Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital

S09E17

It's Jackson's first day on the job, and what greets him is a group of colleagues pissed that he's now their overlord, understaffed ORs, an overworked Chief of Surgery, and a mom who still calls him "Sweetheart" in front of the Board. When he and the survivors have their first meeting he is really just a mouthpiece for the Harper Avery Foundation, and the rest of them have no patience for it at all and no respect for him. The last straw for all of them is when he suggests that they might need to start fresh with new leadership, meaning Owen would be fired as Chief. No one else wants to even consider it and they shut down the meeting. Meanwhile, Owen is out of his mind trying to coordinate the surgery schedule considering that they don't have enough nurses to actually have all of the ORs up and running at once. It's extra tricky because there wind up being multiple organs that need transplanting at the same time.

Cristina is done keeping secrets from Owen so she goes to him and tells him that he might be fired. Owen confronts Jackson but while he's screaming at him, Derek comes up and gets in the middle. He and Owen wind up screaming at each other with Derek once again alluding to the crash being Owen's fault so Owen lobs back that Derek didn't have to sue and consequently bankrupt the hospital. That said, he then quits.

Alex is still in an extra-bad mood because he both feels left out and because Princess has a hot new boyfriend and he was too dumb to tell her his feeeeelings. He has a kid who is having a kidney transplant but as he goes through all of the possible side effects of the meds she'll need to take, the girl freaks out and locks herself in the bathroom. Alex finally manages to get her to talk to him and somehow relates her situation to his own mistake of not telling Princess how he feels about her. Because he's a pediatrics god, that somehow gets the girl to agree to the surgery after all.

Cristina has one patient who is getting both a new heart and lungs, and another patient who flies off the handle when he hears that that guy is getting a heart before he is. It turns out the two men have a history -- one's wife left him for the other guy, though a while after that she left him too. Cristina realizes that she can do a domino procedure, giving heart/lungs' old heart to the other guy (yadda yadda lung heart stress medical reasoning yadda) but he refuses to accept it. She manages to talk him into it by convincing him he'll be able to use the new ticker to dance on the other guy's grave one day. (It's actually really cute.)

The last organ-related activity is April's patient, a friend of hers who was a resident with her at Mercy West until he was diagnosed with ALS and couldn't work anymore. He made the decision that he's going to go off his ventilator and let himself die so that his organs can go to others, but April can't bring herself to let him do this and keeps trying to talk him into other options to try and live longer. He finally fires her as his doctor, but she eventually comes to respect his decision and actually helps him convince his mother that this is truly what he wants to do. April takes him and his family to the OR where they'll disconnect him and then once he dies, they'll take the family out and harvest the organs within five minutes.

Jackson, meanwhile, is busy trying to participate in a Board meeting but obvious he's in over his head. Richard is concerned for him and tries to tell Catherine that it's too much. But she's convinced Jackson will figure it out, and finally yells at Richard for overstepping his bounds and acting like a parent. She immediately recants, though, because she realizes that they are awesome together and Richard really did mean the best for Jackson.

All of the organ hoo-ha converges at once, with April and her guy in one OR and Cristina and Alex fighting over the other and trying to shove each of their patients' beds through the door first. Jackson manages to finally take some control and figures out the OR schedule (heart and lungs get priority over kidney) and the others seem to find a bit of respect for him, at least for a moment.

Cristina tells Derek that he has to stop blaming Owen so Derek chases him down with his car and finally admits he doesn't blame him, while Owen admits he blames himself. Derek admits he's just pissed off at the world, and also at Mark, and he and Owen bond and counsel each other on getting over it all.

Finally, Jackson calls a new meeting with the survivors and this time, he's ready to be a leader. He tells them that they will reopen the ER (he'd been waffling about it earlier) and that they are going to hire Owen back, which Owen has already agreed to. Finally, he says that he thinks that they need to remember that they are now a hospital run by doctors and they should be even more awesome because of it. In honor of this, and of a fresh start, and most importantly in honor of the two doctors who died in the crash, he proposes that they rename the hospital Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital. The idea is met with full support by the others, and they realize maybe this crazy harebrained plan of theirs might work after all.

It's the dawn of a new era at Seattle Grace (Mercy West), where the new management board -- the crash survivors -- are getting ready for their first meeting. At the same time, Mere VOs something about transplants and the body trying to fight off what it thinks is an invader -- in this case, they are the body, and Jackson is the offending new organ. The others all talk about just how little faith they have in him while they remind the audience that the Harper Avery Foundation gave $175 Million to the $15 Million each from each of the survivors. Derek adds that as a member of the board as the HAF's representative, Jackson can veto their vote. Meredith is the calmest of everyone and reminds them that they know Jackson and he's not just some unknown corporate suit who is going to take them over, but they are all disgusted at the idea that a Plastics Fellow with a powerful mommy holds so much power and won't really listen to Mere's voice of reason.

