Grey’s Anatomy season 20 premiere: New interns and that same old crazy drama

We have a pulse! Grey’s Anatomy is back and—longtime fans will be pleased to learn—so are the iconic voiceovers of Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo). In the season-20 premiere, she’s musing about the nature of dreams: how long they last, how much we remember, and how they help dreamers process troubling or complicated situations (which, considering the disaster epicenter that is Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital, is a VBD for anyone who works there).

As predicted, this season picks up directly after the cliffhanger ending of the previous one, which saw new hospital chief Teddy Altman (Kim Raver) unexpectedly collapse during surgery. Much like Niles Crane in Frasier, it is quickly revealed that Teddy has a severe dental infection, one so severe, in fact, that it has impacted her heart. Unlike Niles Crane, however, Teddy didn’t obsess and worry over her toothache, so she failed to get it checked out in time—and voila! She’s now in an extremely critical condition.

Owen Hunt (Kevin McKidd) blames himself, of course. He was the one who gave her that smoothie, he tells Amelia Shepherd (Caterina Scorsone). Now all he can do is wait as Winston Ndugu (Anthony Hill) proves his mettle as Head of Cardio and does his utmost best to save Teddy’s life.

Naturally, this is an episode of Grey’s Anatomy, so there’s more drama than just Teddy’s failing heart to deal with. Our new batch of interns are on lockdown after a catalog of errors from season 19 (most notable, of course, being the death of Sam Sutton). Despite a threatening lecture from Nick Marsh (Scott Speedman), however, almost all of our interns escape from confinement…only for Simone Griffith and Lucas Adams to [checks notes] wind up trapped in an ambulance that’s being repeatedly rammed by a self-driving car in full Christine mode. With a critically injured trauma patient, no less. Go figure.

Thankfully, Meredith and Miranda Bailey are on hand to shout complex directions to our plucky interns—in between collisions, of course. The former is in town to discuss her controversial Alzheimer’s research and is more than happy to take a break from all the agonizing over whether or not she should give up her theories or have her lab shut down for good. The latter is just pure Bailey. She’s furious at the world (particularly the frightening advancements being made in AI), and all of that angst expresses itself in the manner her fans love most: mother-bear mode. But will she and Meredith be able to pool all of their talents in order to help Simone and Lucas save a man’s life?

Essentially, it’s Grey’s Anatomy as we’ve always known it: There’s complicated medical jargon being hurled around like nobody’s business, a series of highly improbable disasters taking place all around the hospital, and more than enough sexual tension and romance for viewers to get behind, too. [Here’s looking at you, Jo Wilson (Camilla Luddington) and Atticus Lincoln (Chris Carmack).] And, while we’ve yet to fall entirely in love with our new roster of interns (not that they subscribe to mononormative terms such as love, that is), we’re sure we will in time—especially when their collective fates are revealed in the last moments of the episode. We hope they’re ready to brush up on those five all-important rules and fast.

Stray observations

• Amelia and Owen might be “just good friends” (who used to date, obviously, because this is Grey’s Anatomy) at the moment, but did anyone else get a whiff that there might be something more to come? No? Just us then.
• We love that Meredith has tasked Amelia with a secret mission, primarily because we just aren’t ready to bid Meredith adieu yet. (Pompeo is not returning as a series regular this time around.) Sure, it’s nice to know that she’ll still be giving us her best Carrie Bradshaw impression each week with all her narrated intros and outros, but she and Amelia’s plotting makes it incredibly likely she’ll pop up in at least three or four more episodes, right?
• We’re calling it: Levi Schmidt is the new George O’Malley. Convince us otherwise.
• When most people wake up, they’re a jumble of questions. To paraphrase Sir Terry Pratchett, they’re a blob of panicky pre-consciousness, desperate to know who they are, where they are, who that naked boredom is beside them, and why they’re cuddling a policeman’s helmet. Jo, on the other hand, wakes up looking serene and beautiful, without even a smidgeon of doubt on her face. One can only assume that Atticus is proving good for her.
• The future seems bright for Nick and Meredith at this point, and good god, does the woman deserve a little happiness. Here’s hoping the former manages to veer clear of speeding cars and amnesiac ex lovers, eh?
• Will Richard Webber be able to keep his demons at bay, even if it means starting the process all over again? We’re hopeful. After all, he has Bailey in his corner like a fiercely loyal Pokemon and more than a few words of wisdom around accountability and forgiveness up his sleeve. Fingers crossed he gets a happy ending this time around.
• There’s a lot of talk around the ethics of AI in this episode, and a few threads around that self-driving car (call him Wayne) are left untied come the end. Could it be that ChatGPT and co will play a significant role in episodes still to come? If only to hammer home the fact that “compassion and connection” is what separates humans from the robots? God, we hope so.