Grey’s Anatomy Review: Help Me Through the Night (Season 16 Episode 10)

The most emotional part of Grey’s Anatomy Season 16 Episode 10, “Help Me Through the Night,” doesn’t have much to do with the group of injured residents at all.

Instead, the emotion from this episode is about Bailey, who has to set aside dealing with her recent miscarriage in order to focus on saving their lives, whether by delegating properly or doing the work herself.

It’s nearly too much for her to bear. Ben is also setting aside his own feelings, and he’s the reason Richard shows up with Owen to help out at the hospital. Owen helps where needed, but Richard is there so that someone can be nearby when Bailey needs it most.

Their friendship carries such meaning, especially after the turmoil it’s only recently been put through. And Chandra Wilson always does such an amazing job when it comes to portraying sadness, fear, and grief, but this is another level, even for her. 

Richard also brings in Meredith to be there for Bailey, and she’s able to talk about her own experience with a miscarriage. I appreciate how much attention is given to something that so few people feel comfortable talking about. It’s one of the things Grey’s Anatomy does well consistently.

The residents all wind up okay. It’s almost a rite of passage at this hospital for a group of interns/residents to find themselves in a life-threatening situation, and I suppose it was this group’s turn.

Levi’s broken heart syndrome storyline turns out to be sweet, with Meredith assuring him she forgives him for being the one to get her into trouble. Parker is experiencing a level of PTSD that causes him to run and hide in the hospital, and Helm confesses her love to Meredith Grey in a way that makes me truly adore her character.

And Simms — it turns out he has a connection to Tom that reveals Tom’s softer nature to Jackson and Owen. It’s ultimately a pretty surprising moment, even for the audience, who knows the true pain Tom has dealt with.  

As well as all of that comes together to prove that the hospital takes care of its own and serves as a found-family for every group of interns, what it lacks is much connection at all to Station 19, even though this is all presented as a major crossover event.

The Station 19 hour handles this much better, but moving into Grey’s Anatomy, the only thing that really makes it a crossover is that Ben is there. Otherwise, yes, it’s a continuation from the Station 19 hour, but you could easily watch this episode without having seen the former, and it wouldn’t necessarily affect understanding. That fact is pretty disappointing.

Meanwhile in the hospital, Jo is still caring for the baby she picked up from the firehouse as part of the Safe Haven program. The good news is that she hadn’t actually taken the baby for good or made a decision necessarily as rash as we might have thought from the mid-season finale cliffhanger. Instead, her intention is to just give the baby one nice night before he goes into the system, and that doesn’t seem so bad.

She takes him to the hospital where she meets McWidow (ahem, Dr. Cormac Hayes) who is the new Chief of Pediatrics and Alex’s replacement in more ways than one, I guess. (Don’t worry, I’m going to talk about that in a minute.)

It’s all a worthwhile storyline for Jo, who is channeling her own feelings and childhood struggles in a productive way. Maybe it seems like it’s a bit much, which has Link concerned, but it really makes perfect sense.

Speaking of babies, it’s unclear now for Amelia who the father of her baby really is. She spends a lot of the episode trying to decide how to share this with Link, and just as she’s about to, she’s interrupted by Owen and Teddy’s great love story.

The two are now engaged, which does in fact seem healthy and feels like the right next step for these characters. But it’s complicated by the fact that Amelia’s baby could very well be Owen’s.

Unfortunately, hearing that news makes Amelia keep her mouth shut. Now I just can’t help but feel bad for Link. 

It all makes me hesitate a bit because while this has always been a soapy drama, we’re leaning into real soap opera territory here in a way that doesn’t quite feel fitting to Grey’s Anatomy. But, we’ll see where it goes.

My final thought on this episode is something I mentioned earlier. Exactly how is Alex Karev going to be leaving the series? His last episode has apparently already aired, with no proper exit whatsoever.

We’ve heard everyone talk about him — he’s still in Iowa with his mother. Okay. And now Richard and Owen have a seamless way to return to Grey-Sloan Memorial, though I can’t see Richard leaving Alex high and dry at Pac North so easily.

Will we just be assuming now that we aren’t seeing Alex because he’s working hard over at Pac North? And how is that going to impact Jo and the stories we’re able to see for her character?

I can’t imagine how this will be handled in a way that does his character justice, and I’m nervous about that. 

What did you think of this episode of Grey’s Anatomy? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Grey’s Anatomy airs Thursdays at 9/8c on ABC.

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