Grey's Anatomy recap: A whole new ballgame

Sometimes in life you need people to fight for you. Whether you’re too sick or too stubborn to do it yourself, the surgical staff of Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital is ready to be your advocate. They can find rare blood for your transfusion. They can call an audible to save your life during a routine appendectomy. And if their name is Dr. Jackson Avery, they can find you a new penis.

That’s right. Jackson offers his mama a transplant penis as a “welcome back to the OR” gift that he recently procured. Remember how Meredith performed a pioneering surgery on Owen’s sister Megan by transplanting an abdominal wall? It’s the same thing, except way more medically involved. A veteran friend of Megan’s stepped on an IED and lost the lower half of his body, excluding one leg. Now the team has gathered together to help offer him a renewed sense of self.

Megan is super-stoked to be back at Grey Sloan and is overjoyed when she learns that Teddy is in town. Not only that, but she’s pregnant! With her brother’s baby! Oh happy day! She hugs Owen and Teddy and celebrates that they finally, after all these years, are in love and together and are sure to be the best parents in the world.

Their lack of excitement clues Megan in that something is terribly wrong with this scenario. The fact that Tom walks up, giving Teddy advice on buying a house, solidifies Megan’s suspicions. She is not happy and highly disappointed in her brother’s stupidity. But her rampage will have to wait until after her very important surgery.

Unfortunately, Megan can’t escape Owen’s shadow since Catherine invited him to scrub in on the transplant procedure. Caleb is ready for his new equipment and seems pleased that the legendary Dr. Fox is going to be fixing him up. All seems well until Caleb’s girlfriend comes storming into the room. Or should I say ex-girlfriend.

Anna has no idea what is going on and demands answers. The team slowly realizes that Caleb has been lying to them. One of the regulations to receive this surgery is that you have a strong support team on the other side of it. Anna was allegedly Caleb’s support. Yet Anna has no clue what’s going on. Catherine cancels the surgery as a result.

While one group struggles in the urology department, another battle is going on in pediatrics. Karev is finally back where he belongs and is slammed with an interesting case his first day back. Gus is autistic and doesn’t like being physically touched. Karev gets creative and uses building blocks to help Gus gauge his pain levels.

They manage to get a CT scan that solves Gus’ problem. He has a tumor on his thymus gland. Since he’s so anemic, they must do a blood transfusion before surgery is even an option. They manage the transfusion, but Gus has a reaction to the blood. At first it’s assumed that he was given the wrong blood. Once Maggie takes a look, she figures out that he is Rhnull. He has “golden blood” and can only receive the same during a transfusion.

Easy enough, right? Wrong. There are roughly 50 people who have this blood. IN THE WORLD. And Karev found four who may be a fit for Gus. He’s determined to help this little boy, because he can’t seem to help his wife.

Poor Jo is circling the drain. Link heads over to the house to try and get her out of bed. He sort of succeeds when he lures her from under the covers with alcohol. They laugh and reminisce as the day turns to night and the bottle turns empty. Then Jo hits a weird wall and starts rambling about how she’s a runner. She lists off all the people she’s left and happens to mention that her mother did the same thing. It’s in her blood. She can’t help it. This revelation makes Link nervous. So much so that he calls Karev to come home immediately. Here’s hoping Jo doesn’t ditch Karev to start a new life elsewhere, because this is the one love story I will always root for until the end of time.

I’ll admit that I am warming to DeLuca and Meredith together, although I’m not there yet. We’re also unsure if Weber is on board. Both have successfully avoided Weber since he accidentally walked in on their tryst. Nevertheless, Weber assigned DeLuca a laparoscopic appendectomy, and DeLuca is convinced it’s some kind of test to prove he is worthy of dating Meredith.

Everything sets DeLuca off, including the fact that his patient is a hot CrossFit trainer with a rocking set of abs. Of course DeLuca could care less about her abs and wants Weber to know that they are in no way anything to write home about. But what are you supposed to do when they are the foundation of your workspace?

While in surgery, Weber asks DeLuca, “What is your plan?” The sweet doctor babbles on about how he thinks Meredith is amazing and is super-happy with where they are in life, but they haven’t really discussed the future. Weber rolls his eyes and clarifies his question with, “What is your plan surgically?”

Awkward. Before DeLuca can die from embarrassment, he finds something in his patient’s abdomen that shouldn’t be there. Weber starts to take over, just as DeLuca commands the surgical team, barking orders left and right. He gets snippy with Weber, who immediately stands down and watches the surgeon go to work.

DeLuca crushes the surgery. And he wins Weber’s approval in the process. MerLuca is alive and well and ready to move forward in their relationship.

So we have DeLuca fighting for his surgery, Karev fighting for blood, Link fighting for Jo, and Megan fighting for a penis. She instructs Avery and Owen to “put it all on ice” while she has a chat with Caleb. Owen stops her and plays his own penis card. Shouldn’t a guy be the one to talk to another guy about what’s really going on?

Megan relents and Owen has a heart-to-heart with Caleb. We learn that Caleb pushed Anna away because he didn’t feel like a man and he didn’t want to put that pressure on her to deal with his issues. Owen tells Caleb that Anna is strong and he owes it to her to let her decide what she can and can’t handle.

Then he tells Catherine that she has to do the surgery. He knows from experience in the field that having the transplant is what Caleb needs to move forward. It will help more than it will hurt.

Megan stares at her brother while he monologues about moving forward and veterans needing help. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. She follows Owen into the stairwell and in two sentences, asks him what we’ve all been wondering forever. How could he just leave Germany and not take the time to fight for Teddy? How could he waltz back into Amelia’s life and start a family like everything was normal? She grabs his face and begs him to go to counseling.

Like everyone else in the hospital, Owen needs to do the work to fix what’s wrong. He needs to fight for himself.

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