Grey’s Anatomy Season 20 Episode 1 Review: We’ve Only Just Begun

Everything is coming full circle on Grey’s Anatomy, and I am here for it. Grey’s Anatomy Season 20 Episode 1, “We’ve Only Just Begun,” kicks off the milestone season with the kind of ridiculous medical emergencies that made the show stand out in its early seasons. 

It also reveals what exactly happened with Teddy, how the interns will be affected by their choices, what Meredith is going to do about her research, and whether or not Richard took that drink.

Yet the most memorable moment happens at the end. Because if anyone is going to whip this new group of interns into shape, it’s going to be Miranda Bailey.

Bailey comes full circle:

Bailey: I have five rules.

The chills! 20 seasons later and Bailey is back working with the interns. It’s the perfect way to bring things full circle and continue the reboot within the series that began in Season 19. 

The foreshadowing is right there, too. Meredith is back on this episode and not only helps Bailey talk two interns through a surgery in an ambulance (I’ll get to that in a second), but she then scrubs in on surgery for that same patient once the ambulance situation is rectified. 

When she does, Bailey recalls what it was like to work directly with interns. She says the job was a lot like parenting, and she reminds Meredith that her class of interns was just as bad as the current class.

(She references the LVAD wire incident in particular.)

Meredith responds, “And look at me now,” to which Bailey retorts, “Remember how you got there.”

More than that, this is a satisfying arc for Bailey’s character. We’ve watched her work her way up in her career, all the way to being chief of surgery and then winning a Catherine Fox Award.

Now that she’s done those things — and realized being chief wasn’t for her — it seems only fitting that she return to a role that she excelled at before we ever even met her character.

It’s a bit different, sure. She’s not chief resident again, obviously. Instead, she’s taking over Nick’s role so that he can move to Boston and know the interns are in good hands.

Surgery in an ambulance = heart in an elevator?

Grey’s Anatomy Season 19 was a reset, and as I mentioned, it was really a reboot within the series. We got a brand new crop of interns in a way that felt as though it was a new era. Grey’s Anatomy Season 20 is clearly continuing that theme, tapping into nostalgia and offering callbacks to old storylines.

Just moments after Nick tells the interns they are not to practice medicine until further notice, Simone and Lucas wind up trying to help a patient in an ambulance right outside the hospital. That seems bad enough, but then a car crashes into the ambulance with them inside. 

It’s a driverless ride-share car named Wayne (really, though) that is malfunctioning. And because it continues to crash into the ambulance over and over again, Simone and Lucas are now put to the test much like George and Alex once were in an elevator.

Meredith and Bailey talk them through the surgery, which they do intermittently between car crashes. It tests their skills and their developing relationship all at once. 

It also reveals the dangers of driverless cars! The robot car is absolutely terrifying. Thankfully, Kwan shows up with a little common sense and punctures one of the car’s tires.

Meredith’s research:

Meredith is back at Grey-Sloan on this episode to meet with Catherine, who is livid over what Meredith revealed during the awards on the Season 19 finale.

If you recall, Meredith has found decades’ worth of problems with Alzheimer’s research, and calling that out has the potential to make a lot of people angry.

Catherine threatens Meredith’s funding. And, more than that, points to Meredith as the cause of every crisis at the hospital right now. After all, she is also the one who brought in this crew of underdog interns. 

Knowing that Meredith is no longer a regular on the series makes this even more significant. Her legacy remains central to everything that’s happening and will continue to do so even when she isn’t present.

The best part of it, though, is that Meredith continues to be Meredith. She’ll break rules as she sees fit, and she lies to Catherine’s face about letting go of her controversial research. She then promptly takes everything she has to Amelia.

Amelia is the one person who seems to understand what Meredith is driving at. She reveals she’s read over everything Meredith has done so far and sees the same problems she does.

And now, she’s asking that they work together on the research and keep everything under wraps. It’s a beautiful connection because Meredith’s first experience working on Alzheimer’s research was a clinical trial with Derek.

Now, Derek is gone, and Meredith might actually wind up curing the disease with Derek’s sister. It’s full-circle, satisfying storytelling at its finest.

Teddy’s fate, and the importance of going to the dentist:

The main cliffhanger Season 19 left us with was Teddy’s collapse in the OR. Through narration, we see flashes of what happened between that night and the following morning, where Teddy is now intubated. 

It turns out that Teddy’s toothache, which she had been complaining about throughout the finale, was a bacterial infection that directly affected her heart.

Leave it to Grey’s Anatomy to give the audience a good healthcare PSA every once in a while. Personally, I will never not take a toothache seriously again.

Though let’s also not forget that Teddy’s job as chief of surgery is what kept her from going to the dentist in the first place. She was too busy and under too much pressure — and now Owen feels partially responsible for not pushing the issue, and instead just bringing her a smoothie.

What I like about this is that it’s not a life-threatening situation caused by a freak accident. It’s a basic health issue. It’s the sort of thing that could happen to anyone.

It also provides us a chance to see the relationship that Owen and Amelia have now, which is perhaps the most touching part of this episode. Amelia is immediately there for Owen, and she stays by his side while they wait for Teddy’s surgery to be completed.

What’s clear is that they are still family, and they still understand each other in a way that no one else really does. It’s endearing, and it offers a chance for a callback to Derek while they’re there, too. 

I’m not sure anyone was too terribly worried about Teddy surviving all of this, but it’s still a relief when she wakes up Kevin McKidd’s reaction as Owen is beautifully genuine, and the fact that the cliffhanger isn’t solved too quickly makes the payoff worth it.

On Jo and Link:

If there’s any flaw with this season premiere, it’s the Jolink of it all. It’s satisfying to see the two of them finally together, but the timing of it all winds up being problematic. 

Because while Jo and Link were declaring their love for one another after all this time, their patient was dying.

Yasuda rightfully lays into Jo, asking where she was when the interns were paging them and Sam was coding. Jo has no good response. But the fact is, Jo and Link were outside having their moment in the rain when Teddy collapsed the interns eventually decided to go rogue. 

They made that decision because no one came quickly enough, though, and that’s on Jo and Link.

Yet neither of them absorbs this reality in a way that feels true to their characters. Jo does question it after Yasuda tells her off, but Link dismisses any feelings of guilt, saying Sam would have died either way. He says that even if they had gotten there sooner, he still wouldn’t have made it.

However, if they had gotten there sooner, the interns wouldn’t have taken matters into their own hands. And for that, Jo and Link should — and would, in a more realistic situation — at least feel a little guilty for that.

It’s not even a jab at their characters so much as it feels like it doesn’t fit with how they would have naturally responded to this situation. Instead, it’s just something that is barely acknowledged and then swiftly moved past so that the focus remains on the interns’ mistakes.

Other thoughts:

• Julies and Kwan have an interesting dynamic on this episode that I’m looking forward to seeing more of. Thank goodness, after everything that happened, Jules learns a lesson about being a doctor, and Max is able to be extubated.
• I sort of hate to see Scott Speedman exit as Nick Marsh, but I’m happy that’s the story that’s being told for Meredith. I assume, also, that since we’ll see more of Meredith, we’ll still see him sometimes too.
• Another highly emotional part of this episode involves Richard, who reveals to Bailey that he almost had a drink. He didn’t, but the fact that he came so close means he knows he has work to do on himself. Bailey supports him unequivocally, and it shows how far Richard has come on this journey as well. I’m not sure I’ve ever been so proud of a fictional character.

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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