Celebrities
Arizona Robbins, you have got to pull yourself together
It’s such a hostile work environment on “Grey’s Anatomy” right now that we can’t even stop to appreciate a baby’s successful heart transplant. We gloss over a quick mention of Mark Sloan’s (Eric Dane) name during surgery, which would usually send most long-time viewers into a tailspin of fond McSteamy memories.
But on Thursday night’s (March 9) aptly titled “Civil War,” the battle between Dr. Webber (James Pickens Jr.) and Eliza Minnick (Marika Dominczyk) hits a breaking point, and the hospital politics are splitting everyone apart. Some more.
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Mixing work and relationships is a slipper slope, something both guaranteed and proven to end in disaster — yet the plucky doctors of Grey-Sloan continue to try. They scrub in with family members, date their fellow attendings, constantly move into and out of each other’s homes and parent each other’s children — and this war between the Directors of Residents is just pure nitro for all these already unstable relationships.
The Avery family is, of course, a hot mess as usual: Jackson (Jesse Williams) is the leader of Team Webber, staunchly against his mother’s appointment of Winnick… And his frustration is only compounded by how Katherine (Debbie Allen) is taking April (Sarah Drew) under her wing.
“A title is only as good as the person who owns it,” Katherine says, multiple times: And born with that Avery name, Jackson’s always had a lot to live up to. While he is a fantastic plastic surgeon, he feels his accomplishments are never enough for his mother, and then among all that turmoil — to sit back while Katherine takes his ex-wife and baby’s mama as her protege? He’s understandably angry, hurt and little bit jealous. However, it’s not personal or directed toward April like they both seem to think — it’s at Katherine.
Getting the grunt from every side of the war is Webber: His team of support, includes Maggie (Kelly McCreary), Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) and Karev (Justin Chambers), but it does not include his wife… Which is crazy to everyone but Katherine, of course. She is standing by her decision and doesn’t understand why Webber can’t just get over it — and that flippancy toward her husband, even he’s being a tad overdramatic, is hard to watch. Plus, she’s stolen the allegiance of his protege, Bailey (Chandra Wilson). When the owner of the hospital and the chief don’t have your back — one your wife and the other your former trainee — that’s undeniably a tough pill to swallow.
With zero separation between what’s business and what’s personal, Webber is beginning to spiral… So when he walks in on Arizona (Jessica Capshaw) leaning in to kiss Minnick, it’s the last straw. If Arizona could have been a mature adult, and told Webber about Minnick the moment she decided to enter a romantic relationship with her, this scene wouldn’t have been such a punch to the gut. But our hearts are broken for Webber right now, and that makes us pretty upset with the formerly perfect Arizona.
Right now, she’s worse than April. And that’s no easy feat. We thought it was rock-bottom when she cheated on our beloved Callie (Sara Ramirez), but in some ways this feels worse — that time, Arizona was at her lowest point. This time, it’s her best friend.
“Grey’s Anatomy” airs Thursday nights at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.