Thanksgivings at Grey Sloan Memorial are always an event.
And a lot was happening this Turkey Day on Grey’s Anatomy Season 18 Episode 6. Amelia and Link reconnected unexpectedly, Mer and Nick consummated their relationship, and Farouk had a scare.
Join Meaghan Frey, Joshua Johnson, and Jasmin Pettie as they discuss it all.
Was the episode of the same caliber as previous Thanksgiving episodes?
Meaghan: Definitely not. The show has had some great holiday episodes in the past, and unfortunately, this one didn’t hold a candle to them.
Something I’ve always loved about the holiday episodes is how they bring the cast together. Even though we saw Webber and Bailey come together with Jo, Nico, and Schmidt at the end, it felt like the cast, for the most part, was on opposite ends of the earth.
Joshua: For me, yes and no. I thought the episode was a bit uneven and schmaltzy at times, but some moments landed for me.
While I understand Meaghan’s position that past episodes bring the cast together, something I appreciated was that a lot of the two-person scenes allowed more intimate conversations.
One of my favorites of this was Megan and Teddy talking about how Mrs. Hunt might react to Leo’s latest tendencies to wear dresses.
Some of those scenes were uneven (I’ll talk about that when I talk about Meredith and Nick later), but besides that, I didn’t think the scene with Nico and Schmitt’s mom worked at the beginning.
It seemed like it was written to make Nico worry about the depth of his and Schmitt’s commitment. More often than not, I thought it allowed some of the relationships to open up and breathe a little bit.
Jasmin: I’m with Meaghan on this one. This episode felt boring and bland to me. I’m not digging any of the Minnesota storylines this season. I hate Meredith and Nick together, and none of the characters they focused on back in Seattle are very interesting to me. I, too, disliked how separated the cast was, especially since it was a holiday episode.
Which storyline did you find the most enjoyable and/or entertaining?
Meaghan: Nick and Meredith. Yes, I ship them hard. This was the episode I really needed to solidify their connection.
I’ve been on board since day one, but I think since they brought Nick back. They’ve been relying a lot on the chemistry between Ellen and Scott vs. putting in the work. Watching them bond on the phone throughout the episode and then have it revealed he turned around so she wouldn’t be alone had me swooning.
Joshua: I’d have to say Amelia and Link’s storyline. Caterina Scorsone and Chris Carmack have such beautiful chemistry that I find their scenes transfixing even when they’re fighting.
Jasmin: Honestly, none of them. I felt zero chemistry between Meredith and Nick. That entire storyline fell flat for me. While I did like Amelia and Link’s storyline, it wasn’t super compelling for me. If I had to pick, I’d probably say Nico and Levi’s storyline with his mom had some good funny moments.
Farouk’s condition is getting worse. React.
Meaghan: I’m shocked. The Farouk storyline has just felt like a catalyst to get Megan and Hayes together, but this just upped the stakes. I would be devastated for Megan if she lost Farouk. He is what got her through her time as a POW. I don’t think she would be able to take that loss.
Joshua: I’m not sure how I feel about this.
I see Meaghan’s point about it being a catalyst to get Megan and Hayes together, which I wouldn’t mind. I like the drama it provides for the Hunt family and how it brings them together.
One of my biggest hangups with Teddy and Owen is that when they introduced the characters, it seemed like they were only introduced to be romantic foils at the time and weren’t fully fleshed out characters.
I feel like giving Teddy, Owen, and Megan a storyline that revolves around their family will help to make all of them more three-dimensional characters.
Obviously, I hope nothing happens with Farouk.
I don’t see the show killing him off and creating that drama for Megan. But Grey’s has a history of being a bit unpredictable and sometimes making the utterly wrong choice (i.e., killing off Henry in Grey’s Anatomy Season 8 and making Teddy completely unlikeable and unnecessary for the last half of that season). So, fingers crossed that he lives.
Jasmin: I’m sad that Farouk is getting worse, but this storyline didn’t pack the emotional punch I think it should have.
For me, that was because they chose to remove the usual dramatic background music and the background noises of the machines in the hospital room, so it didn’t feel emotional.
I liked the conversation between Megan and Teddy about Leo and standing up for your kid even if it means ruining another relationship you value. I’m also with Joshua about how unlikeable they made Teddy last season.
Does Amelia and Link’s hookup make things more complicated between them? Does it send mixed messages?
Meaghan: YES! Can they not play with our feelings like this? Link sleeping with Amelia after she admits that nothing has changed for her implies that he is ok with it, but I highly doubt he is.
Then you add that they are hinting at Jo and Link in the preview for the next episode. There is no way Amelink is even close to on the mend yet.
Joshua: I have SO MANY THOUGHTS on this. Seeing Amelia and Link together again, in a completely effortless way, was refreshing.
I loved Link admitting he didn’t want to be like his parents and create an unstable family life for Scout, and I loved seeing Amelia honor that and invite him over for Thanksgiving.
Their scenes spoke to a deep understanding of each other, knowing how each other operate and balancing out their strengths and weaknesses.
Seeing Amelia watching Link and the kids having a dance party made me feel conflicted about Amelia’s feelings of marriage–how could she watch how beautiful and joyous that moment was and not want that with Link?
I think about Amelia’s upbringing–being the youngest of five, overlooked, losing her father, maybe not having a family full of joy. I wonder if it’s so unnatural for her to have this family dynamic that she wants to run from it before it happens because she’s afraid she might lose it.
