Grey’s Anatomy: How Owen’s Big Idea Could Cause Huge Problems For Teddy (And Meredith) As Season 20 Finale Looms

Spoiler alert! This story contains spoilers for the May 16 episode of Grey’s Anatomy, “Blood, Sweat and Tears.” If you’re not caught up, you can stream the episode with a Hulu subscription.

Back on Grey’s Anatomy’s Season 18 finale, Owen Hunt found himself in a lot of trouble when it was learned he had broken the law to provide dignified deaths to terminally ill war veterans, forcing him and Teddy Altman to go on the lam. As the Season 20 finale approaches in just two weeks, the couple finds themselves in trouble again — unbeknownst to Owen, because this time around Teddy’s the one with the secret. What’s more, it looks like it’s Owen’s big idea that may wind up being Teddy’s — and Meredith Grey’s —  downfall. Let’s break it down:

What Happened In ‘Blood, Sweat And Tears’?

Teddy (Kim Raver) and Owen (Kevin McKidd) decided to take a much-needed day off and go on a hike. And of course, because none of the medical professionals can ever go into civilian life without encountering someone in a life-or-death situation, they happened upon a father and daughter who had fallen into a hole or cave of some sort, with the dad badly injuring his leg.

Owen was able to talk the daughter Rosie through packing her father’s wound and fashioning a tourniquet, after which she noted to the trauma surgeon that what she’d needed to do hadn’t been hard, but if he hadn’t been there, she wouldn’t have known what she was supposed to do. This inspired an idea in Owen, as he said the hospital could put out training videos — like what’s done for CPR — for other simple life-saving techniques like how to stop a bleed.

He approached Teddy with the idea, suggesting they use hospital funds to pay for the project, and that’s where things are going to get sticky for ole Dr. Altman.

Why Does Owen’s Project Mean Trouble For Teddy?

For the duration of Season 20 — since Catherine Fox (Debbie Allen) cut the funding on Meredith Grey’s (Ellen Pompeo) radical Alzheimer’s research — Teddy has been using Grey Sloan Memorial’s discretionary funds to allow Meredith to secretly continue working. Not wanting to blur the lines between husband/wife and hospital chief/hospital employee, Owen bypassed Teddy when it came to the request to fund his training project and went straight to Catherine.

Catherine said she’d take a look at the discretionary fund and get back to him, and holy hell, somebody needs to jump in between her and the computer or throw her cellphone in water or something to stop her! I wouldn’t want to be anywhere in her vicinity when she discovers that Teddy has been using what is effectively the Catherine Fox Foundation’s money (as majority owner of the hospital) to fund the research that Catherine told Meredith in no uncertain terms to stop immediately.

Heads are going to roll, I can practically guarantee that, but how many? Will Teddy be demoted from chief of surgery or even fired? Will Meredith lose her job at the Catherine Fox Foundation? Will Amelia Shepherd (Caterina Scorsone) be implicated for helping Meredith? Will Catherine’s head just straight-up explode?

Whatever is about to happen, it’s not going to be pretty, and poor Owen has no idea the domino of destruction he just knocked down. Tune in to see how it all plays out, with just two episodes remaining in Season 20. Grey’s Anatomy airs at 9 p.m. ET Thursdays on ABC, and be sure to check out our 2024 TV schedule to keep up with all of the upcoming premieres.