Richard, fresh off of a Twitter-inspired combing of Ellis' journals, found some research she had started that could be built into a diabetes clinical trial. He goes to Meredith and asks her to be on it, since he thinks she's the only one with the right to carry on her mother's work. Meredith seems happy enough to finally be on the Alzheimer's trial but the Chief lays it on thick and she seems to waiver for a moment. But after continuing work with her own patients she realizes that she wants to try and cure her mother's disease rather than continue her research, and she "gives" the study to Richard with her blessing.
As if that wasn't enough to heap on her in one day, Thatcher shows up in the hospital with abdominal pains and a super-young, super-tattooed girlfriend. Lexie is completely appalled and turns into the nightmare daughter from hell, insulting them both repeatedly and cruelly dismissing any worries the girlfriend is having. She tries to rope Meredith into participating in the abuse, but Meredith has enough on her mind already. When Lexie tries to say that Thatcher is now doing to Lexie what he did to Meredith, Mere has to remind her that this is in fact a totally different situation, and that Lex should be happy that he found someone that makes him happy. In the meantime, Mark has turned Jackson into his spy to try and figure out how Lexie is doing after the whole baby announcement. Using Mark's suggestion of peanut butter cups to get her talking, Jackson finally gets her to open up, and as she talks, she realizes that she's being totally unfair to her father and his lady friend, and that she's doing it because she feels totally betrayed by Mark not ever even asking her opinion about his having a baby. What Mark doesn't realize is that he might have accidentally started pushing Lexie and Jackson together, and Jackson seems quite pleased about the possibility.
Mark and Arizona seem to be teaming up, albeit a bit uncomfortably, to get Callie to try and be super-healthy now that she's carrying their baby. They decide Callie needs to quit coffee, and when Callie tries to argue that the studies she's read say one cup a day is fine, they still outvote her. Callie tries to comply but she's not happy about it, and combining the irritation with caffeine withdrawal turns her into a monster, with April bearing the brunt of her foul mood. Owen finally orders April to get her a cup of coffee so that Callie can actually perform the surgery they are doing, and the coffee thankfully calms Callie down enough that she's able to lay down the law with the other two when she gets home, and they start learning how to compromise.
It appears that Lucy is going to be around at least for a little while; she meets Alex when he walks into the NICU and, in a very Alex way, asks where he can find the "turnip" -- a.k.a. the brain-dead newborn whose heart they want to use in a transplant. Lucy takes extreme exception to his apparent callousness, especially as it turns out that she delivered the turnip, and she manages to get him kicked off the case. He appeals to Arizona for help, but she sticks with Lucy's decision and makes sure he's kept off the case each step of the way. Since he can't be in on the surgery, he winds up watching the entire thing from the gallery, where he's joined by Lucy. She sees that he does actually care, and the two seem to eventually reach a delicate truce. But when Alex finally ventures to ask her out for a drink at the end of the day, she shuts him down before he can even get the question out. Neither seems ready to admit an attraction, but given all of their body language in the elevator, with each trying valiantly to not look at the other one, it looks like this could be one of those situations where the hate turns to luuuuuuurve (or at least a romp in an on-call room) sometime in the future.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Is the hardest lesson for a doctor learning to prioritize? Meredith thinks it is, and VOs that a doctor will try to avoid amputation but that if they have to cut off a limb to fix someone, they'll do it without hesitation. That's... reassuring. I think. She tells us the decision depends on the stakes, and doctors are basically gamblers trying not to lose everything. That's somehow less reassuring. Meredith is seeing a number of patients, asking them to remember three words she taught them a few months previously: truck, cabin, and spoon. I'm a little confused now about how much time has elapsed since I didn't think she and Derek had been working on this study for a few months already, but in life and in recapping I'm learning to go with the flow so, a few months it is. The patients beam when they remember all three words; it's actually incredibly wrenching to watch the ones that struggle.
She's then paged to the Chief's office and when she arrives, she finds him with her mother's journals still strewn all over the desk and Derek hanging out behind his chair. Richard announces grandly that he wants to start a clinical trial to help cure type 1 diabetes, and he wants Meredith to participate. She's rather confused since she's already attached to a different clinical trial but Derek tells her to hear Richard out. Because Richard discovered the basis for the study in Ellis' journal -- it was research she was doing when she contracted Alzheimer's herself -- he thinks Meredith should be the one to continue her work, and in fact says he wouldn't feel right doing it without her help. He goes so far as to actually call it her birthright, which is laying it on pretty thick, and Meredith's smile is strained as Derek advises her just to think about it, and assures her it's entirely her decision. Strangely, he seems to be playing the part of a legitimately supportive husband, and I don't recognize him like this, without some sort of thinly-veiled selfish agenda.
Back at the apartment, Arizona has blended up something green and chunky that looks like honest-to-goodness vomit, which she pours into a glass. My face at home mirrors Callie's revolted look and she's not reassured by Arizona chirping that it's an apple juice and kale smoothie. Doesn't smoothie in fact contain the word "smooth"? Those chunks do not a smoothie make, lady. Mark walks in while Arizona is lecturing that it's time for Callie to think about getting the baby nutrients, but Callie just wants coffee and contends that she can safely have one cup a day. Mark's ready to agree with her until Arizona mentions studies that have shown that it is in fact bad for pregnant mothers, and her glare makes him meekly change his tune to match hers. Arizona declares that it's just a matter of doing things differently now, like taking it easy at work and eating better. She claims that if it will help, she and Mark will give up caffeine too but Callie growls, "That helps no one." She's not wrong. Three surgeons with caffeine withdrawal sounds like a malpractice suit waiting to happen. They take a vote and of course, it's 2 to 1 in favor of the green goo. Callie tries it and gags. I, meanwhile, start to appreciate the mug of coffee I have in front of me that much more. I'm going to take another sip this moment just for good measure.
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