And if she doesn’t want to get married to Link, then what does she want? We know Link wants to get married and broke things off with Amelia, but we haven’t discovered what she wants yet.
If she wants to stay with him, then what’s the difference for her between a committed relationship and marriage?
That said, we have precedence on the show of women, in particular, eschewing the sort of “expected” things that society says women want (i.e., Cristina adamantly not wanting children), and I love that Amelia is saying no to marriage for that reason.
Why do we, as a society, think that marriage is necessary for happiness? That women should have to aspire to marriage?
So I appreciate Amelia’s choices for that, but I wish the show would have Amelia tell us what she wants with Link.
At the end, I thought it would be Amelia who would make the first move on Link, but from a story-telling standpoint, I see why it needed to be Link to make that first move (Amelia respecting his space and all).
I appreciate that Amelia restated her boundaries and made them clear. I worry that Link wasn’t being honest with himself at that moment–I don’t see him brushing those feelings aside to just hook up with Amelia once; for him, it’s something more long-term.
Ultimately, I want Amelia and Link to end up together. Surprisingly, they’re my favorite couple in the show’s history and the one that I want to work out (which is saying a lot, because Alexie was my was always my favorite pairing until now).
Jasmin: Yes, I think it does make things more complicated and send some mixed messages.
I’d love to see them end up together, so I really hope that at some point in the upcoming episodes, we see them actually talk to each other, and they both share what they are feeling and coming from because several episodes into the season and they still haven’t done that. I, too, really miss Alexie.
Mer spent the holiday with Nick, and they slept together. Thoughts?
Meaghan: I went over most of my thoughts on it in my previous answer, but I’ll give this one last one – it may have been snowing outside, but the heat was cranked up in that hotel room for THAT scene. As someone who has loved Scott Speedman since his Felicity days, I was not mad about that scene.
Joshua: The Meredith/Nick phone call was my most uneven scene in the episode, but I can’t explain why. Scott Speedman just sounded so drowsy when he told some of his stories that I had a hard time paying attention sometimes.
I did love the moment with the doorknock on Meredith’s hotel room; there was a moment where you could see on Meredith’s face that she thought it might be Nick and hoped it would be Nick, before realizing that it was probably just room service.
I was confused when it was Nick, though, because he’d just been onscreen driving, like, 30 seconds prior.
Once they were in the same room, I thought the scenes evened out, and I was more invested; I think Speedman and Ellen Pompeo play off each other well.
That sex scene was hot, too, and I love that the show didn’t shy away from a woman of a certain age being hot and sexual and sensual and a little steamy. It’s not often that you get to see an actress in her 50s enjoy that kind of sensuality on television.
Jasmin: As I said before, I hated this storyline. They have no chemistry to me whatsoever, and I honestly don’t get what you guys see.
To me, I’ve never seen a sex scene on TV have less chemistry in my entire life. There were also several logic problems with that storyline, one of which Joshua pointed out.
Another was that we were supposed to swoon over Nick, yet he doesn’t care at all about Meredith’s kids and keeps trying to get her to come up to the cabin with him and blow off her children and sister.
Meredith agreeing to go up to the cabin at the end made no sense, and during the dining scene, there’s a giant teapot on the table while they are actively drinking wine.
What was your favorite moment, quote, character, etc., from the hour? Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Meaghan: As I’ve said, my favorite moments belonged to Nick and Mer, but I’ll switch it up a bit and go with Nico and Schmidt’s mom. We rarely get to see a sweet side to Nico, so this was a nice change of pace.
Joshua: My favorite moment of the hour was with Bailey and Noah’s wife, for very personal reasons. I thought the scene was so wonderfully acted between the two.
Even though we know virtually nothing about Noah’s wife–the audience still felt for her when she finally broke down (honestly, the ability of that actress to break down into such grief-wracked sobs OFF CAMERA and affect the audience in that way was astounding).
This was a scene that felt like classic Grey’s — a main character recognizing an aspect of her own life in a patient’s story and helping them through it before taking her own advice.
I ended up pausing the episode after this scene to take Bailey’s advice–a wonderful reminder from the show that sometimes we have to take our moments to fall apart. Feelings are meant to be felt, and we have to honor them to grow and keep going.
Another favorite moment I had was when Farouk went into v. fib, not because of the story, but because I found Abigail Spencer’s acting breath-taking even though all she said was, “Oh my God, Teddy. Teddy, oh my God.”
There was something about her delivery that was really nuanced. It wasn’t overly dramatic, and her delivery didn’t take up the scene; it was almost like Megan was saying things without realizing she was saying them.
Sometimes I find Abigail Spencer’s work to be a little too obvious, but I thought this moment was candid and perfectly underplayed.
Jasmin: I didn’t have one, but if I had to pick, I’d say the moment where Richard and Levi were trolling for surgeries and the woman parked outside the ER and Levi asked if he could scrub in if she needed surgery, and Richard yelled for him to get a gurney.
It was funny, and it perfectly represents what I love about Richard as a character. He loves to cut, but he always puts his patients first above everything else.
Over to you, Grey’s Fanatics. Do you agree? Sound off below.
Grey’s Anatomy airs Thursdays on ABC.
Jasmine Blu is a senior staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow her on Twitter.