Wednesday, April 5, 2023

Grey’s Anatomy 19x12 Recap: “Pick Yourself Up” (Part Two: One Wild Ride) [Contributor: Julia Siegel]


“Pick Yourself Up”
Original Airdate: March 30, 2023

After the horror of watching Addison and Tia get hit by a protestor in a speeding car at the end of last week’s episode, anything is game on Grey’s Anatomy. The conclusion of the two-episode arc is even more fraught than the first as the doctors frantically work to save their own. This two-parter has been an incredible ride and reminded me why we all fell in love with this show in the first place. 

EVERYTHING, EVERYWHERE, ALL AT ONCE

The episode starts at a fast pace where if you blink, you will miss exactly what is going on. Most of what follows is either shown in very quick succession or in long one shots without cuts. Ambulances arrive at the entrance of the clinic to assist with Addison and Tia’s injuries and to help get them over to the ER in the safest manner possible. Richard finds Amelia in the lobby and tells her about Addison. She immediately runs off with a look of shock and horror on her face. Owen, Schmitt, Lucas, Simone, and Jules await the ambulances in the ER, while Teddy manages the police at the scene of the crime. The police have also held back the protestors and set up a perimeter.

The first ambulance contains Tia, and Carina and Jo are riding with her. Bailey rides in Addison’s ambulance, which arrives right behind them. Teddy puts the hospital on lockdown and declares that only employees and incoming trauma patients will be allowed in. Addison tells the doctors that she was clipped and only her shoulder is hurt. She calls for Bailey and asks her to check on Tia. Schmitt has set up the OBGYN ward as overflow for clinic patients. Nurse Carlos finds Schmitt in the ER and wants to make sure he is safe as he was worried. Schmitt doesn’t have time to socialize, but he does appear slightly happy to have someone care about him.

Most of the doctors are now treating Tia, who has a lot of free fluid in her abdomen. Carina tells the group that she needs to check the baby before they can take her up to the OR. Tia knows how bad her injuries are and says that it is a bad day to be a doctor. She talks about naming her baby Connor and how she doesn’t want him delivered because his lungs still need more time to develop. The baby goes into distress, and Bailey shouts that they need to get her upstairs immediately. Tia starts to crash and has decreased breath sounds. They decide to intubate her and have to shock her a few times when her heart stops.

Amelia and Link examine Addison and find that her dislocated shoulder should be reset under sedation. Blue drops a tray on his way over, and Amelia rushes over to ask what happened to him when she sees the bandage on his head. After he recounts getting hit in the head with a brick, Amelia forces him to go get a scan to check for head injury. Addison shouts at Link to pop her shoulder back into place so she can go help Tia. Link pops it in with Simone supporting Addison’s back, and the OBGYN screams. Addison immediately gets out of her gurney and tells Simone to come with her to help Tia. 

Addison wants to prep Tia for a C-section because she believes the baby won’t survive otherwise. Owen and Bailey tell her that Tia has been down for two minutes, they have tried everything to bring her back, to no avail, and Tina is bleeding out through her abdomen. Addison says she won’t let the person behind the wheel take away two lives. Carina calls for an intern to page the NICU, and the group preps to do the procedure right there in the ER. Addison holds her arm, which isn’t even in a sling, and continues ordering everyone around. They stop compressions on Tia, and Carina starts the C-section. 

NOT TODAY

The pulse-pounding action doesn’t stop there or at any point during the hour. After seeing the C-section happening, Mika goes back to the main area of the ER with a fraught look on her face. Schmitt tells her to help other patients if she isn’t needed on Tia’s case. Tia is still bleeding profusely, and Lucas asks why they are going to pack her if she is gone. Owen tells him that they have to do everything to try to save her life before giving up. Baby Connor is born, and Bailey starts compressions on Tia again. Addison and Carina work to save Connor and intubate him, while the rest of the team is ready to get Tia to the OR.

Maya Bishop and Ben Warren from Station 19 have both run to Grey Sloan Memorial to check on Carina and Bailey, respectively, after not being able to get a hold of their spouses. A security guard won’t let them into the hospital since the building is on lockdown, but they get lucky when Teddy walks by at that exact moment and sees them. Teddy lets them in and tells them their spouses are okay. She also says that if anyone gives them any trouble, have them page her directly. Maya and Ben are grateful for the help and run upstairs to find Carina and Bailey.

