‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Teases a New Romance for Schmitt

(Warning: This post contains spoilers for Grey’s Anatomy Season 20, Episode 2.)

If there’s anyone at Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital who deserves a new, sexy love interest, it’s one Dr. Levi Schmitt (Jake Borelli). His ex, the ortho god Dr. Nico Kim (Alex Landi), might’ve been brutally handsome, but emotionally, he was also just... brutal. There was that travel nurse, Carlos Garcia (Calvin Seabrooks), but he was just a hook-up. How long, I’ve wondered, would we have to wait until Levi gets another viable romance? This week, we might’ve gotten our answer. At least, I hope Dante the Baker will stick around for a while, because he is hot, hot, hot.

This week, Miranda Bailey’s (Chandra Wilson) takeover of the intern program is complete. She’s barred the unruly interns from performing surgery until they complete procedure logs full of scut work—which, she says, will prove they are ready to get back in the O.R. As she put it to the crestfallen newbies, “Your days as surgical cowboys are over.” Still, that did not impede them from witnessing some true medical mysteries and miracles. First, there was a John Doe who got shot multiple times for reasons unknown with wads of cash taped around his ankles. Then, an entire family flooded into the pit with injuries from an ill-fated reunion softball game. And then, there was Dante—a charming baker whose gallbladder infection led to a much more emotional diagnosis.

While looking over Dante’s chart, one of our interns, Simone Griffith (Alexis Floyd), accidentally revealed to him that he’s positive for HIV. At first, Dante can’t process the news and insists she must be wrong. When it turns out she was right, he insists on going home—a plan that quickly ends when his severely infected gallbladder stops him from walking. After flirting with Levi all morning, Dante finally agrees to let him perform the emergency gallbladder surgery. When he first rolled in, Dante was most worried about getting back to feed his pumpernickel starter on time; his diagnosis leaves him reeling, but only temporarily.

There’s a real sweetness between Dante and Levi. When Dante shares his emotions over his diagnosis with Levi and mourns the dating life he assumes will be forever changed, Levi assures him that some people—like himself—are already on PrEP, and can therefore easily date people who, say, need to feed their pumpernickels. When Dante wakes up from his surgery and asks Levi to share dinner, he carves out 20 minutes to talk about their favorite baking show over pudding. Flirtations like this can come and go on Grey’s, but I, at least, am hoping this could turn into something more.

Elsewhere in the hospital, interns Lucas Adams (Niko Terho) and Benson “Blue” Kwan (Harry Shum, Jr.) spend the day jousting over who gets to perform the most procedures on and around their mysterious gunshot victim. Kwan manages to restart his heart, while Adams gets stuck holding the bag. (Literally, a bag of cash.) Meanwhile, their fellow intern Jules Millin (Adelaide Kane) is stuck with the softball family, who spend the entire episode driving her up a tree with their bickering over who should be “MVP,” while Mika Yasuda (Midori Francis) oversees Dr. Teddy Altman’s (Kim Raver) recovery from her surgery last week.

Yasuda has a rough time with Altman, who predictably refuses to stop working. (You’d be amazed how much this woman can get done from a tablet.) She won’t even stop for three kinds of Jell-O! Eventually, however, Mika manages to break through to her by reminding her that she almost died. Poor Mika is still traumatized from beating Teddy’s chest after she collapsed in the O.R. at the end of last season, and she’s not about to let her boss forget it. Upon hearing this, Altman does the understandable thing and breaks down in tears before making her intern swear she will tell no one what she just witnessed.

Mika might have her hands full with one troublesome patient, but Millin’s loud family of, like, 30 is also a major challenge. One of them—an in-law—happens to be pregnant, and wouldn’t you know it, she also has a spinal injury. Thankfully, this is Grey Sloan, where unprecedented procedures happen all the time. Dr. Atticus “Link” Lincoln (Chase Carmack) and Amelia Shepherd (Caterina Scorsone) stabilize the patient’s spine before flipping her over for an emergency delivery, courtesy of Jo Wilson (Camilla Luddington).

All of this happens while Link calls Jo out for failing to remember every guy who has ever flirted with her during their decades of knowing one another—which pretty much immediately lets his ex, Amelia, know that he and Jo are dating. That’s one way to find out! Thankfully, she’s cool with it and reminds Jo that on top of being an absolute hunk, Link is also a highly sentimental creature and needs to be treated as such. This prompts Jo to order them a big candlelit dinner, thereby restoring the necessary balance to their amore. Also, in a very “Grey’s” moment, Jules yells at the woman’s family for bickering about the trophy all day only for them to start chanting “MVP! MVP!” and bestow the honor on her.

For all the romantic victories we see this week, however, one couple has finally crashed and burned. Simone and Lucas have been in a pretty complicated place, ever since she [deep breath] said “yes” to her ex-fiancé’s proposal right after kissing Lucas, before also asking Lucas to be her man of honor (which, um, what???) and then breaking off the engagement and hooking up with Lucas... again... before saying she needed space.

This week, Simone kissed Lucas in the on-call room, and when he suggested they, you know, talk about their feelings, she left the room in an anxious huff. She knows she’s all over the place, so she later tells him she needs to put herself and her career first—to which he rightfully asks, when has she not?! From now on, he tells her, they’re roommates and nothing more. (Oh, right—because in case any of us forgot, these two also live together in Meredith’s old house along with half of Grey Sloan’s young staff.)

With all this messiness, it’s no wonder Miranda is breaking out the strict rules to rein these chaos babies in. Still, Dr. Winston Ndugu (Anthony Hill) has the audacity, the temerity, the gall and the gumption to question her methods and shake her confidence in her approach for a split second. When John Doe’s parents respond to the hospital’s bulletin and show up to hear the horrible news about their son, Miranda becomes emotional.

“I’ve changed,” she tells her husband, Station 19 firefighter Ben Warren (Jason Winston George). “I’ve seen too much. I’ve felt too much. Dr. Ndugu openly questioned my methods today, and maybe he's right. Maybe it’s a sign that I shouldn’t do this again.”

Thankfully, Ben has the same response all of us at home probably did: Absolutely the fuck not! Sure, she’s changed, he says, “but for the better.” Lay down the law, Dr. Bailey. These interns might have good intentions (usually) and solid instincts (some of the time) but they, like Meredith Grey and her fellow onetime interns before them, could definitely use the help of the one and only Dr. Miranda Bailey.

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