‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Season 21 Episode 6 Recap

Photo: Anne Marie Fox/Disney

There are two ways a person can leave Grey’s Anatomy. At best, you’ll be sent to the equivalent of a farm upstate (aka another hospital somewhere like Tacoma). Otherwise, you risk being massacred in front of our faces, Old Yeller style. This season we might get both.

We’ve known for a while that Levi Schmitt and Mika Yasuda are headed for the door, and now both of their exits are starting to take shape. Let’s start with Schmitt, who has spent most of this season agonizing over which specialty to pick, even if it’s peds — obviously peds. Last we saw him, he was saving a girl from certain death (and from losing her leg) in a helicopter during a terrible storm. Now he is considering moving to Texas after Dr. Beltran got his name for a research gig. There’s a lot to consider here: Will he like the research enough to give up the rush of surgery for a while? Is he really willing to uproot his life and possibly abandon his budding romance with Hot Chaplain James for a temporary position that might not even lead to a long-term pediatric surgery job? Will he even like Tex-Mex?

I have to stop here for a moment to ask: Are there really any grown adults in this country who have never tried Tex-Mex? I mean, sure, not everyone has been to Texas, but come now! The stuff is everywhere??? Also, and more importantly, provided you eat meat (because a lot of Tex-Mex do involving dead animals), what’s not to like?

At any rate, Webber and Bailey are determined to keep Schmitt, so they offer him a little treat to distract from all that delicious potential: a position at Gray Sloan as a general surgeon starting… (checking watch) how about right now? Not long after Schmitt’s bosses search his face for signs of ecstasy, his first big case comes in. A couple has been injured at an air guitar concert (yes, seriously) where the air guitar hero climbed the scaffolding during a performance then fell onto his girlfriend in the crowd. As you might imagine, the words Please don’t tell my parents soon to follow. As embarrassing as it may be for Joni’s parents to see their daughter smitten with an air guitarist named Van Vaughn Bishop (yes, seriously), the real scary detail to highlight here is that everyone just calls it “air,” which on one or other way does it exponentially. worse. Luckily for them, she mostly spends the episode high on painkillers and the power of love and will go home with a broken hip and not much else.

Vaughn’s condition is more serious because he has been impaled by the scaffolding. Thank God, his BFF, Gish, stays by his side to keep his spirits up. (I wanted to make fun of the name Gish, but instead I choose to believe that this kid simply has good taste in music and named himself after a Smashing Pumpkins album.) Vaughn is Schmitt’s first patient as a therapist, and he absolutely crushes it. Not only does he get the giant pole out of Vaughn without incident – he even manages to save his kidney. As Billy Corgan himself might say, the impossible is possible tonight, tonight! High on his triumph, Schmitt tells James that there might just be enough to do at Gray Sloan to keep the pet dreams at bay, but then he runs into the little girl whose life he saved in the helicopter. She gives him a very sweet little childish smile and tells him she will never forget him… and just like that you can almost smell the chili con carne bubbling. There is no way Schmitt is passing up the chance to work in peds.

This is a real bummer for Schmitt’s BFF, Helm, who cries even when Schmitt promises to FaceTime during their favorite trash TV shows. (Relatable.) But just as I started to get emotional, she said something so absurd I nearly choked on an Oreo: “Well, I’m easy. Think how hard it’s going to be to tell James.”

James? James? I’m sorry, but THIS is the big goodbye. Yes, he’s hot, but who really cares about James?! Schmitt only met him a few weeks ago! You, Helm, are his best friend, his confidant, his person! We didn’t see it this week, but I swear to God if this show tries to convince me next week that James is a tougher goodbye than Helm, I’m going to show up in the writers room and tape a list of 95 complaints to the door .

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaon to a lighter topic: Owen and Teddy’s sex plan. They are as excited about it as you would expect. Watch the entrance of a Sophia Bush, who joins the cast in the recurring role of Dr. Cass Beckman. Based on her initial move, I’m guessing Owen will hate her guts forever, and for that, I love her dearly. Protect her at all costs – anyone who pisses off Gray Sloan’s most insufferable doctor is a good friend of mine.