Speaking of Mommy, she and Richard are having an argument about, as Richard says, "Anointing your son boy king." Richard is worried that Jackson isn't prepared for this job but Catherine dismisses his every (insightful and well-meaning) worry and insists she knows what Jackson is capable of and he'll be fine. He's also not thrilled that this boy king is now his boss, which makes his girlfriend his boss' boss. Catherine reminds him that she's a very powerful lady in her own right and that the only room in which she takes orders from her boyfriend is not in this hospital. Richard is worried enough that her saucy power flirting doesn't seem to affect him but she just heads into a conference room for her own meeting.

The boy king himself arrives at the board meeting full of apologies, while carrying a giant stack of binders topped off with a box of donuts. They are meant as a peace offering but he realizes this is going to be a long meeting when the others all just give the pastries withering looks. Mere catches him up that they were discussing reopening the ER and the trauma department (which I guess are somehow different) but in reply Jackson tentatively says that he's not sure they are ready to do that just yet since the board wants to look at some numbers and figure out if it's worth it. Basically, he's kicking off the very nightmare that all of the others were afraid of. It gets worse when Cristina mentions getting Owen's opinion, and Jackson admits that the board also thinks a change in leadership could be good for morale. Translation: Owen might get canned. Callie starts to berate Jackson for being his mom's mouthpiece while Cristina declares that there's no way he can fire Owen. Jackson, backed up against a wall, reminds them just how much money the HAF invested in this venture. Mere still continues to be the calmest person in the room and tries to make peace, telling Jackson they didn't expect the Foundation to dictate policy. Jackson shoots back that no one expected all of these guys to sue the hospital into bankruptcy. But instead of blowing up, Mere looks right at him and asks if he's talking about the crash that killed Lexie. The camera zooms in on his troubled face so that we know this point hit home.

By Lauren S

Owen, unaware of the upper management infighting, is trying to figure out the OR schedule with the nurse who initially led the revolt when Pegasus was about to take over. Half of the nurses are still gone, and while she's trying to convince them to come back for now they are severely understaffed and can't actually handle all of the surgeries that were originally scheduled. Alex walks up to say he's got a kidney for a teenage patient but Owen tells him that there isn't room so he can't do the surgery today. Alex rightly calls bullshit on this so Owen agrees to figure something out. But he immediately forgets about that when Cristina comes up and blurts out that they are thinking about replacing him. The nurse quickly leaves as Cristina explains that if he heard the rumor she wanted it to be from her, and promises that they won't let it happen. Heather then runs up with a phone and tells Cristina they have a heart and lungs available for her patient -- UNOS seems to have a hotline to Seattle today. The news seems to have caused something in Owen to snap, and he declares he's going to take care of the firing rumor. She wants to stop him and deal with it herself, but she's stuck on the phone accepting her organs.

Stephanie and April are walking to their patient's room and Stephanie explains that it's a guy named Brad with end-stage ALS who seems to know a whole lot of fancy medical terms. April explains with a smile that Brad was a resident with her at Mercy West, who was diagnosed in his second year and kept working until his body just wouldn't let him anymore. Her reminiscing is cut short when they hear a thumping beat coming from down the hall.

Brad's room is the most happening hospital room ever seen, with music playing and a bucket full of beers on ice for the partiers. April turns the music off and shoos everyone out so that they can discuss his steps. She's not expecting him to have his own plan already set, especially when it turns out that plan is to donate all of his organs. While usually a donor needs to be brain dead, he has signed off on something called DCD -- Donation after Cardiac Death. His parents are there and help explain to the viewing audience that after his heart stops he'll be declared dead and then his organs can be donated while April gapes, especially at the news that Owen already signed off on this plan. She's not impressed when Brad happily declares that he'll be disconnected from the ventilator and then, "Boo-ya." He then welcomes her to his funeral, as he gestures at the music and beer.

Owen's method of dealing with it is to confront Jackson and demand if he's being fired. Jackson already looks like he's over his boy kinghood as he sighs and admits that the board thought a change might be good for morale. Owen rightly points out that he's been killing himself trying to keep up morale and then starts to yell about how he's been left out of every single decision that's been made during this entire saga. Derek overhears the fight and goes to try and calm Owen down, but Owen feels ganged up on, so he turns on Derek too. Derek finally sends Jackson away and tells Owen to lay low while they work through all of the politics. But Owen is done with laying low, and politics, and no one wanting to play with him, and starts screaming at Derek for being a liar, especially back when he up and quit. So the theme of this episode is that everyone is stressed out and no one can let anything go because dude, we've established full well that these guys HAD to quit or you guys would be up Pegasus Creek right now without a paddle. Owen growls that he's been trying to fix the mess they made, and since that's not entirely true and Derek now feels attacked, Derek angry-whispers that Owen doesn't want to get into an argument about who is responsible for the situation. Having that thrown in his face is the last straw, so Owen quits.

