‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Season 18 Episode 12: Three Stories for Three Sisters (RECAP)
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For the first time as long as we can remember, Grey’s Anatomy completely skipped the medicine in tonight’s episode. Instead, Season 18, Episode 12—March 17’s “The Makings of You”—focused on personal stories for Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) and sisters Maggie (Kelly McCreary) and Amelia (Caterina Scorsone).
[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Grey’s Anatomy Season 18, Episode 12, “The Makings of You.”]
Meredith, for starters, spends the episode in Nick’s (Scott Speedman) cabin, deep in the Minnesota woods, for what she assumes will be a romantic weekend with her main squeeze. But as soon as they start getting hot and heavy, his niece Charlotte barges in on them, along with her soul mate, who’s currently going by the name Silver because it’s “bright but overlooked.”
Nick probably could have gotten over the intrusion if Charlotte didn’t also come with disconcerting news. She’s leaving college to live in an eco-lodge in Costa Rica with Silver. Nick goes outside to chop wood, which we all know is a macho-man technique for avoiding big feelings.
Lilane Lathan/ABC
Mer goes to speak with Nick as he exorcises his emotions with his trusty ax, and he tells her that he’s duty-bound to make sure Charlotte gets a good education, and he knows that her informal study-abroad plan is a mistake. Mer tries to convince him that she used to be Charlotte. After all, she partied her way through Europe in her college years, and she turned out fine. But Nick isn’t reassured, and he rudely gives Mer the brush-off.
That night, Nick and Charlotte have a heart-to-heart. He tells her he doesn’t want her to struggle. She tells him that he has to let her lead her own life—and that it’s not like she’s been a problem child yet thus far. “You have to let me mess up, change my mind a few times,” she says. And finally, Nick relents.
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And later, Charlotte and Silver head out to go gape at the full moon, giving Mer and Nick a chance to debrief. Nick admits that he’s not used to heeding someone else’s opinion, and Mer acknowledges that she probably wouldn’t accept parenting advice from him either, so they agree to “get used” to each other’s input.
And while they’re sharing feelings, Nick says he’s not sure he wants to continue working as a transplant surgeon. And Mer says she’s not sure that she can just go back to being chief of general surgery at Grey Sloan after her Parkinson’s research project.
Oh, and Nick also says he’s falling in love, which is a peculiar feeling for him, because he’s not used to not being in control.
Lilane Lathan/ABC
As for Amelia, she and Kai (E.R. Fightmaster) wrap up their report on David’s surgery, and Kai invites Amelia to their band’s show later that night. Kai turns out to be a good singer and guitar player, and apparently, rock ballads are an aphrodisiac for Amelia, because she and Kai have sex later that night.
In the afterglow of that hook-up, Amelia marvels at Kai’s musical talent, and Kai points out Amelia’s surgical prowess. “Why do you pretend like you’re not a rock star yourself?” they ask Amelia.
Amelia admits that she does so because loving all of herself would mean demanding a love that does the same. But it seems to us like Kai could be that person.
Lilane Lathan/ABC
The only potential issue is that Amelia, by her own admission, misses her son with every cell of her being when she’s in Minnesota. And Kai has no interest in parenthood, unless it’s parenting plant babies. Amelia leaves for home the next morning, telling Kai she hopes that her devotion to Scout isn’t a problem for the two of them.
Maggie, though, has the most dramatic storyline of the episode, even though (or perhaps because) she’s sick with the flu this week. While Maggie and Winston (Anthony Hill) play with Mer’s kids at Chez Grey, Zola finds a box of Ellis Grey’s stuff, including a letter that Ellis wrote to Maggie.
Maggie steals away to her bedroom to have a private moment with the letter, but as soon as she starts reading, she imagines Ellis beside her. (We give our thanks to Maggie’s flu-delusions for another Kate Burton appearance!)
Ellis says, in the letter and in Maggie’s hallucination, that her own mother was a doormat to her philandering husband, and now Ellis feels like a doormat to Richard, who’s not leaving his wife for her.
Listening to her bio-mom read the letter, Maggie assumes Ellis was embarrassed of her, since Maggie represented the impossibility of Ellis and Richard’s relationship. Plus, Dream Ellis isn’t even acknowledging Maggie half the time, perhaps out of embarrassment, perhaps because of her Alzheimer’s. Either way, Ellis’s coldness is hard for Maggie to bear.
Lilane Lathan/ABC
In the letter, Ellis also reveals that she was the one who chose Diane and Bill, Maggie’s adoptive parents. But she also says that she declined Diane and Bill’s offer for Ellis to remain part of Maggie’s life.
Maggie is upset with Ellis for abandoning her, but Ellis says she wished that the two of them and Meredith and Richard could have been one big happy family. But that was a “childish fantasy,” she adds. She knew Maggie would be better off with Bill and Diane. And Maggie agrees.
And just then, Maggie wakes up and finds Diane, her other late mother, at her bedside, comforting her. (And we give our thanks to Maggie’s flu-delusions for another LaTanya Richardson Jackson appearance!)
Maggie has rejoined reality, however, by the time Mer and Amelia get back home to Seattle. And she’s not whether she’s glad she read the letter. What she does know, however, is that she no longer feels an Ellis-sized hole in her life.
And if you saw the lit candles and the decorative metal bowl on the coffee table, you might have guessed what happens next: Maggie burns Ellis’s letter. With her sisters by her side, she has the family she needs.
Grey’s Anatomy, Thursdays, 9/8c, ABC
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