Grey’s Anatomy Recap (Season 8, Episodes 1 and 2): Free Falling and She’s Gone

ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy starts its eighth season with a whole lotta drama and an earth-shattering (literally) set of plot twists that remind us all how ‘happily ever after’ is never guaranteed.

It’s that time of year again: Grey’s is back and in the classic style of show creator Shonda Rhimes, nothing is as it seems and everyone’s got trouble with a capital T. Even though Meredith and Derek are living separately (since Meredith effed with Derek’s clinical trial last year to favor Chief Weber’s wife Adele) they are still apparently trying to adopt baby Zola. Everyone is shunning Alex Karev, who was the big mouth that spilled Meredith’s guilt to the Chief, and he’s also apparently living in the hospital since he no longer has a motor home. Cristina and Owen aren’t talking because at last check, Cristina was pregnant and wanted an abortion, and Owen wanted kids. It’s revealed that Cristina has not yet had the abortion, but hasn’t told Owen that yet, since he won’t even look at her let alone speak to her. April is having issues taking the reins as chief resident, since no one seems to listen to a word she says, and Bailey refuses to help, since it’s no longer her job. Mark is having problems letting go of Lexie and putting his trust in Avery as a doctor, since Lexie is sleeping with Avery. Callie, Arizona and Mark’s baby Sofia is gorgeous and healthy, and theirs may be the only family currently without deep resentment and adjustment issues (but as always, that’s liable to change). Teddy is now sleeping with her husband Henry, and all is well there, until later on in the episode, the Chief calls Henry in for a procedure which will insert a device (insert medical babble here) to help with his condition, which makes Teddy go into Worrying Wife Mode and ask lots of questions about Henry’s condition, but it’s really nothing but a ploy to get Bailey to do the procedure for him…

The first big episode shocker is when Meredith gets called to the Chief’s office and he explains that the board of directors for the hospital met to discuss the issue, and that the final decision was to fire her. Then we see that a sinkhole has collapsed in downtown Seattle, swallowing a huge amount of people and cars in a very short amount of time, including a squabbling married couple shown sporadically throughout the beginning of the episode. Callie and Owen rush to the scene to talk the man through amputating his wife’s leg from underneath their car. Everyone else is consumed by dealing with all of the trauma injuries from the sinkhole that are being brought to the hospital. Meredith lingers nearby, getting kicked out repeatedly, and when she runs into the social services woman, Janet, a few misplaced words reveal that Meredith and Derek aren’t living together, which sets off signals about Zola’s well being. Janet asks Derek about it, and finds some discrepancies in the details, which causes her to take Zola out of their care while the official procedures are followed, but not before Meredith takes off with Zola and hides for several hours in the bowels of the hospital (obviously a huge no-no).

The Chief then provides another huge shocker: he is taking the fall for Meredith’s interference with the clinical trial so that Meredith can have her job back, and he passes off his own study (involving Henry and some mice) to Bailey, knowing that now that he’s taking the blame the FDA will no longer back his work. Meredith tells Owen that if he tries to make Cristina have a kid she doesn’t want, it will destroy her. Owen finally tries to talk to Cristina, but Cristina is busy helping Meredith cover her tracks, and ultimately he tells her that he will go with her to have the abortion if it’s what she wants to do.

Several other mix-ups happen, including an instance where April sends the wrong patient into the wrong surgery and barely makes it there in time to stop them from doing the procedure, and a Gunther, an exercise where the more experienced doctors allow several of the residents to collaborate on a patient (the woman with the amputated leg) without direct instruction, to see who will emerge as the “Gunther” or the lead surgeon in a crisis. At first it’s Cristina, but when she makes a mistake and jabs Alex instead of the patient with an epi, Avery surprises everyone as the Gunther. So, to recap this recap, Meredith got fired and then un-fired, but she and Derek are still fighting because Zola got taken away from them. The Chief is taking the blame. Mark-Callie-Arizona and baby Sofia are pretty happy. So is Lexie with Avery. Cristina and Owen were fighting and now they’re not, even though she got the abortion finally. Henry and Teddy are happy together, Bailey is taking over the Chief’s study, Alex is a bum, April is a terrible chief resident, and the sinkhole really sucked. I would say that it’ll probably get worse before it gets better, but it’s already pretty awful. It was a great start to season 8, though, no doubt about that.

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