By Lauren S
There is no time wasted after last week, and we learn that Meredith does in fact have a number of genetic markers that indicate she could get Alzheimer's. She seems pretty convinced that it's going to happen for sure while Derek wants to believe that it's not a foregone conclusion. Regardless, it's time to update their wills (which they should have done anyway since Lexie is still listed as in line to be Zola's guardian) which makes things even more uncomfortable because Mere wants to be taken out like a racehorse with a broken leg the second she forgets her car keys, and Derek isn't so into that idea. Back to the guardian issue -- Cristina and Owen had been second in line behind Lexie and while Mere is sure Cristina would still do it, Derek has her double check and it turns out that Cristina really only wants to be the cool aunt. That decided, Mere and Derek start figuring out which of his sisters would be good for the job. Figuring this out about herself seems to finally give Cristina some insight into why Owen has been so overinvolved in Ethan's dad's treatment -- she realizes that he's super attached to the kid and that this could potentially be a sign of some major issues coming their way. In the short term, when Ethan's grandmother is delayed in picking him up, Owen arranges for him to be admitted to the hospital for a night so that he doesn't have to spend the night under the watch of social services.
Smash can't let neuro go and so he continues to monitor all of the post-op patients with whom he was involved before. Derek lets it slide because he likes Smash and the lattes he provides, and Smash gets him to admit that he finds Heather annoying. But when Smash can't keep up both his actual job with Richard in the pit at the same time as he monitors Derek's patients, Derek has to cut him loose for real. But it's not just for the week -- he tells Smash honestly that Heather has an instinct for neuro that Smash doesn't have, and that he should probably find a new specialty to which he is better suited. I still don't understand why two interns can't both focus on the same specialty, but I suppose that's a question for another day.
Matthew is doing better and about to be released from the hospital, so… his mom is coming to pick him up. April is freaked out about this, thinking he can't walk or something, but Matthew admits he just wanted his mom to meet April. At the same time, April and Owen are hosting two doctors from Syria who have had to move from being general practitioners to being essentially field surgeons in the middle of a war. The Seattle docs are helping teach them methods that they can use in the field, using only their ridiculously limited amount of supplies. All of the surgeons pitch in at some point or another and are able to come up with a lot of good techniques and advice to help them out. Of course while this is going on Mere, Cristina and April talk about Matthew and his mom and how April can't meet her because she's still feeling guilty about lying to him about her virginity. One of the Syrian docs asks April what she is going to do, and eventually this leads to April finally coming clean to Matthew about her misplaced virginity. Of course, as we all knew would happen, he's way more upset about her lying to him than he is about her actually not being a virgin and when his mom comes to pick him up, it's obvious he's not so keen anymore on introducing the women to each other. April decides that honesty isn't all it's cracked up to be, so she goes and steals a bunch of medical supplies and equipment to send back to Syria with the two doctors.
The lightest story of the week is how Callie is trying to get Jackson to vote to fund her cartilage research -- after her TED speech, she is now a "viral sensation" and she wants to get funding so she can start growing more cartilage from thin air. Jackson is already tired of people trying to pitch him on pet projects but it shows no sign of stopping. Richard finally offers to buy him dinner so that he can pitch a project of his own and when Jackson balks, Richard advises him that he learned never to pass up a free dinner like that. He also advises him that basically the hospital is throwing him a bone by letting him still operate but basically, his main job now is as an administrator deciding things like what research projects will be funded.
Bailey has a couple of patients come in with infected surgical sites, and when Leah realizes that she worked on both patients when she had the flu she thinks she must have infected them somehow. The infections only get worse, and so Leah is ordered to go find all of the patients she treated when she was sick so that the hospital can call them back to make sure they aren't infected too. A third patient comes in to the ER and Richard treats him, but he continues to go downhill as the first patient who came in dies. Bailey is livid and sure that Leah is the common denominator, and Leah is fairly sure that she's about to be fired. But once she goes through all of her old notes, Leah comes to the realization that she didn't treat all of the infected patients and she and Mere have to go tell Bailey that in fact, Bailey is the only doctor who touched all three of them. This comes at the end of a meeting about the infections, and it ends ominously with Richard taking over Bailey's two remaining patients, Jackson calling one of their attorneys, and Owen forbidding Bailey to leave the room as they try to figure out just what could be going on.