Grey's Anatomy season finale recap: Shocked (2023)

I’m freaking out. I spent the entire episode predicting which character was going to end the season in peril, and let’s just say that the nature of the episode caused me to change my mind at least four times. And there wasn’t any scenario I liked. The end result? Well, I’ll say that I was able to understand it, but that does not mean I liked it.For one last time in season 9, let’s do this… before my head explodes.

The first glimpse we got of the finale was a slow-motion running sequence. And no, we’re not talking the Baywatch kind. Derek and Cristina ran down the hall of the hospital with looks of sheer panic on their faces as Meredith’s voiceover was as cryptic as ever. Explaining that doctors define a “perfect storm” as a scenario in which everything that could have gone wrong did, she said, “Funny. Never thought it would happen to me.” Cue my first guess in the game of “who might die” — Meredith Grey. But was I right? Well, we’ll have to wait to find out, because it’s time for a time jump!

Five hours earlier…

Cristina and Owen finally said goodbye to Ethan, but that simply forced them to say hello to their own problems. Cristina confronted Owen on his wanting to adopt Ethan, but he assured her that he wanted his life to be with her. It was basically a battle of who knew Owen Hunt better, and both seemed to think they were winning. Before the staring contest could continue, Cristina got paged and the battle was put on hold. Meredith was in labor and needed Cristina there to repeat everything she said to McDreamy in a forceful manner so that he would listen. And it worked, all the way up until the moment when we learned that baby boy Shepherd was coming out face-first. For those of you, like me, who don’t know anything about giving birth, that meant that Meredith had to have a C-section. And she had to have it right then.

But Meredith wasn’t the only one making tough decisions in the middle of the super storm. Bailey scrubbed in for her surgery before backing out and forcing Richard (who was back to his old ways of running things — that man is good in a crisis) to take over. On preparation duty, Callie was busy giving wedding ring advice to April (pin it to your scrub top!) and wondering who had seen Arizona. The answer? Well, Lauren had just recently seen way too much of Arizona if you ask me. And the guilt was already settling in when Arizona was paged to help take care of the babies. Luckily, Alex and Jo were there to help. But how much can you help when the power goes completely out in the hospital? Turns out, not much.

NEXT: Richard Webber is the Yoda of Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital

One man who wasn’t being slowed down by the power outage was the veteran of all veterans, the Yoda of this hospital, Dr. Richard Webber. Using cell phones as flashlights, Webber teamed with Ben to try and save Bailey’s former patient. And when he needed help from a very reluctant Cristina Yang, Webber did what he does best: He gave an epic speech. Before you knew it, Cristina was opening a man’s chest in the dark. And when she complained about shadows and her vision being impaired, Richard had an answer for every problem. Everyone in the room turned out their headlights, flashlights, etc. and let Cristina listen to the patient’s heart. She quickly had her hand on the bleeder. Done and done. Is Richard the best teacher this hospital has ever seen? Cristina thought so when she told Richard that he made her a better doctor in there. Ben also agreed when he told Richard that he finally understood what Bailey was always talking about — Richard pulls out greatness in people. And suddenly, I’m really worried about Richard…

Speaking of Richard, Meredith could have used a little of her not-actual-father father as she became the one on the OR table. Did anyone else panic when Meredith told Derek that she would be “fine?” That word is the quickest way to doom yourself in the Grey’s world. Just ask Denny. *moment of silence for remembering Denny* Okay, back to the OR, where Meredith and Derek bickered over baby names. She wanted Sebastian, but Sebastian Shepherd was a bit of a mouthful for McDreamy, who preferred Wayne, which was a bit too country for Mer. But the name game quickly became irrelevant when the baby boy finally said hello to the world. After panicking his mother (and me) with his silence, mini-McDreamy started to cry, and Derek headed off to be with his son at his wife’s request. And at Derek’s request, Brooks and Ross were not to leave Meredith’s side. That was comforting, right? Not.

Derek traveled over to the land where Arizona was desperately trying to keep the tiny-human-makers happy while simultaneously failing at playing it cool around the woman she just slept with in the on-call room. With baby monitors slowly losing battery and no spare batteries to be found, Arizona tried to keep everyone calm, which led to some very uncomfortable smiling on the part of Karev. It just didn’t seem to fit his face. Regardless, the team came together when more and more monitors started shutting off completely. Derek quieted the room while Jo taught parents how to bag their own babies. Talk about a partay.

And just in case all of the chaos in the hospital wasn’t enough for you, Callie and Bailey witnessed a bus crashing directly in front of the hospital’s doors. But why stop there? Then the bus started to catch fire. The rain tried to hold it off, but we all knew it was a ticking time bomb, so you can imagine my panic when both Jackson and Owen climbed inside to help. I’m all for heroics, but we all know where that got George. *moment of silence for remembering George* Deep breath, everybody. Jackson and Owen both got out of the bus, but Jackson didn’t immediately go back inside like he was supposed to. When he spotted a little girl (the daughter of his patient), he lay down on the street to try to convince her to come with him. I had officially stopped breathing at this point… as had April. And when the bus caught completely on fire and then exploded, Matthew had to hold back his fiancée as she panicked like only a person in love could. Like I said, take a deep breath. Jackson walked out of the smoke with a little girl in his arms. Phew!

