Grey's Anatomy recap: Adams confesses his love — and Helm returns to Grey Sloan
Dr. Webber has some exciting news: It seems that both Winston (Anthony Hill) and Nick (Scott Speedman) have been nominated for the prestigious Catherine Fox Award! Ironically, neither doctor's surgical innovation is featured in this episode of Grey's Anatomy. Instead, we see Teddy (Kim Raver) desperately trying to save a young man, Amelia (Caterina Scorsone) drilling a hole in an older woman's head, and my favorite flyboy, Sam (The Bold Type's Sam Page), getting his flirt on with Jo (Camilla Luddington).
Can Link (Chris Carmack) not catch a break?
Seriously, Sam is the luckiest guy on the planet. It's the only explanation for how he manages to get someone to page Jo in the OB unit to come down to the ICU to scratch an itch with a tongue depressor. He's also fortunate to have her there when his leg flap becomes congested (so gross), and Jo has to slice through his knee like it's a melon on a hot summer's day. The fact that Sam refuses morphine so he can "experience" this minor bit of surgery proves that he's an adrenaline junkie. And Jo is his muse.
Even Yasuda (Midori Francis) rolls her eyes at Sam's overt flirting — though, in his defense, you'll never get anywhere if you don't ask. It occurs to Yasuda that maybe she should set aside her rule of never making the first move and invite Helm (Jaicy Elliot) to Griffin's (Alexis Floyd) wedding. Helm agrees when she realizes that the wedding is before she starts working at Grey Sloan again. That's right, we have a new Co-Chief Resident who negotiated eight weeks of vacation, which is considerably more than what Schmidt (Jake Borelli) gets.
Hey, at least he gets to go to work in his pajamas. #careerperks
ABC/Eric McCandless Kim Raver and James Pickens Jr. on 'Grey's Anatomy'
Another career perk is a resident's ability to live in the on-call room when her beloved geriatric roommate is in the hospital. Max (Juliet Mills) is recovering well from her UTI scare — and even though Bailey (Chandra Wilson) suspects Millin (Adelaide Kane) is way more emotionally involved in the case, she allows Millin to switch with Kwan (Harry Shum Jr.) to be on Max's case. Bailey reverses course when Max gets dizzy in the bathroom, falls forward, and hits her head on the sink.
Now Max has a brain bleed, and Amelia has to perform surgery. Max shares with Kwan that Millin needs to be comforted and cared for, and Kwan tries to provide that in the on-call room. Not in a sexual way (get your head out of the gutter), but in a friendly manner. Millin builds the walls around her heart even higher and dismisses Kwan before she melts into a puddle of tears at the thought of losing the only motherly figure she's ever known.
Meanwhile, Teddy chases a young man down the hallway. Ray, the runner, refuses to have surgery to repair an aneurysm in his heart that could rupture at any moment. Adams (Niko Terho) comes to the rescue, offering to explain the surgery in a way that appeals to the graphic artist, clumsily sketching out the procedure instead of scaring him with statistics.
We learn that Ray had a dream in which his deceased grandfather said he would see Ray before his 30th birthday. In Ray's mind, he's trying to make it to 30 before he does anything drastic, like open heart surgery. Adams reminds Ray that he is a ticking time bomb and that signing the consent form is the wise thing to do.
ABC/Eric McCandless Scott Speedman, Kim Raver, and Niko Terho and Alexis Floyd on 'Grey's Anatomy'
Ray signs the form and then codes on the table as he's getting a CT scan. Teddy, Nick, Adams, and Griffin all try to save Ray on the table that slides into that scary tube. Blood is everywhere. Doctors bark orders. They work for minutes upon minutes. But Ray doesn't make it to 30.
As Adams spirals out of control, Nick instructs the resident to focus on what is good. He explains that people with ADHD feel their emotions deeply and tend to concentrate on what went wrong. Instead, Adams needs to remember that he got Ray to the hospital. As a result, his family did not have to see him die.
Before Adams calms down, he wonders out loud why his family, who is immersed in the medical field, never diagnosed his ADHD. Why were they content with being disappointed in him instead of investigating if there were any underlying issues? Nick does his best to find answers, but the reason is still a mystery. Adams tells Nick that he hopes he wins the Catherine Fox Award. If Nick wins, there's hope for Adams.
ABC/Eric McCandless Scott Speedman on 'Grey's Anatomy'
Originally Nick was uninterested in even attending the gala. But now that his sweet little mentee is looking up to him, he has to get on the private jet with Webber (James Pickens Jr.) and Winston and travel to Boston, where he will be face-to-face with Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) in the season finale.
But there's another potential love connection that must be resolved, too. Adams finally tells Griffin not to marry Trey (William Martinez). He wants to tell her while she still has a chance to change her mind, one week before her wedding. Adams tells Griffin that Trey doesn't see her. Adams sees her. And he loves every single thing he sees.
Best line of the season.
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