So even though Alex knows that James Remar is his dad, he doesn't want to actually talk to him or re-introduce himself. Princess is James' doctor and when James expresses one bit of regret for letting down everyone in his life she becomes adamant that Alex have a heart-to-heart with the guy. Alex has zero interest in this, but Princess is making it all about herself since she never had a father, and she's imaging some big, beautiful, transformative reunion, I guess. She winds up going above and beyond trying to get him into rehab, despite the fact that he can't afford it and also isn't super interested. James also finds it kind of weird that she's so invested, but he just chalks it up to her being young and overeager because who could guess the reality of the situation? She does eventually score James 28 days in a facility, and when he tries to bolt she talks him into staying and going to rehab because she's just that good. Alex winds up in an elevator with him and keeps shooting him sideways glances like he's finally considering talking to him, but ultimately keeps his mouth shut for now.
Mere and Derek are finally going back to work, though Mere is adamant about being home on time so that she can have a princess tea party with Zola. Cristina has a heart/liver transplant scheduled for a patient Mere worked with before her maternity leave, and Mere talks Cristina into dumping Bailey and letting her do the liver portion of the surgery. At the same time, Derek is doing some fancy brain surgery for a bunch of fancy visiting neurosurgeons so he's in the OR all day out of contact. Zola ends up bumping her head in daycare and needing a couple of stitches, Mere rushes to be with her since Derek is tied up, and since she is gone when Cristina needs to start the surgery (and also had been too busy with various family matters to do all of the prep Cristina had requested, Cristina re-hires Bailey to do it. Afterward the two of them get in a big fight when Mere says she's just as good a surgeon as Cristina, but Cristina counters that she's not because she chose to slow down so that she could focus on her family. She is quick to point out that she totally supports that choice, but that it has put them in different places now. This then leads to Mere yelling at Derek later for not answering his phone, and sets us up for a whole lot of angst on her part as she potentially tries to be everything to everyone to prove Cristina wrong.
Mere and Derek are also in for quite a change, because Callie finally moves out. She and Owen (who is apparently dating Emma now, though we don't see her this week) have a patient who, they discover, needs a kidney. The patient's sister is there and it turns out she was a donor baby, born because her older sister was diagnosed with cancer as a small child. Her sister eventually went into remission and became a daredevil so the poor girl has given marrow, part of her liver, a number of other bits and pieces, and pretty much her life in general and hasn't ever been able to do anything for herself. Callie coaches her that she can learn to say no, and she seems to give the girl an epiphany, though later she does offer to donate her kidney after all. But Callie takes her own advice to heart and tells Arizona she wants the apartment back. That night, after putting Sofia to bed, she sees her iPhone and decides it's time to finally dance in her underwear again, and it's awesome. Arizona, for her part, finds Leah being super nice to her and fears that they might have Done Something the night of the gala. Eventually, she just learns that Leah went to check on her since she was so drunk, and then took her inside and made grilled cheese sandwiches and they had a nice time hanging out and watching surgery videos… which Arizona doesn't remember at all. But Leah offers that Arizona can move in with her, and maybe also is kind of flirting? That part is a little unclear, as is if Arizona actually moves in or not.
Catherine has come back to town to check on Richard, and finds that he's not recovering as quickly as she would like. The reason for this is basically that Bailey won't be stern enough, and all of the interns are too scared of him to really treat him like a regular patient. She tells Richard she wants to take him home with her, presumably so that he will get better care. Eventually, when Leah comes in with some so-so test results, Richard orders her to examine him like a regular patient, and then coaches her through what she needs to do to treat him. He tells Catherine that he's going to stay and that the interns will learn from this and will take good care of him.
Jackson has decided to finally introduce Stephanie to his mom while she's in town this time, and Stephanie picks out a special blouse and everything so that she'll make a good impression. Unfortunately she's not really in said blouse when Catherine walks in on them getting busy in the on-call room. She immediately writes Steph off as a gold digger, and Jackson won't really stand up to his mom because, he insists, if he tries to argue about how great Stephanie is it will only turn his mom off more. It's hard to imagine that, though, because she loathes Stephanie and things only get worse when Stephanie needs a urology consult and Catherine just so happens to be the only urologist in the vicinity of the hospital. But that night at Joe's, Stephanie sees Catherine sitting alone and goes over to give a speech about how much she likes Jackson and respects Catherine, etc., and that finally seems to win Mom over… at least for the night.
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