NEXT: Bailey’s moment of truth

Jackson wasn’t the only hero of the day. After Meredith’s doctor got called away to deliver another baby, Shane fought for the opportunity to close up shop. It was as easy as 1,2,3 up until Meredith’s spleen wouldn’t stop bleeding. I knew that fall would come back to bite us! Meredith talked Shane through as much of the procedure as she could until she was about to pass out, at which point she made Shane promise not to revive her if she arrested for more than nine minutes. He promised, and Brooks ran to find help. Just as Meredith was about to tell Shane the baby’s name, some random person put a gas mask on her. Really? Nice timing, random gas mask person. Thanks a lot.

Meanwhile, what Brooks found was a very frustrated Bailey, who wanted nothing more than to get meds for the patients. Trick was, the cart holding all of the meds required an electronic code. Power outage = no electricity = no meds. But when Brooks informed Bailey of Mer’s situation, she took matters into her own, Nazi-like hands. Bailey physically busted open the meds cart (the best form of therapy for her) before putting on multiple pairs of gloves and getting back into the OR, where she operated on Meredith while Cristina and Derek sat outside the OR doors and discussed all the ways in which their best friend was going to be “fine” — there’s that word again. “Meredith Grey has survived a bomb, a drowning, a gunman, and a plane crash,” Cristina said. Her prediction was that Mer was going to die in her bed at age 90. Or at least that’s what she wanted for their person, who came out of surgery just fine after Bailey worked her uninfected magic. Another crisis, another hero.

And you can’t have a hero help you through a tough delivery without naming your baby after him or her, right? We learned that in season 2! So Grey’s fans, welcome Bailey Shepherd to the family. Here’s to hoping he has his father’s hair and stays as far away from his mother’s luck as possible.

However, if crises only brought heroes to the light, they wouldn’t be very much fun now would they? Back in babyland, Arizona told Alex about her infidelity, to which he confessed his love for Jo and admitted that he was scared that Jo would go crazy or get all cancer-y or mean if he told her. And that confession made him the worse person of the two of them. Well, according to him. But try telling that to Callie after she realized Lauren was wearing Arizona’s scrub top (wedding ring pinned to it and all). Once the lights came back on in the hospital, it took about .5 seconds for Callie to connect those dots, and it’s a good thing she did, because Lauren was not ashamed of what happened. In fact, she seemed in it to win it with Arizona. And how did Arizona feel? Like Callie has said all season, it always comes back to the leg. Arizona made it very clear that Callie was not on that plane and that she trusted her not to cut off her leg. As she put it, “You didn’t lose anything. I did.” But apparently, Callie had lost something… her wife.

NEXT: Love, loss and a major shock factor

After Avery got back inside, April gave him a good, frustrated, I-love-you-so-much-don’t-scare-me-like-that-ever-again shove before taking a lap to cool down. But when she circled back around, all she could say was, “I want you, Jackson. I want you.” So now we know, all it took for those two to get together was one of them thinking the other was dead. We’ll keep that in mind for next time. And as romantic as April’s speech was, Jackson couldn’t help but bring up the elephant in the room: She was getting married. “Unless you can give me a reason not to,” she told him. I, personally, can think of six reasons, and they’re sitting on the abdomen of that beautiful man right in front of you. Just sayin’.

Continuing with confessions of love, Alex finally said those three words to Jo, and Jolex shippers got the kiss they had been waiting for. Are these two just crazy enough to actually work? I think they might be. But not everything was crazy enough to work in this episode. And when Cristina finally reunited with Owen, she took him through her surgery-in-the-dark from earlier in the day. The OR is where Cristina feels joy. It’s where she’s content. And according to her, Owen was content with Ethan. And him wanting kids means that they can’t work. Cristina asked if he truly believed that she would ever be enough, and Owen wasn’t able to find words. As she walked away, he tried to stop her, but as she put it, “It already happened.”

And now, just as all storms do, things came to an end. With Bailey on her way to find and apologize to Richard, Meredith’s voiceover got even darker than normal: “There’s an end to everything, every storm. Once all the trees have been uprooted, once all the houses have been ripped apart, the wind will hush, the clouds will part, the rain will stop, the sky will clear in an instant and only then, in those quiet moments after the storm do we learn who was strong enough to survive it.” Unfortunately, one person wasn’t strong enough to survive. Richard had gone down in the electrical room to try to fix the light situation and, by the end of the storm, he was left lying in a puddle after having suffered an electric shock… with no one around.

DISCUSS! Is Richard really dead? Are Owen and Cristina done for good? Will Jackson tell April how he really feels? And how much do you love that Meredith’s baby is named Bailey? Also, are Arizona and Callie over? It doesn’t seem like Arizona will ever get over this leg thing. Will Lauren be a permanent addition to the hospital?

My mind is reeling, and I can’t stop reliving all of the Richard greatness of the past nine years. Yes, it would be nice for him to be reunited with his lady loves, but I just don’t want to imagine a world without his sage wisdom and awesome goatee. What about you?