Looks like Meredith’s back massager might be due for a break. Thursday’s Grey’s Anatomy introduced Animal Kingdom’s Scott Speedman as a new love interest for our widowed heroine. His Dr. Mars was brilliant (he called himself a “world-class” transplant surgeon), charming (he was joking when he said it) and as handsome as Scott Speedman. The question was, since he was suffering from complications from his own kidney transplant, would she be able to keep him alive long enough for them to go on a date? Read on and find out.
‘THERE’S NOTHING STANDING IN OUR WAY’| As “One Day Like This” began, April was awakened at the bar she’d passed out in and sent packing by the bartender; Owen shocked Teddy by showing up on her doorstep overseas; and Dr. Mars, having picked up a kidney at Grey Sloan, explained to Mer in the hall that he himself had had a kidney transplant. He was a few weeks post-op, he was saying when he… collapsed. Once checked in to Grey Sloan, he guessed that he was rejecting the organ and flirted up a storm with Mer. (Or maybe he wasn’t flirting; maybe Scott Speedman’s just so charming that he can’t help but seem like he’s flirting.) When Dr. Mars’ first test results came in, they looked good. He was in a hurry to get sprung, though. But, if he was stuck in a hospital bed, he wanted Mer to keep him company. During their conversation, he revealed that he was raising niece Charlotte for his apparently immature sister and that his mother had died waiting for a heart transplant. “Hearts are hard to come by,” he said. Before he let her get back to her other patients, he had “one last question,” he said. “Do you think I’m gonna lose this kidney?” Alas, she insisted that she didn’t and couldn’t know until his other labs came back.
Until then, Mars continued to bond with Mer, even copping to once having considered shoe salesman as his Plan B occupation. In turn, she admitted that she’d once fancied working at the multiplex with Cristina. By and by, it came up that, once he was released, he’d be getting on a plane back to Minnesota. (Hmm… so if anything, a long-distance romance at first?) Still, whether they went with his fantasy life or hers, he was game for it. When his labs came back, Mer discovered that he had a clot in the renal vein. As he was wheeled into surgery, he quickly gave Grey about a zillion instructions on what to do with Charlotte if he didn’t make it. Next thing we knew, Mars was out of surgery and asking Mer which of their fantasies they were going to go with. Sorry, she said, neither was going to happen… because she’d saved his kidney! “You saved my whole damn life,” he said. That evening, Mer admitted to Alex that Mars had made her feel something that she hadn’t since Derek.
‘I IMAGINED THIS, TOO’| In Germany, Owen revealed to Teddy that he and Amelia were done, so… what about them? In response, she kissed him, and that kiss quickly led to a whole lot more than kissing. Afterwards, she couldn’t believe that he was in her bed naked in Germany. It was all so surreal. Later, in a tableau as romantic as they come, Owen and Teddy, wrapped around one another like smitten pretzels, watched the snow fall outside her window. Then, a single question broke the spell: “What are you doing here?” she had to ask. It wasn’t as if she could leave Germany and abandon her life already in progress. “Why can’t I be a part of that?” he asked. “Because the show already fired two series regulars this season,” Teddy didn’t reply. Instead, she responded with another question: Would he really move to Germany? “Why not?” he answered. He could work with her, or not, but either way, he could move there. And leave Megan and his mom? she asked. Or she could come back to Seattle, he added. Any way you sliced it, though, he loved her and wanted to be with her, and that was why he’d gotten on that plane.
Later, Owen accidentally suggested that Amelia had “led me to” Teddy and even admitted that his going there had been his ex’s suggestion. Things only got more awkward when Teddy pressed him to reveal when Amelia had said that. His answer was, uh, not great: The night before, when he and Amelia had been having sex. Enraged, Teddy accused Owen of being scared to be alone. She also lit into him for stringing her along and then marrying other women. How could he have come there 24 hours after being with his ex, because his ex had told him to?!? “I’m done, Owen,” she said in tears. No more was she going to be his fall-back person.
‘TELL ME THE DIRT’| Meanwhile, April treated a Eli, a rabbi to whom Bailey’d previously prescribed antibiotics — three times — rather than recommend surgery. As a result, he was covered in a rash that was so bad, the burn unit was called. His skin was horrifically separating from itself, and the condition, Jackson and April reluctantly hinted, could kill him. Bailey was reassured by Jackson that she hadn’t done anything wrong — Eli’s reaction to the antibiotics this time was random. But April, incensed, wasn’t about to give up the patient so that Miranda could make his suffering all about her. She lashed out at her boss, saying Eli’d be lucky to make it through the night. Later, April found it difficult to hide from the patient her upset over the chief’s mistake. Sensing that Kepner wasn’t crazy about her fellow doc, the rabbi pressed for the juicy details. When April instead apologized for behaving unprofessionally, Eli stopped her in her tracks. “Dr. Kepner, you really think I can’t tell when someone’s in pain, too?” April didn’t want to talk — “I don’t need anything” — but he pleaded with her to let him do his job, and take away as much of her pain as he possibly could before he passed away.
Finally, April confessed that she’d done everything God asked of her, and in return, He… what? Eli inquired. God doesn’t guarantee anything. No one in the Bible lived a life free of suffering or injustice, so why should their own lives be any different? “Faith wouldn’t be real faith,” he added, “if you only believed when things were good.” Time running short, he told April that she sounded like a child. She didn’t get to know why bad things happened any more than he got to know why he was about to die from taking an antidepressant. “The world is full of brokenness,” he concluded. “It’s our job to put it back together again.” Kepner begged him not to give up till his wife got there. In his delirium, he mistook April for his wife, and she tearfully let him do so in his final seconds on earth. (Tell me again why this is a character we’re out of story for. Sarah Drew slayed it.) As the episode neared its conclusion, April found Bailey in the chapel and helped her light a candle. “Eli forgave you,” Kepner said, her faith seeming to return. “Some things just happen, and we don’t get to know why.”
So, what do you think of Speedman as Mer’s new love interest? Better or worse than Nathan? Bummed about Owen and Teddy’s whirlwind breakup? Hit the comments.
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