Monday, May 14, 2018

Grey’s Anatomy 14x23 Recap: “Cold As Ice” (One Big Scare) [Contributor: Julia Siegel]


“Cold As Ice”
Original Airdate: May 10, 2018

Hold onto your seats, folks! It’s one bumpy road to the bittersweet season finale. With two fan favorite doctors on their way out the door, fates are still up in the air. However, by the end of the season's penultimate episode, it seems pretty clear how we will be losing April and Arizona... unless the finale throws yet another massive curveball.

LIVING ON A PRAYER


A vast majority of the episode focuses on the fallout of a single vehicle crash, which we don’t see occur. Paramedic Matthew Taylor arrives at Grey Sloan Memorial via ambulance as a crash victim and is in pretty rough shape. Before losing consciousness for a second time, he asks Meredith where April is, leading to a wild goose chase to find out where she could be. Owen tells the paramedics to take him to the scene to look for April in case she was also involved in the accident. He finds her a few feet away from the car where she was cold, unresponsive, and had no pulse.

Owen brings April to the hospital, and almost every main attending is pulled in to help try to save her life. As Meredith says, she’s not dead until she is warm and dead — especially since we have seen Meredith survive drowning and being dead for several hours back in season three. Maggie feels that April’s best chance of survival is to put her on bypass while they try to warm her up in order to keep her blood circulating. Jackson finds out about the accident just as the group of doctors stops CPR to start bypass, which almost destroys Jackson. He thinks they are giving up on April and it takes several people to convince him that they don’t plan on giving up at all.

After three hours, April’s body is finally warm enough to attempt to get a heartbeat back. Maggie is the only one to see a small blip on the heart monitor and shocks April a number of times before they get a real rhythm. It is a very emotional moment for the group — and the audience — when April is deemed alive. However, April’s brain function isn’t in the best of shape, leaving everyone waiting on her fate. Jackson is so distraught over April’s condition that he actually prays for her survival, which is a wonderful acting moment from Jesse Williams.

While April is still unconscious, Arizona reveals that April has been seeing Matthew for several months and that they are in love again. This comes as no surprise to me, as I figured that April and Matthew might get back together after his wife passed away. Matthew’s surgery is successful, and he survives. With Jackson still praying over her, April squeezes his hand and opens her eyes. By the end of the episode, it appears that the couple is alive and well, so it looks like April won’t be killed off. The best — and most likely — case scenario is that April will head off with Matthew and leave her life at Grey Sloan behind.

AN OLD FRIEND


The other storyline of the episode brings the return of Geena Davis as Nicole Herman, the former fetal surgeon who taught Arizona how to do fetal surgery and was blinded when Amelia resected her brain tumor. Nicole returns after a few years' absence for an appointment with Amelia because she has been having headaches and fears her tumor might be back. Amelia and Arizona are both a bit unnerved about Nicole’s return, but the visit brings some fun realizations.

Amelia and DeLuca are on the case and find that Nicole has an excessive amount of spinal fluid, which can be fixed with a shunt. They are all happy that there isn’t another tumor — especially Amelia, who still feels responsible for blinding Nicole. When Amelia tells Nicole that she doesn’t want to perform the surgery to place the shunt, Nicole is insulted that Amelia doesn’t trust herself. Nicole reveals that she had seen Tom Koracick for an appointment and overheard a phone call about Amelia’s brain tumor. Even though Amelia cares that her tumor could have caused Nicole to go blind, Nicole doesn’t seem to care. The best moment is when Nicole says that she slept with Tom, because the reactions from Arizona and Amelia are hilarious.

Nicole’s visit turns into something more when Arizona tells her that she is going to be moving to New York and will be resuming a career in pediatric surgery. To say that Nicole is upset that Arizona is planning on giving up fetal surgery is an understatement, launching Nicole into a long speech about how proud she is that Arizona has become a great fetal surgeon. Nicole reveals that she has recently received a big grant and has been keeping up with Arizona’s career, including the carts that she came up with a few weeks back. She feels that her life should be dedicated to teaching others her knowledge on fetal surgery and gives Arizona an offer of a lifetime. Nicole wants to team up with Arizona to build the Robbins-Herman Center, where they will teach (and Arizona will continue to perform) fetal surgery to the nation’s best doctors. Arizona asks if they could build it in New York and accepts when Nicole says that she doesn’t see why they couldn’t.

This is the perfect out for Arizona, as she will get the best ending for her career and her family. Thankfully, it appears that both fan faves will get their happy endings after all.

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