Elsewhere, Amelia and Jules give Blue a CT scan. This episode is full of great quotes, but one of the best belongs to Jules, who says, “Remember when being a doctor was considered heroic?” She doesn’t understand who could be capable of violence against doctors. The scans reveal that Blue has no bleeding, fractures, or traumatic brain injuries, but Amelia feels he could still be concussed and that he should go home for the day. Blue protests that he can’t go home on his own and would rather stay. Amelia agrees as long as someone is supervising him, gives him regular neuro checks, and doesn’t allow him to work on patients and only do notes. Jules doesn’t want the responsibility, but Amelia forces Blue to become her charge.

Winston finds Maggie and wants to check in with her. She starts discussing patients, so he stops her to rephrase that he wants to check in on her. Maggie asks if everyone is okay, and Winston admits that Tia might not be. Maggie can’t process the horror and wants to focus on her patients to take her mind off things. Winston poignantly says that the world doesn’t make a whole lot of sense right now. He then changes to a happier tune to announce that he got the magazine that their article is published in and that he left a copy for Maggie in the lounge. He unfortunately didn’t get to read it yet, but it seems like he wants this to bring them back together. Maggie thanks him for checking in on her, and for a moment, it looks like they might actually be able to work things out.

Jules is paged to the ER, and Blue follows along. The interns find Schmitt with elderly patient Norma and her friend, Maxine, who has been asking Schmitt to page Jules. Norma needs a knee procedure and reveals that Maxine has a burning sensation when peeing. Jules scolds her for not saying something sooner and says it could be another UTI. Blue thinks that Max is Jules’ grandma, but Jules reveals that Max is actually her mystery roommate!

We then see Bailey video chatting with Tia’s husband, Brandon, while scrubbing in for surgery. He asks for the truth about his wife. Bailey tells him everything, and he is surprised to find out that Connor was born. Brandon says he will catch the first plane and asks Bailey to do whatever it takes to save them both. She gives him her word and hangs up to start operating on Tia with Owen. Ben and Maya walk into the gallery and wave to Bailey, who signals to Ben that she is okay, to his great relief.

In the NICU, Addison and Simone are helping baby Connor when he starts to crash. Addison starts compression even though she is clearly in a lot of pain. She tells Connor not to give up and that he is not allowed to stop fighting today. Connor stabilizes, which makes Simone more than relieved.

AN OUTSTRETCHED HAND

Jules does a neuro check on Blue in the ER and deems him fine after asking him a tough medical question. He wants to know why she would want to live with an elderly lady. Jules explains that Max is 81 years old and that she was friends with her grandson in med school. Max allows Jules to sublet a room for one-third the price of anywhere else. As a bonus, Max can’t hear what Jules is up to late at night after she takes out her hearing aids, so it’s a win-win for the intern. The interns go back over to Norma and Max when Link arrives to inspect the former’s knee. Link tells Norma that she doesn’t have a fracture, but there is fluid that needs to be drained. Blue wants to learn how to aspirate a knee, but Jules stops him and gets to learn from Link. Norma and Max joke about Link’s good looks, which is a quick reprieve in an otherwise fraught episode.

Maggie finds Teddy and asks if she can walk with her. While walking, Maggie asks Teddy how she is holding up. Teddy replies that she is good in a crisis, but no matter how many she has been in, it never gets easier. She complains about not eating in hours and how she might walk out if she hears the words “risk assessment” again, but she is feeling better other than that. Maggie gets to the point of the discussion by asking for advice. She reveals to Teddy that the article in the magazine quoted her saying that she had highly skilled assistants, including her husband, helping her with the partial heart transplant. Maggie knows it looks like she is taking all the credit and insists that’s not all she said. She claims that she told them Winston is a brilliant surgeon and sang his praises, but they cut all that out. Maggie wants to issue a correction and was wondering if Teddy could help with that. Teddy says she will try, but she insists Maggie shouldn’t wait for the hospital to issue a statement before she talks to Winston. Teddy explains that she and Owen didn’t talk for months and it almost killed them, so she urges Maggie not to make the same mistake.

Elsewhere, Ben and Maya stop by the hospital’s daycare to see Pru. Maya stays for a second before running off to find Carina. We then see Link and Amelia watching Addison and Simone in the NICU. Link asks Amelia how things are going in there, and Amelia says that Addison is being her typical stubborn self. He knows that Amelia means a lot to her, and she says Addison means everything to her. Amelia talks about how the universe gave her biological sisters that she never got along with and then eventually gave her Addison, Meredith, and Maggie. When Amelia gets paged away, Link says he will stay to help Addison and keep an eye on her. Link assures her that he’s got Addison, so Amelia goes.

