The Conference
Apart from Hayes’s backstory and the final twist at the end of the episode, most of the latest chapter of Grey’s Anatomy feels like filler with some of the doctors acting out of character again and unnecessary flashbacks throughout. We begin episode 19 of Grey’s Anatomy with Webber arriving at the medical conference in LA to present his path pen, as Maggie joins him and explains that Meredith can’t come because her babysitter is sick. Hayes and Teddy are next to attend as well. As Webber writes his speech in his room, he is surprised to see his estranged wife knocking at his door. She walks in and tries apologizing for everything again. He finally admits that Gemma kissed him but he stopped her. He apologises too but tells her she can’t control everything. They then laugh about their fight which leads to her buying a hospital and they finally make up. Maggie joins Teddy while they have welcome drinks and the former sees someone she knows; an old resident she used to work with called Winston. She seems very interested and he admits that he has had a crush on her for a long time. They then spend the whole night together talking and getting to know each other. As Hayes speaks with Teddy, a salesman comes to introduces himself. Hayes has a flashback of the first day he met his wife, then some years later when he took her to have a hysterectomy, reassuring her as she started worrying. She gives Hayes instructions on life for their sons and she tells him it’s okay if he falls in love again one day. Back in the present, Hayes gets angry at the salesman as he works for a company who made the device responsible for making his wife’s cancer incurable. Teddy meets a face from the past too, a woman named Claire who she used to work and live with, as well as Claire’s girlfriend Alison. They catch up about their lives and we find out Alison died during 9/11 in one of the twin towers. We then see the three of them living together in New York as Alison and Teddy had an affair. In the present, Claire tells Teddy she knew about her and Alison. She explains that she went through Alison’s phone records before she died in the tower and found out that Teddy was the last person she called. Meanwhile, Maggie and Winston end up in bed and talk about the past. They’re surprised to see they stayed awake all night while Webber wakes up and brings breakfast to Catherine. While talking to her, he realizes something about cancer cells and writes it down for his speech. Maggie meets Teddy at breakfast, beaming after her night. As Claire arrives, Teddy follows her to apologise and tries to make her understand that Alison was in love with both of them. Claire finally understands and they hug. As we return to Webber in his room, we see that he has actually been alone all along and has been imagining Catherine, while Winston asks Maggie to move to Boston or suggests that he could come to Seattle as what they have is unique. She tells him she needs time to make important decisions. He agrees and tells her he will wait but promises not to change his mind. The conference starts as everyone is watching in the audience and in Grey Sloan. Webber comes on stage and starts his speech about his PATH pen. He mentions talking to his wife in the morning and that he has found a cure to cancer. Unfortunately, he stumbles through the speech and doesn’t make any sense. Catherine thinks he is drunk as we see his presentation showing random pictures including a heart with the name Catherine in it. Maggie tries to help him but he doesn’t recognize her and gets agitated and disorientated. The episode ends as the paramedics arrive and take Webber to hospital. Grey’s Anatomy has yet again managed to give us some pretty questionable story lines for some of our doctors. The backstory of Teddy didn’t make a lot of sense and felt more like filler than anything else, while Maggie’s new love interest didn’t really add much to the show either. Hayes’ past was the most interesting one of the three and it was quite harrowing to see what happened to him and frustrating to see that the company responsible for his wife’s death is still out there selling the dangerous device. The main story everyone will talk about is the shocking twist regarding Webber’s health decline. I was quite surprised to see that he had hallucinated the whole day with Catherine and very sad to see him fall apart on stage. Despite those two decent story lines, Grey’s Anatomy stays just as weak and with yet another poorly written episode, this medical drama remains as one of the bigger disappointments of the year.
