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There is nothing worse on ‘Grey’s’ than when Maggie Pierce is sad, even if you knew …
There are some stories, or particular news, that only certain people should be delivering — or which a particular person needs to hear it first-hand.
In “‘Till I Hear it From You” (March 23) — the hammer finally drops: Diane Pierce (LaTonya Richardson) reveals her breast cancer to daughter Maggie (Kelly McCreary) after a long pretense that she was just getting a boob job, not reconstructive surgery after hopefully getting it removed.
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Watching Maggie jabbering on to anyone who would listen, trying so hard to figure out why her mom wants new boobs at her age, is almost as bad seeing her stunned into silence by the truth. McCreary has always been a fine actress, and one of the best additions to the show in years for sure — but in this particular scene, without needing words or emotional music playing in the background, we feel her pain so deeply…
And since Maggie can’t get angry at her mother, she turns on Jackson (Jesse Williams) for not telling her sooner. We don’t find out the results of Diane’s surgery by the end of the hour, but no one needs to tell Maggie what’s going to happen next. She’s already examining her mother’s charts, of course, and she can clearly see for herself that it’s bad. Diane’s breast cancer looks to be spreading everywhere.
Now, Maggie has had more parental drama than most people at Grey-Sloan — save sister Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) of course — and taking care of her mother is going to be her top priority moving forward. And there’s no doubt everyone will be doing everything they can to make sure Diane survives.
This theme of confrontation at long last is everywhere in the hospital this week: Maggie’s other sister, Amelia (Caterina Scorsone), finally hashes it out with Owen (Kevin McKidd), after what seems like seasons of hiding from him like some kind of gremlin every time he walks around a corner. But when Amelia mentions Cristina’s name during their fight, pretty much everyone within hearing distance takes a pause — and out here in the real world, Twitter caught absolute fire as the whole viewing internet dropped their jaws at once. Amelia, no!
Things aren’t looking so good for these two, but at least they’re talking — and that’s always been hard for both of them. Owen has to figure out if he wants to be a father more than he wants to be with Amelia, and Amelia needs… To chill out.
If she doesn’t ever want to be a mother, that’s fine. But projecting onto Owen that she feels suffocated by his impossibly high standards for a dream perfect family just isn’t fair. In the ranks of controlling boyfriends — forget that: In just the ranks of controlling boyfriends who have been with both Amelia and Cristina — Owen doesn’t even make the list. He is a needy little dude, but love is not one of the things he’s ever been inflexible about.
The third Grey sister, Meredith, confronts Riggs (Nathan Henderson), finally putting an end to their cat-and-mouse game. These two are going to give things a go, which will be… Well, we don’t know. This could end in disaster, or they could be like episode’s phenomenal guest stars Hal Holbrook and June Squibb, who portrayed a couple that’s still together after 60 years. Lord knows this show will still be on.
Meredith deserves to be happy, and if Riggs can be that person for her, then we ship it. Sure. Whatever Meredith wants.
Lastly, Arizona (Jessica Capshaw) confronts Webber (James Pickens Jr.) about her relationship with Minnick. Another thing that has been hurting our hearts for what feels like years, and our relief is very, very real: These two will definitely be okay. And knowing their wonderful friendship won’t be tied up in this anymore — and seeing the very isolated Chief finally getting the people he loves back into his life — is the much-needed ray of sunshine in is, all told, quite an emotionally draining hour of TV.
“Grey’s Anatomy” airs on Thursday nights at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.