grey’s Anatomy format, the moral of the story points directly to Kwan.

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As you may recall, we met his former fiancé Molly in the season 20 finale. Kwan shares with Adams that Molly was the one who pulled him from the pit of despair when his mother was sick. One day, they got into a fight, she drove away, was hit by a reckless driver, and never remembered him again. He was a stranger.

What Kwan didn’t realize until later that night, is that Molly has been slowly piecing her life together bit by bit and totally recognized Kwan from an old Instagram photo. She’s waiting for him outside. Could this be love? Will she have any desire to start over (or again) with Kwan? And what about Millin (Adelaide Kane)? Will their on-again, off-again romance fizzle out?

The answer to that last one is a resounding question mark, considering the fact that Millin slams Yasuda (Midori Francis) into the lockers and makes out with her like a teenager under the bleachers at homecoming. Is it just me, or did this feel a bit out of the blue?

Or maybe that’s just the effects of Grey Sloan’s new resident director Sydney Heron (Kali Rocha), who preaches a healing with LOVE philosophy. Her giggles are like fingernails down a chalkboard, and her inability to scream at the interns is unsettling.

Yasuda, Millin, and Griffith (Alexis Floyd) assess an environmental protester named Wanda, who has a tendency to find herself behind bars. She gives these three intelligent women the slip when she crawls through the ceiling tiles in the bathroom to outwit the police waiting for her in her room. Heads would have rolled during Bailey’s reign. Sydney squeezes them tight, sprinkles some pixie dust on the situation, and calls security.

Wanda loses her balance and falls down into the wall of the hospital, right in the medical supply room, where Bailey is happily stealing gauze for her clinic. Griffith rambles in with a broom in hand, arguing first that Bailey didn’t fight for her job, then helping the woman break down the wall with an oxygen tank to save Wanda from something to do with blood thinners and her neck.

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Bailey and her interns jump into action. Sydney shows up, douses Bailey with a dose of sugary adoration, then immediately dismisses her with a polite nod. Bailey isn’t having it. She may have lost this surgery, but she’s about to burn the place down to get her job back. And one for Ben, too.

Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) isn’t feeling as confident, but she’s never going to let the world know it. When Jackson Avery (Jesse Williams) – hello blue eyes – reminds Meredith that she has been ignoring his mother’s injunctions and his texts and phone calls, he suggests she go and apologize to Catherine. It’s unclear if Meredith was going to do just that or pick a fight, because when she walzes into Catherine’s office, the woman falls to the ground unconscious.

No one knows that Catherine is battling new issues with her cancer, and once she wakes up hooked up to machines in the hospital bed, she forbids Meredith to tell Jackson or Richard. Meredith is livid and Catherine is candid. She’s not ready to sit on the sidelines just yet, but she knows the end is coming.

Meredith questions what more could Catherine want in her career? She’s extraordinary. Catherine dittos her right back. She tells Meredith to keep her mouth shut, or no one will get their job back. Blackmail, party of one!

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Meredith tells Amelia (Caterina Scorsone) that her job is safe and she should go back to Seattle. Then she tells Jackson that she will continue her research, just “not here.” Which makes sense, due to the fact that Meredith is a once per month character at best. She needs to be with her kiddos and Scott Speedman.

Speaking of kiddos, Jo (Camilla Luddington) finally tells Link that she’s pregnant! Well, sort of. He notices that she’s not eating French fries or drinking wine and figures it out himself. And in other romantic news, Adams decides to stay in Seattle and celebrates with a sizzling make out sesh with Griffin. Once Bailey gets back to Grey Sloan, all will be right with the world!

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