Grey’s Anatomy: 6 best moments from Season 15, Episode 14
By Mads Lennon
A sudden influx of drug overdoses floods the ER on this week’s Grey’s Anatomy. Betty is one the new patients and the doctors must act fast to save her life.
Don’t do drugs kids. Seriously, just don’t. That’s pretty much the message of this latest episode of Grey’s Anatomy that involves a serious epidemic of drug overdoses when a new kind of opioid hits the market and sends all the neighborhood addicts into the ER on stretchers, Betty included.
In an episode marked by Betty’s nerve-wracking surgery, I’ve compiled a list of the six best moments.
1. Meredith breaks the record for longest surgery.
Channeling her inner Wonder Woman, Meredith pulls off defeating the former record-holder for longest amount of time performing an extremely complicated surgery. Amidst tired eyes, aching legs and feet, Meredith holds out even as one nurse passes out flat and several interns tap out.
Is there anything she can’t do? While her storyline doesn’t offer much in way of conflict, it is a nice showcase for how far she has come since the show began. She really is a master of her craft like Ellis was.
Admittedly, as a fan of Meredith and Andrew, it was nice to see him giving her the assist during the duration of the surgery. He continuously supports and encourages her the entire way through. The admiration he has for Meredith is impossible to hide.
2. Teddy saves Brittany/Betty.
Grey-Sloan gets swamped with a sudden rush of overdoses. Amongst them is Betty and her boyfriend. Betty gets rushed to the OR due to heart issues, a textbook side effect of prolonged meth usage. Maggie offers to handle the surgery but Teddy insists. If Betty doesn’t open her eyes again, Amelia is going to need her sister to get her through it.
While I’ve never been a fan of the Betty storyline, I was still happy to see her survive, even if just for Amelia’s benefit. Plus I liked seeing her and Teddy hug by episode’s end. It shows maturity in the endless love triangle of them and Owen + Koracick (so love quadrangle I guess?)
That said, even though Betty gets another shot at getting clean, her boyfriend wasn’t so lucky. Link leaves him alone in his room for a moment and then he and Amelia notice blood seeping out from under the door. By the time they get to him he has overdosed, an injection sticks out of his arm.
Betty’s parents make the decision not to tell Betty about his death but Amelia tells them her own story of waking up beside her dead fiancé. The impact of his loss made her finally decide to get clean. They can’t hide Betty from the truth, it will only make things worse in the long run.
3. Jackson gives a homeless man hope.
In the flurry of all the overdoses cases being rushed into the hospital, a kindly homeless man named Ralph almost gets overlooked. He shows up carrying a lost child, the son of one of the addicts in the waiting room, and Alex notices bleeding through his shoes.
Once in a room, Qadri attends to his feet which are covered in infection, lesions, and dead skin. While she attends to the odious task of scraping them clean, Jackson is called in to see if there is anything he can do for Ralph from a plastics angle.
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The problem is, even if Jackson prescribes medication and bandages him up, Ralph’s feet aren’t going to get better while he’s living on a park bench. Desperately, Jackson tries to a find a shelter nearby that can take him in but the best he gets is wait-listed. It’s only when Jackson is talking to Maggie about their impending camping trip and appreciating the simple life (and lack of material things), that he realizes who could use all of their camping gear more than them.
Maggie has to cancel the trip anyways to stay by Amelia’s side so Jackson offers Ralph all the equipment, which includes raincoats, new shoes, thick wool socks, long-johns, and even a tent and sleeping bags. It’s not much but at least now he’ll be more comfortable until he can get off the waiting list. It was a genuine act of kindness from Jackson, I wonder if we might see Ralph again in the future.
The season of love continues.
- 4. Jo & Alex: Post-wedding bliss Jo and Alex have somewhat taken a backseat to the main storylines this season but they did get to share a few nice scenes this week where they have to track down a missing child with a drug addict for a mother. We get a reminder of the trauma Alex suffered as a kid from his own father. Jo brings him hot chocolate as a comfort and Alex tells her, with complete sincerity, “I love you.” It’s nice to see a moment like that shared between couples, even if they’re already married.
- 5. Bailey & Ben: And speaking of married couples, Ben and Bailey are reconnecting since their reconciliation. Ben tries to remind Bailey to occasionally stop and appreciate the beauty of life because being a doctor can make you feel hopeless.
- 6. Levi & Nico: Levi and Nico continue their romance this week with Levi in clear awe of both Nico’s “Greek God” statuesque and with his skills in the OR. As of yet, Levi has been appreciating Nico’s insanely good looks and basking the glow of new love, but he actually gets to see Nico’s impressive technique in action when he works on a woman who broke both her arms in a fall.
Odds & Ends
- “That’s addiction. The thing that’s killing you keeps whispering in your ear that you need it to survive.”
- Link is a surprising source of comfort to Amelia while she struggles with the possibility of losing Betty. Admittedly, I thought this pairing didn’t gel as nicely as the writers might have hoped. I found their interactions more awkward than anything.
- I loved the running joke of Jackson correcting Qadri’s face whenever she showed her disgust.
- So did Owen decide not to fight for custody of Leo? When we left off last week it appeared the next chapter would be legal troubles for him and Betty’s parents. This week Grey’s Anatomy doesn’t bring it up at all and instead we cut to Owen preparing to hand Leo over without issue.
A new episode of Grey’s Anatomy titled “We Didn’t Start the Fire” premieres February 28th on ABC.