In a hallway, Mika is having a panic attack, and Richard comes across her in a bad state. Mika doesn’t think she is okay, so Richard decides to tend to her. The scene cuts to the OR, where things are not going well for Tia. She needs a splenectomy and is still losing a lot of blood. Bailey recounts how Tia was the first applicant for the fellowship program, and Jo remembers how they thought Tia’s pregnancy would make it more challenging for her to come. Owen tries to give support by telling Bailey that no one could see this coming. Bailey says Tia came while pregnant to help other pregnant women, and the fellow codes on the table. They get Tia’s spleen out as Brandon tries calling Bailey, who can’t answer. Tia is bleeding everywhere, and Owen frantically tries to fix all the bleeders. Owen refuses to give up on Tia, but Jo doesn’t think Tia will make it out of the OR if they keep going. Bailey decides to take Tia to the ICU and give her a break before continuing at a later time.

PART OF BEING HUMAN

Maya runs around the hospital until she practically runs into Carina. Maya is happy that her wife is okay, but Carina has a patient that is 6cm dilated and needs to go deliver a baby. She thanks Maya for coming and runs into a room. 

Mika is now in a room panicking, and Richard brings her a cold towel to help ground her in the present and break the shock. He tells her to look around the room and name five objects she sees. Richard counts the items and Mika names them, but she stops at number three because she is mortified that she froze earlier. Mika says surgeons can’t freeze, and Richard calmly states that they aren’t in the OR. She says it could have been any of them getting attacked, and she says it could have been her. Richard tells her not to apologize for her reaction to a traumatic event and that what happened isn’t what the job is supposed to be.  He tells Mika to take whatever time and space she needs and that her reaction is what makes her human. Mika nods and starts to calm down, and Richard proves yet again that he is the best person ever. 

In the ER, Max and Norma’s labs are in. Jules asks Max to come with her, but the ladies say that whatever the doctors have to say can be said in front of both of them. The doctors announce that both women have gonorrhea, and it has settled in Norma’s knee as a form of arthritis. The doctors say the women will have to call all their sexual partners to alert them to get tested. When the women pull out their phones to call their partners, they not only find out each one was sleeping around, but they are sleeping with the same guy. Schmitt appropriately comments, “Well, this is awkward.”

Ben and Pru find Maya waiting outside the room Carina is in. Maya calls Carina “a miracle worker” and “barer of life” to Ben. He aptly talks about how this is what it must feel like to be married to first responders. Maya is confused, so Ben explains that they both ran there and had to know their spouses were okay and that’s what they do to their spouses on a daily basis. He wonders if their spouses knew what they were getting into when they each got married, so Maya reminds Ben that he was still a doctor when Bailey married him.

Back in the NICU, Addison is happy that Connor’s vitals are stable for now. Simone tells Addison that she was in this NICU when she was born and she is amazed that someone like Addison saved her life. Connor starts having trouble breathing again, and he has no breath sounds. Addison uses a pen light to look through his skin and at his lungs. She sees he has a pneumothorax and calls for a syringe. She relieves the pressure with one hand and gets him breathing again. Addison starts struggling more as the baby stabilizes.

Bailey and Jo are in the ICU with Tia when the former dismisses the latter. Bailey starts to let the emotion of the day hit her and calls Brandon. She has to leave him a message detailing how they transferred Tia to the ICU to rest for a few hours before going back to the OR to finish repairing her injuries. Like the good doctor she is, Bailey vows not to leave her patient’s side.

RISE TO KEEP GOING

The man that both Max and Norma were sleeping with, Hal, is now in the ER after the women call him. They start yelling at him for sleeping with both of them. Jules, Blue, and Schmitt try to calm them down and say that Hal’s test results should be back soon. They want to give him treatment because they think he might be the source of the disease. Hal needs to contact all his sexual partners too, and he reveals that he is sleeping with a 98-year-old and at least four additional women, including Max and Norma. Schmitt tells Blue to call the retirement home they all live in to report the outbreak.

Lucas pops into the NICU to give Addison and Simone an update on Tia. He also reports that Link is waiting for Addison to examine her shoulder again. Lucas was sent with a message that if Addison wants to operate again, she needs to come see Link now or Lucas will have to pay for it personally. Addison begrudgingly agrees to leave, so Lucas decides to stay to help with Connor. He tells Simone he overheard Tia say the baby’s name, and she is happy to know his name is Connor.

