Well that was not quite the follow-up we were anticipating.
Grey's Anatomy continued its MerDer reunion this week, but only sort of, and mostly only at the very end. The actual most interesting thing that happened in this episode ended up happening in the promo, which promised "another person from her past returns" in the next episode. They barely gave us Patrick Dempsey before throwing somebody else in there, but we will take it. We'll take it all!
Meredith (Ellen Pompeo), as expected, is sick with COVID-19. At first, she thought she was well enough to go quarantine in a hotel instead of taking up a hospital room, but then she tried to take a couple steps and passed out on the floor again, as she did in last week's episode.
Once again, she ended up on her dream beach trying to get to Derek, but he was too far away. She tried to run and got nowhere, and he told her it was because she cared about her kids. Then she fell face-first into the sand and we felt like we were fever-dreaming.
We're just gonna go ahead and guess that if Meredith makes it to Derek, she dies, and that's not what we're interested in at this time. She can stay down the beach if they just keep yelling at each other! It's fine!
Everything else is just a real pandemic bummer. Everyone's exhausted and no one can be together and Meredith had to choose a new person to make medical decisions for her in case she's incapacitated, since her old person was Alex (Justin Chambers). Her new person is Richard. Fun storyline!
Elsewhere, Amelia (Caterina Scorsone) was tired and sad. Jo (Camilla Luddington) was tired and sad. Maggie (Kelly McCreary) was tired and sad. Bailey (Chandra Wilson) only wasn't tired and sad because she put all of her joy into a newborn baby that somehow survived on a woman's liver. Tom (Greg Germann) tested positive for COVID.
Nothing is good, everything is sad, and Meredith might be dying, and all we have to sustain us are these surprise actor returns.
Thanks, Grey's Anatomy! We missed you so.
Grey's Anatomy airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. on ABC.