You see, Owen and Teddy are out to dinner with Beckman and her husband, David, when Owen and David are called back to work. (Typical.) This leaves Teddy and Cass out on the town for a night of fun. After some light clapping and more serious talk about Teddy and Owen’s decaying love lives and Cass and David’s open marriage, we get a record breaking moment when Cass kisses Teddy. On the mouth! Uninvited and unplanned. There’s more heat in this awkward kiss than we’ve seen between Teddy and Owen in weeks, yet Teddy plays the good wife, telling Beckman that her marriage to David may be open, but that hers with Owen is “very closed.” To that I say sure, but it really does have to be?

Just kidding. Of course it does, because the only thing Owen loves more than trauma surgery is being a controlling, jealous little gremlin. I don’t care if Teddy ever cheated on him. He is annoying and I will never take his side in an argument. Example: When Teddy tells Owen what happened to Cass, he immediately demands to know how Cass got the wrong idea: “Two minutes ago I was sleeping and now you’re telling me a woman kissed you?” Well, yes, Owen, naked mat! But of course, go for a spin and run away from the problem. I’m sure it will do wonders for your ailing marriage.

Jo and Link also struggle, whose passion is crumbling as they struggle to balance their demanding careers with childcare. Jo feels immense guilt for not being the super mom who makes cute little sandwiches for her adopted daughter, Luna, and Link struggles to understand why she’s taking it out on him as they argue over phone chargers. Imagine how much better things will be when their twins arrive! Luna, honey, can you say “domestic bliss”? Unlike Teddy and Owen, I think these two will be just fine. At least they have a great support system in Amelia, who plays the holy ex and comes over to remind Jo that Link has been in love with her as ever, so no matter how scared she is, they’ll make it through the storm . Right now, though, things are rough, and so is Link not just as Jo is afraid that he will leave her, just like all the other people in her life did. That frustration is understandable, but hey, so are complex traumas. Look it up, Link – that fear has nothing to do with you!

You know who doesn’t struggle to keep the spark alive? Griffith accidentally dropping an “I love you” on Adams in the middle of the workday. Kwan will never let her hear the end of it and of course she spends the day spiraling when Adams leaves her hanging, but in the end Griffith and Adams kiss and make up in the guard room where he returns her “I love you” while he runs out the door to an operation. But really, do doctors sleep shirtless in the ward? I understand that this is a workplace, not your house! I’m just glad these two are finally enjoying some peace.

If only the same could be said about Mika and Jules. This is where the farm-upstate Old Yeller dichotomy comes back to bite us all in the ass with its rabies-covered teeth. Mika is back at work, pulling double duty as caretaker for her little sister, Chloe, while she undergoes chemo. She desperately needs sleep, but instead ends up spending hours working a crank to push air into long-term patient Darren Riley’s lung because his electric pump failed and a new one will take hours to arrive. So she and Jules reconcile after weeks of sad estrangement and desperately want to kiss, which they promise to do later when they’re not scrubbed up for surgery. And so Mika helps Ndugu give Darren his new lung before driving Chloe home. We can all see where this is going, right?

Was last week’s helicopter-caught-in-storm really a red herring designed to make us care about Schmitt and heighten the shock of Mika’s car accident? It sure feels that way! Next week’s teaser shows the team at Gray Sloan frantically working to save her life, and Jules freaking out, yelling “MIKAAAA!” So things are not looking good. It’s been a few seasons since a Gray Sloan doctor died (RIP, De Luca), but I’m hoping against hope that’s not the case here. First, because I like Mika, but second, because all of this feels… a little undeserved given Mika’s relatively short stay. Please, oh please, just send poor, sweet Mika to the operating theater upstate where I imagine she will be chasing her dreams for years to come.