Mika walks around the ICU until she finds Bailey in Tia’s room. She apologizes for disappearing earlier and asks what she missed, to which Bailey gives her a look that says “everything.” Mika asks if she can sit with Tia so Bailey can take a break. Bailey notices at that moment that Tia is hypotensive and tachycardic, which means she must be bleeding from her abdomen again. Bailey calls to get an OR team up to the ICU immediately, as there is no time for them to get to the OR. Mika is bewildered that Bailey wants to open up Tia in the ICU, and Bailey snaps the intern out of it by saying she needs Mika’s hands and needs to move now.

After giving her an MRI, Link tells Addison that she needs to wear a sling for four weeks and do physical therapy no matter how exhausted she is. He also advises her to keep moving her hand and wrist around and that it wouldn’t be a terrible idea to take a break from the road for a few weeks. Amelia, who was in the corner of the room, sits next to Addison after Link leaves the room. Addison says that she is exhausted from the disaster that is her work and that she can’t take a break from it. She doesn’t know who would do it if she didn’t. Amelia quips that she thought Addison was going to throw a tablet at Link for suggesting she take a break. 

Jo runs into Tia’s ICU room to help with the impromptu surgery, where Bailey has found the fellow’s liver is bleeding. They need to perform a massive surgical procedure to save Tia. Bailey gives Jo and Mika various instructions to help and even goes as far to shove Mika’s hand into Tia’s abdomen to hold her liver. Bailey and Jo are able to sew off the bleed, allowing Tia to stabilize. Bailey tells Tia she isn’t allowed to die yet because too many people need her, and the message seems to get through.

Back in the ER, Jules tells Max to not have sex for a week in order to allow the antibiotics to work, as she doesn’t want a sick roomie. Schmitt and Jules both say they are sorry Hal turned out to be a jerk. Before leaving, Max tells them that women have always been judged for every decision they make. She has learned that women become invisible around the age of 60, which allows them to “do whatever the hell you like because no one cares.” Max has no regrets, except waiting so long to live her best life. 

Maggie finds Winston in what appears to be an attending lounge and tells him that the magazine cherry-picked her quotes and took them out of context. She vows to fix it and says Teddy has agreed to help. Maggie continues that she told the magazine she and Winston were equals and that he is an incredible surgeon. Winston is a bit more upset than I expected him to be and says to Maggie that she still said the quote, so she should take some responsibility for it. Maggie argues that she can’t control what other people say about her. She wants to know when they stopped giving each other the benefit of the doubt. Winston counters that it stopped when Maggie said she didn’t respect him when he first mentioned changing specialties. He feels that the article drives home that she doesn’t respect him. Maggie really wants to fix the unintentional damage and asks how she can fix their relationship. In a moment of brutal honesty, Winston says that there is no fix, just feelings. He continues, “Say you’re sorry. Say you got some things wrong. Say you didn’t mean to hurt me. Say you understand how I feel. Say you love me and mean it. Say you respect me and mean it.” Maggie says she respects him, but Winston doesn’t believe her.

Teddy finds Bailey in the ICU to let her know that the police caught the hit-and-run driver and that she has lifted the hospital lockdown. Teddy is fine with keeping the clinic closed for a few days too, but Bailey is fully prepared to open the clinic in the morning. Lucas brings Brandon up, so Bailey tells him Tia is stable for now. She doesn’t give him any guarantees, but she is hopeful Tia will wake up because she is strong and determined. Bailey lets Brandon go inside Tia’s room to sit with her. We get a time lapse to show Tia healing throughout the day, Brandon meeting Connor, and Tia going for her second surgery. We also see Carlos bring Schmitt a coffee the next morning, which is a nice moment.

Addison is ready to leave Seattle, so Richard, Bailey, and Ben see her off. She is sure Tia will wake up and Connor will make it out of the NICU. Richard thanks Addison for coming, and Bailey tells her to be safe out there. We see that the outside of the clinic is being repaired before the action goes back indoors. Bailey makes her way back to the ICU to see that Tia is off the vent with Simone and Jo watching her. Tia then wakes up and immediately freaks out. She asks if Connor is okay, so Brandon tells her their baby is doing well. 

Jo has to leave the room as she can’t stop herself from crying. She walks to the elevator, which opens to reveal Link inside. Jo gets in, and when the door closes behind her, Link tells her to not hold the emotion in anymore and that he is “right here” for her. Jo collapses on the floor of the elevator in tears. When it stops at the next floor, Link stops other staff from getting in to give Jo space. Back in Tia’s room, Simone tells the fellow that someone wanted to meet her and shows her a live video call of Connor in the NICU. The episode ends with Addison finding where she stored the PRT, climbing into the driver seat, and starting the engine. As Meredith’s voiceover says, Addison finds a way to rise to keep going and drives away to conclude the most powerful two-parter in years. 

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