Grey’s Anatomy tackles gun violence in “Trigger Happy” when two boys find a gun in one of their homes and play with it, resulting in one shooting the other. That leads to a discussion among the doctors about guns — and one reveals she has one.
Meanwhile, Arizona fights Callie about Sofia’s future since her ex-wife has already begun making plans for their daughter in New York. Plus, Stephanie wavers about going on an actual date with Kyle.
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Also in the episode, Ben decides that he’s not going to sit home and watch clothing dry or be a barista, so he’s going to pick up cases as an anesthesiologist and wait to tell Bailey until it’s a reality. As Jackson tells him, it’s a terrible idea. It is a very, very terrible idea, and when he does tell his wife, she tells him if he does this, he can find somewhere else to sleep. Considering he’s in the OR at the end of the episode, someone’s going to be on the couch for the foreseeable future.
Guns in Homes Lead to Emotional Moments
An 8-year-old boy is brought in with a gunshot wound, and it’s a tense few moments for two mothers as they wait to see which of their sons is injured. It’s a moment of relief for Danielle, as Peter is okay, but Brandon’s mother realizes it’s her kid when she sees his shoe. At first, no one knows what happened, but then the babysitter comes in and reveals that she left the room for a few minutes and they found Brandon’s mother’s gun and were playing with it and it went off. Amelia tells Peter that he didn’t kill his friend, but as Owen points out as they’re walking away, they don’t know that yet.
In the end, Brandon is paralyzed, but alive, and it’s very unlikely he’ll ever walk again. Kids watch and pick up everything you do, Amelia gently tells his mother when she repeats that the gun was locked up. She then goes out to see Peter to tell him that he didn’t kill his friend. When he asks if his friend is mad at him, she asks if he would be if their positions were reversed. “A little,” he admits, “but it was just an accident.” That’s what he has to think about when he feels bad, Amelia tells him. “It was an accident. I didn’t mean to.”
That’s a sentiment Amelia echoes when Owen tells her that his sister called her after finding out Nathan cheated on her and he told her to get on the helicopter. That was the last thing he ever said to her. “You didn’t mean to,” she says as she hugs him.
This hits Maggie hard, to the point that she confronts the babysitter about what she was doing that was so important she was out of the room (the poor girl was just making them food) and she calls the babysitter to check on Meredith’s kids. Family messes you up, Nathan offers when she admits that she’s not used to being scared like this and they’re not even her kids. “Sometimes you just have to push through it,” Meredith tells Maggie later when she says that she loves her kids so much that she’d die if something happened to them. “Push the awful aside just get through the day.”
During Brandon’s surgery, Jo reveals that she owns a gun, for protection — and yes, Alex, it’s in their home, under their bed. It makes her feel safer, especially considering their neighborhood. But Alex thinks having a gun just makes it more likely that someone will get hurt. Later, once they’re home, she tells him that it made her feel like she had something, back when she didn’t have much else or even value her life all that much. But now, she doesn’t need or want it anymore.
Parental Heartbreak and the Beginning of Healing?
Callie is plowing forward with that move with Penny and Sofia, and her way of talking about their daughter’s future is to meet Arizona with brochures for schools in New York. But Arizona never said she could take her daughter across the country, leading Callie to tell her to “stop saying your daughter.” But she is her daughter, and she’s Callie’s, Arizona says. She doesn’t even want to look at the brochures.
Penny wisely decides to stay out of it because she knows that she does not get a say in Sofia’s life. Arizona, meanwhile, talks to Richard about it, and he cautions her against overreacting and getting herself into an April/Jackson mess. Sofia’s too important, he reminds her. Don’t do something that can’t be undone.
Bailey may be — or at least tries to be — the voice of wisdom for Callie, wondering why she’s moving across the country for a resident when she’s the Chief of Ortho here and is basically going to be giving up her career in New York.
But once a school calls Arizona about Sofia’s application, she tells Callie to talk to her lawyer. “You started this,” she argues, when Callie tries to accuse her of jumping the gun like she admits she did when she got carried away when she first told her.
But hey, at least April and Jackson are in a better place. At first, they’re just talking about her prenatal appointment and her letting him know how it goes, but by the end of the episode, she invites him along.
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Real Life vs. Texts
Just as Stephanie is agonizing over whether to go on an actual in-person date with Kyle, rather than just sext him (and accidentally Meredith) like she’s been doing, she and Meredith treat a patient, Sheila, who’s about to meet her online boyfriend for the first time. However, when he shows up, he looks nothing like his photo and Sheila yells at him to get out. But after her surgery, he asks how she’s doing and when he finds out her tumor was benign, he confronts her because she apparently told him she was dying. Well, he said he had hair, she counters.
As for Stephanie and Kyle, he shows up at the hospital to see her, but she just tells him he needs to leave. Repeatedly. The texts are good and all, she admits to Meredith, but expectations are too high and she doesn’t think she’s quite as good in person as on paper. She does end up going on that date, however, to a recording studio, and he doesn’t need moves to get her to kiss him.
Grey’s Anatomy season 12 airs Thursdays at 8pm on ABC.
(Images courtesy of ABC)
Contributing Writer, BuddyTV
If it’s on TV — especially if it’s a procedural or superhero show — chances are Meredith watches it. She has a love for all things fiction, starting from a young age with ER and The X-Files on the small screen and the Nancy Drew books. Arrow kicked off the Arrowverse and her true passion for all things heroes. She’s enjoyed getting into the minds of serial killers since Criminal Minds, so it should be no surprise that her latest obsession is Prodigal Son.
