Grey’s Anatomy Review: Life on Mars? (Season 16 Episode 17)

Everyone’s acting a little weird on Grey’s Anatomy Season 16 Episode 17, “Life on Mars?”, and it’s not entirely interesting to watch.

In fact, this episode feels more informative than anything else. The stories fall flat and the characters are all a little off. 

Teddy, first of all, acting out in ways that are pretty well unforgivable. Cheating on Owen once in a moment of weakness at least might make sense, but doing it again doesn’t necessarily feel like something her character would do. On top of that, it’s a frustrating piece of storytelling that feels like it’s undermining her character entirely.

What’s worse, though, is her telling Owen information that isn’t her place to tell, especially since it’s not confirmed. It’s gross, and so is her reaction to Owen. Of course Owen needs a moment to pause and react to that shocking information. 

It’s even more frustrating because we find out the results, and Owen is not the father of Amelia’s baby. This entire complication just adds drama for the sake of drama, and it’s not fun to watch at all. 

What is fun to watch is Link’s profession of love to Amelia, standing in the rain with his guitar. It’s a scene right out of romantic comedy and it’s an energy the show needed — something positive and romantic when so many of the stories feel grim right now. 

Link oozes with charm and everything about the scene feels authentic. As soon as Link says he wants to be with her and raise the baby regardless of who the father is, she reveals she knows the results — and it is him after all. I sure hope we can enjoy a happy couple for a bit, don’t you?

Meanwhile, Jo is moving forward after finding out Alex has left her for Izzie. I’m glad to see the amount of attention being paid to Alex’s exit, and that we aren’t simply skipping ahead. She’s dealing with the loss in complicated ways. She’s sad, but acknowledges how Alex made her life better and made her feel like a person who was deserving of love.

She’s also confident in her own ability to rise up and heal from this, and that’s beautiful. It’s an empowering moment to watch, though I have to be honest, even that monologue feels a little off somehow. The words are there, but it doesn’t exactly feel like Jo believes them, and that’s a shame.

Then there’s the Tom / inventor storyline which winds up being the least interesting part of the episode altogether. It seems like quite the unnecessary plot device in order to get a donation of funds to a hospital that… should be able to get funds for great programs in other ways?

The point is for us to see Tom break a rule for a good reason, even taking a little advice from Meredith in the process, and that’s fine. It’s just not a very compelling way to make it happen.

Meredith is also too busy to be involved in the whole thing, because she’s focused on a patient who’s been rationing insulin thanks to ridiculous healthcare costs. It’s great that we’re returning to a cause like this for Meredith, but even her response to it feels like it’s a different character altogether. The emotional investment is missing. 

It’s transitional, based on the previews for the upcoming episode. Clearly, this was all about setting up a pro-bono day, which seems entirely promising. But that’s all this is — a setup for something else. 

Now, it’s purposeful for both DeLuca and Richard to be unlike themselves at the moment. For DeLuca, we’re worried about his mental health. We don’t see him much, but we see enough to watch him acting a little more angry and excitable than usual. He’s unhappy with being in therapy and wants to get back to work, but he’s in denial that he has a problem. 

Maybe Jo throwing that drink in his face will do the trick? I never said this episode doesn’t have great moments, and let me tell you, that’s a great one. Though it’s cringey the way DeLuca hits on her and I’d kind of like to erase that from my memory.

Richard’s issue is that he’s being forced to give up surgery. His shaky hand is still a problem, and that’s going to take an emotional toll. He finally tells Bailey he’s giving up surgery and he’s going to work on other things, including his invention from a few seasons ago — it’s actually about time to revisit that, honestly. 

It’s heartbreaking to see him go through this, and it’s tough on Bailey too. She tells Meredith about how she got the same speech we saw the original group of interns get — about how eventually only one of them will be left. That’s true of Bailey now and it’s also true of Meredith.

Her putting it that way makes this all poetic in a way I don’t want to accept, but it does add some meaning to the way we’ve lost all of those other original cast members. Meredith really is the only one left standing from her class now.

Finally, there’s Jackson and Vic, a storyline that has an entirely different kind of problem — that it’s overlapping with Station 19. As someone who doesn’t watch Station 19 regularly, this is frustrating and problematic.

Look, it’s great for Station 19 to pair things with Grey’s this way. But it’s not so great for Grey’s Anatomy. I have so much less investment than I could in what’s happening with Jackson’s relationship right now because I’ve missed a good portion of the story.

Maybe that means I should just start watching Station 19 before every episode of Grey’s Anatomy, and I understand that’s the motive here, but that in itself seems problematic. It shouldn’t be necessary to watch both to get the whole story for one of the shows, especially the one that came first. 

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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