‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Season 18 Episode 11: Judgment Day for the Parkinson’s Trial (RECAP)
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It’s do-or-die time in Grey’s Anatomy Season 18, Episode 11—March 10’s “Legacy”—as Meredith (Ellen Pompeo), Amelia (Caterina Scorsone), and Kai (E.R. Fightmaster) scrub in to perform their experimental cell therapy on their guinea-pig Parkinson’s patient, David (Peter Gallagher), the bankroller of the whole research project.
[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Grey’s Anatomy Season 18, Episode 11, “Legacy.”]
But that team has helping hands in the OR: Koracick (Greg Germann) has flown to Seattle to scrub in on the operation. And after Koracick notices that the residents at the hospital have been feeling sidelined ever since Levi’s big screw-up, he inspires Meredith to convince David to open the gallery for the operation so that the rest of the Grey Sloan staff can observe. It is, after all, a teaching hospital, as Mer tells David.
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The operation goes well, despite a hitch that almost takes Amelia out of the OR: Owen (Kevin McKidd), still recovering from his car crash, develops a cerebrospinal fluid leak during his physical therapy with Link (Chris Carmack). (Link got Owen to work with him after Owen, grumpy about his lack of progress, burned through the hospital’s other physical therapists.)
After she’s paged about Owen, Amelia almost scrubs out of David’s surgery. Owen is her patient, after all, and he’s her ex-husband. But after Meredith tells Amelia that they’d lose their FDA funding if Amelia leaves the OR, Amelia gets Koracick to help Owen on her behalf. Owen is less than thrilled to have Koracick on his medical case, of course, but he’s in too much pain to uphold his grudge against the guy.
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After David’s surgery, Kai commends Amelia for caring about Owen so deeply. “You are someone who loves her people so hard and so much that the second they’re in trouble, everything else just falls away,” they tell Amelia.
And Meredith celebrates the successful surgery by flying to Minnesota to surprise Nick (Scott Speedman) at home.
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Nick, by the way, spends the episode on a liver transplant case. He’s excited to give his end-stage liver disease patient, Arthur, a new organ. But he also honors the donor: a teenager named James who died in a car crash. In fact, he even sits down with James’s family and has them tell him about the teen. And when he leaves the OR after a successful transplant, he quietly gives thanks to James.
Meanwhile, Richard (James Pickens Jr.) spends the episode with Levi (Jake Borelli), who’s still playing video games in his mom’s basement, still devastated about being the surgeon responsible for the death of his patient, Devon. “Every time I close my eyes, I see blood pouring out of Devon’s body while hearing his voice in my head,” Levi tells Richard.
Richard tries relating the story of his own Devon, a friend of his who was relieved when he found out that Richard would be his surgeon… and who died on the table. But Levi sees through Richard’s parable, and he isn’t moved.
So instead, Levi is playing video games ad infinitum, explaining that each time his character dies, he learns something, and he gets a do-over. Richard makes one last attempt to lure Levi back to the hospital, but Levi rebuffs him. “You’re too late,” he tells Richard. “I’ve already bled out.”
Jo (Camilla Luddington) and Teddy (Kim Raver) are off the clock, and they spend the episode day-drinking at Joe’s Bar. (Jo is also back to being a brunette, telling Link her platinum-blond dye job was “obviously a mistake” as she drops off Luna for day care, making a not-so-subtle reference to her and Link’s hook-up.) At the bar, Jo and Teddy compare notes about being exhausted with parenting. They agree that they love their kids… and that they’re also allowed to get tired of their kids from time to time.
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But Teddy also opens up about what else is on her mind. She knows now about Owen giving life-ending drugs to the burn-pit victims. She hints at Owen’s scheme as she talks to Jo, saying, “It’s not like he killed people, but let’s just pretend it’s that bad.”
Teddy later visits Owen in the hospital, telling him that she remembers how he forgave her when she made bad decisions while triggered in a mental-health crisis—i.e. her affair with Koracick. But she’s not sure whether she can forgive Owen for what he did.
Owen, however, tells her that he’s not triggered and he’s not having a mental health crisis. He stands by what he did, but he’s also glad she’s willing to talk.
Meanwhile, when Jo heads back to her place after her day-drinking sesh with Teddy, she finds Link naked in her bathroom! (He was using her shower because she has the better water pressure, he says.) And unable to resist his glistening washboard abs, Jo goes in for a kiss, and they make out until Jo breaks it off… and asks Link to move out. The romantic whiplash on this show!
And that’s not even the only surprise kiss of the episode. Bailey (Chandra Wilson) gets a call from a med school friend who now works for the NASA Aerospace Medicine Fellowship, and that friend wants her to run their clinical training program. So yeah, she’s being offered the chance to be a doctor in space. Jordan (Greg Tarzan Davis) congratulates her on breaking the stratosphere, and Bailey breathlessly responds, “I did do that, didn’t I?”
Later, Bailey and Jordan trade sci-fi references as they watch David’s operation from the gallery, and he continues to encourage her to take the NASA job.
But after the operation, when Jordan catches up with her in the hospital’s ambulance bay, she tells him that she turned the job offer down. “I’m not in a place to be making decisions based on dreams,” she explains.
But she also tells Jordan she’s grateful for him, adding that he’s the only bright spot around the hospital. And Jordan takes that compliment as a cue to kiss her! He pulls back almost immediately, though, and apologizes. And he flees the scene, leaving Bailey flabbergasted.
Hey, when have professional boundaries ever stopped anyone at Grey Sloan, right?
Grey’s Anatomy, Thursdays, 9/8c, ABC
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