‘Grey’s Anatomy’ — Happy Birthday Dr. Webber
The March 20 episode of Grey’s Anatomy starts out on an exciting note — it’s Dr. Webber’s (James Pickens Jr.) birthday! Though we don’t know how old he is, everyone seems eager to wish him a happy birthday. He even looks pretty spiffy in a suit, and I can’t tell if that’s because he thinks they are throwing him a surprise party, or because his girlfriend, Catherine (Debbie Allen), is paying a visit to the hospital. But Bailey (Chandra Wilson) has the best present of them all when she finds a patient who has a teeny tiny spinal column randomly hidden inside of his abdomen. Sounds painful! After calling Dr. Webber in to see the scans, they are both very excited to operate on someone who has absorbed their own twin.
Their patient’s reaction to the news that he absorbed his twin in the womb is almost worse than the doctors excitement over it. “I just found out I have a brother,” he says as a smile spreads across his face. This is getting weird. Fast.
When everyone finds out that there is a man with an absorbed twin inside his abdomen, they are all lined up outside his room to see the scans. Dr. Webber is thrilled to be in charge of the case, all thanks to his pal Bailey, but when he mentions that they’ll be surgically removing the twin, the patient protests. Maybe Dr. Webber shouldn’t have compared having a twin in your abdomen to the Mona Lisa. Everyone is mad at Dr. Webber for ruining their chances at this extremely rare surgery, so he promises to fix it. I have to admit, Leah’s (Tessa Ferrer) idea to tell the patient it’s a demon is my favorite. I hope he tries it!
So, what does Dr. Webber promise the patient in order to get him to agree to surgery? He’s going to get a jar filled with his absorbed twin. However, when Dr. Webber hands him a bucket with the fetus skeleton inside, the patient freaks out and makes him take it back. Well, he tried.
Jackson’s Mother Thinks April Is A Gold Digger
There she is! Jackson’s (Jesse Williams) mother, Dr. Webber’s girlfriend, Catherine Avery. Or we can call her Queen Mother, as I often do. She’s cold hearted, strict, and condescending to just about everyone. But that’s why we love her, right? Anyway, she seems just thrilled to see Jackson and April (Sarah Drew). “I understand congratulations are in order,” she says, in that wonderfully condescending tone of voice we’ve come to know so well. Jackson, I think you’re grounded.
Later, Jackson’s mom sits the newlyweds down in a conference room and accuses April of marrying Jackson for his money. When April tells Catherine she is not interested in the Avery family fortune, Catherine slides a pre-made post-nuptial agreement across the table to April. Before April can even think of signing it, Jackson shoves it back towards his mom and storms out of the room.
While Jackson is busy throwing a temper tantrum about his mother’s decision to welcome April into the family by calling her a gold digger, April goes running after him to calm him down. Being the people pleaser that she is, she tells Jackson she has no problem signing anything if it will make his mother happy. Jackson is impressed, but he whisks April away and lets his mother stew furiously for a little bit before having April sign anything for her.
Once Jackson is over it, he brings April back to pick up the paperwork from the Queen Mother. She doesn’t seem pleased by this news, and we find out why almost immediately. Catherine starts asking April and Jackson about their plans for children, but they don’t have any. But Catherine wants to know because those children will be a major part of the Avery family foundation, in charge of millions of dollars when they turn 18 years old, and there are a lot of difficult legal decisions that need to be made that April and Jackson are just not ready for at all.
April realizes that Catherine isn’t upset about whether or not they want kids, she’s upset because her only child got married and didn’t even tell her beforehand. It’s no longer about people pleasing on April’s end, it’s about making amends. April pledges to make it up to her for years to come, but then she demands that Jackson apologize to his mother for what they’ve done. These two really did hurt a lot of people on their quest to being together, and it’s nice to seem them taking responsibility for it.
Shane Gets Emotionally Involved Again
Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) starts the night off right as well, and we get to meet her new printing engineer. I assume that’s what he’s called, anyway. Mer also puts Stephanie (Jerrika Hinton) in charge of him, and in habitual Grey’s fashion I sense a forced love connection brewing. While this is going on, Shane (Gauis Charles) is doing real doctor-like things. After his big speech about the residents wasting their time and not focusing on what’s important, it’s nice to see him taking things seriously. Shane is definitely not my favorite person, but I’m warming up to him. Don’t tell anyone, okay?
Keke Palmer also makes a delightful guest appearance as Cheryl Jeffries, a pregnant 17-year-old in desperate need of heart surgery before her due date. It’s a heart wrenching case, because Cheryl’s heart problem is so bad she doesn’t think she’ll make it through child birth. Shane tries to turn her down because she’s too old for the trial he and Yang (Sandra Oh) are working on, but she’s persistent. And then, her water breaks six weeks early right in front of Shane’s desk. Shane does tries to convince Yang that Cheryl is worthy of their trial, and he even tricks Yang into meeting Cheryl after she’s already said no. He’s too emotionally involved, as always, and Yang shuts him down real quick.
Thankfully, Cheryl makes it through childbirth, but I can’t help wondering if we’ll see her again in the future. After all, she still needs a heart.
Derek & Callie Make A Deal
Things continue to take a turn for the worse when Derek (Patrick Dempsey) gets called in to a meeting with Hunt (Kevin McKidd), Callie (Sara Ramirez), and Callie’s lawyer, Paula. As we saw last week, Derek is taking the sensors they were working on together and working on them alone now. For the President of the United States. Callie was pissed last week, and this week she’s pulling out the “intellectual property” claim. This is not going to be good.
Hunt desperately tries to play Devil’s Advocate while Callie makes some pretty harsh legal threats that impress even her own lawyer. When Derek asks Callie to share the sensors for the sake of science, she flips out on him. Technically she’s not sharing, she’s handing over something she created and allowing him to take full credit for it. Derek tries to show her a diagram, though I am still not really sure of it’s relevance, but Callie declines to look at it. Instead, she takes the marker from him and draws him a picture, claiming it’s a portrait of him as what he thinks he is: the “white hot center of the universe.” But then she admits that it also looks like a butt hole, which it totally does.
Callie just wants Derek to understand that her research is just as important as his, but he’s not listening to her. To make matters worse, he tells her that she doesn’t have a case anyway. His name is on the case, the materials, the studies, everything. So no matter what happens, Callie isn’t going to get any credit for her research. Just when you think this fight is over, Derek surprises us with an awesome move on his part. During his next video conference with the fine folks at the White House, he has Callie sit in on the call while he tells them that he won’t work with them if they can’t share the sensors with her for her research as well. At first you think the White House people are going to shoot him down, but they agree to find a way to share. Callie is so excited she squeals, and I’m not going to lie… I kind of did, too. McDreamy strikes again!
Yang & Hunt Continue To Torture Us
Somewhere in the middle of the episode, Yang randomly helps Hunt fill out an online dating profile. After they slept together and he dumped whats-her-face, he’s back on the market. But Hunt doesn’t want to go searching for anyone, and the description of what he’s “looking for” sounds more and more like Yang as he goes on. Yang can tell, and it’s written all over her face as he walks out of the room. It’s so romantic I can’t deal with it, and I really want to see these two get back together.
In the end, Dr. Webber gets that surprise party after all. And thanks to everyone managing to fool him all day long, he’s genuinely surprised. He’s also surprised when he finds out Hunt doesn’t want him to retire, he wants to appoint him Director of The Residency Program. It’s a really big deal, and even Catherine seems impressed by the offer.
So, HollywoodLifers — What did you think of the March 18 episode of Grey’s Anatomy? Let us know your thoughts below!
— Lauren Cox
Follow @Iaurencox
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