‘Grey’s Anatomy’ “Danger Zone” Postmortem: Who’s Breaking Up & Who’s On The Move
SPOILER ALERT: This story contains details about tonight’s Grey’s Anatomy episode “Danger Zone” on ABC.
When you tell your wife you’ll be home for dinner and at the last minute decide to go on a road trip with your sister, yeah, it’s time for a divorce.
We’re talking about tonight’s amicable split between Dr. Owen Hunt (Kevin McKidd) and Dr. Amelia Shepherd (Caterina Scorsone) on Grey’s Anatomy’s fifth episode of the season, and it was a break-up that many anticipated. Even though the two have made nice gestures toward each other (C’mon, Owen, Amelia just had brain surgery and she’s offering to make you dinner!), many of those have just been empty promises between the two. For quite some time, the couple believed they were ships passing in the night at Grey Sloane Hospital. Forget about skipping dinner, nothing says I love you like skipping your wife’s brain tumor surgery which is what Owen did during last week’s episode. Sister Megan (Abigail Spencer) called him out on that. Owen’s road trip from Seattle down to the SoCal beaches is a cathartic means for him to realize where his emotions stand for Amelia.
In the penultimate scene with Amelia and Owen, he says, “It feels like we don’t know each other,” while she responds, “It feels like you married a tumor…you’re not happy, I know.” They exchange their rings back and hug.
Well, if Dr. Teddy (Kim Raver) sticks around Grey Sloane, we’ll see if she’ll tug on Owen’s heart strings. That’s the true test to see whether Amelia has any remaining emotion for Owen: Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. In the meantime, Amelia and Owen seem relieved to be rid of each other with the latter basking in the sunset at the end talking about “peace” and “freedom” in his voice-over. In fact, a great end song over the credits would have been “I’m Free” from the Violent Femmes. That ditty says everything about Owen’s situation.
We also finally got to witness the events leading up to Megan’s kidnapping in Iraq 10 years ago. Theories swirled, but what went down was that two Iraqi allies went rogue and shot up a squadron. We see Megan, who is quite versed in the local customs and language, saving a woman with a bloody chest wound. She takes her away in a helicopter, and it’s only then we realize that she’s the woman responsible for Megan’s disappearance. Upon the woman’s arrival in the hospital unit, she was perceived as a hero by one of the soldiers.
“Danger Zone,” directed by Cecilie A. Mosli and written by Shonda Rhimes and Jalysa Conway, also took strides to show how Megan ticked. At the onset of the season, she was quite a firecracker (and still is), but we got to see more of her human side during her road trip with Owen. She’s not all that manipulative (but, man, can she demand a proposal). Yes, she’s Type A, but it’s that California sun that she hopes calms her.
While other storylines rang louder than Dr. Nathan’s (Martin Henderson) exit off the show, tonight’s events showed how Nathan proposed to Megan, that neither of them were perfect in their fidelity (he gives her the necklace from an old g.f.), and that they were truly meant for each other. Their bond was forged long before Nathan’s opened his heart to Meredith (Ellen Pompeo). For those who might be on Team Meredith-and-Nathan, it was clear that he was meant for Megan, and the father-son scenes he has with Farouk are downright touching and well played by Henderson and Bardia Seiri. Farouk dashes out of the house without Nathan knowing, and the latter finds him at a food truck where the boy is weathering American culture shock from the multitude of food options on the menu. “We should be OK not knowing all the answers…we’ll figure this thing out,” says Nathan, easing Farouk about their new life together with Megan (They live in a beachhouse in what looks to be Santa Barbara! Seriously, how bad can life be?). The parting shot from tonight is we see a very happy Megan, Farouk and Nathan on the beach.
Henderson in our exclusive interview doled out his thoughts about what he believes is next for Megan and Nathan. Nathan and Owen’s bad blood could potentially be quelled as Megan tells her brother that she cheated on Nathan first (that said, you see in flashbacks when Megan tells Owen that Nathan cheated on her with Felicia). Could Nathan return to Grey Sloan Memorial? Maybe, as Grey’s Anatomy is a revolving door of characters, but behind the scenes, he was contracted for a two-year stint on Grey’s and this is the end. Perhaps we’ll see Henderson again in another Shondaland show as Grey’s Anatomy reps the third time that he has worked with Rhimes after the 2009 TV movie Inside the Box and the series Off the Map.
But even though Megan is down on the beach with him and Farouk, it’s still TBD if we’ve seen the last of her. Abigail Spencer is only on Grey’s Anatomy for a short while due to her commitment on NBC/Sony’s Timeless. It would be great to see her in action around the hallways and operation rooms of Grey Sloane.
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