Cristina runs after him while he's getting into his truck and tries to get him to talk, but he's thoroughly over it and just tells her he should have done this a while ago while adding that Derek was right, this is all on him. They should just rename this place Order of the Martyrs Hospital and get it done with, sheesh. Everyone has been wronged, so let's all shake it off and move on, shall we? Owen clearly blames himself more than anyone else does but as long as others like Derek are heaping it on, he thinks he won't be effective as a leader. He then warns Cristina that there's an OR shortage so her heart/lung transplant could be postponed to the day. She is still more worried about him, to the point where she actually calls after him, "Sweetheart! Owen!" I was so thoroughly shocked by this that I watched it three times, and that really does seem to be the word she used. But it doesn't help, and Owen drives away.

Princess has picked up the hospital tradition of flirting in the elevator, and she and her extremely attractive boyfriend are having a flirtgument about whether or not, as an OB, he is a real surgeon. She eventually wins when she points out that he has to wear pink scrubs, and the two are having a sexually charged giggle when Alex barges in, looking for a patient named Jaelyn's parents. He ignores the introduction to pink scrubs, whose name is Jason, and then sneers that he's going to take the stairs before leaving them to wonder what exactly just happened.

Jackson pops his head into the other meeting and asks "Dr. Avery" for a moment; he's mortified when she lights up and calls him "Sweetheart" in return. Oh come on, Catherine, you know better than that no matter how important you are. She's apparently going over the hospital purchase agreement that will be signed that night, and wants Jackson to join. First, he asks her into the hall.

Once alone with Mommy, he hisses at her that he hasn't read the paperwork because the agreement is basically not even in English (it's also two binders thick) but she assures him that no one understands these things and that's why they have the suits there to explain it to them. Presumably these suits are trustworthy or we've just found the tragedy to befall the hospital. She tells Jackson to listen to what they have to say but most importantly to trust his gut. He agrees, but asks her not to call him "Sweetheart" in front of said suits. With the tone of a mother about to spit on a napkin and wipe something off of his face, she sweetly agrees but just changes it up to "Baby." Oy.

The Jaelyn to whom Alex referred turns out to be the teenager about to get a new kidney, and Alex found her parents and they all go to the dialysis room to give her the news. Her dad's head nearly explodes when they find her making out with the boy in the chair. She's very much a teenager, treating her dad like he's a moron for caring, but when she learns that she's getting a kidney she lights up and excitedly turns to the kid, Theo, to celebrate. Theo, while cute, pretty quickly proves himself to be the sullen boy of parents' nightmares and he can't be bothered to do more than nod and say, "Sweet." Jaelyn quickly tones herself down to match his blasé attitude. Oh Jaelyn, we've all fallen for Mr. Cute and Convenient. I can already assure you that you can do better than this.

The survivors quickly assemble for another meeting to figure out what to do now that Owen has quit, but really it's mostly just to yell -- Callie yells at Jackson, telling him this is his fault, while Cristina yells at Derek that he has to stop throwing the crash in Owen's face. Both Derek and Callie are mad at Cristina for spilling the beans in the first place but Cristina tells them that is done lying... blah blah blah blamey yellcakes. Meredith is still the calm eye of the storm but the others don't really follow her lead and when Cristina gets a page about her transplant, she leaves. Everyone takes a moment to marvel about how unusual it is to have this many transplant-related surgeries in a day and Arizona reminds us all that there's no transplant coordinator to actually organize them. Derek asks who had been handling everything and has the good grace to look a little bit ashamed when everyone yells at him that Owen had been coordinating it all.

Not to be left out, Bailey is fed up as well and goes after Jackson waving yet another binder. This one is full of all of the protocols put in place by Pegasus, and she wants to know if they have to follow them -- specifically, does she have to use the Varner Technique for her hernia repair later that day? I'm shocked that even though the sale never actually went through that somehow the protocols were not only put in place but are still somehow being enforced. Can that actually happen? I guess it can in TV Seattle, at least, because then we get yet more friction for this episode. Jackson had no idea these protocols even existed but tells Bailey they will look into it. April then runs up looking for Hunt so that she can yell at him about allowing Brad's DCD. She's shocked to hear that Owen quit, and not super thrilled that it leaves Jackson as the one person who can maybe help her out. But for now, no helping takes place and everyone flounces off to their own corners in a huff.

Cristina and Heather are talking to their heart/lung patient, an elderly man named Schultz. As they talk another guy shuffles by and sticks his head in so that the two of them can bicker and fairly quickly we realize this isn't good-natured so much as it's that they actually hate each other. The shuffler, Crum, is totally indignant when he hears that Schultz is getting a heart because Schultz is in for lung problems, while Crum is waiting for a heart of his own. He gets legitimately angry and won't listen when Cristina explains that Schultz's lungs are putting stress on his heart medical yadda yadda. Instead, Crum demands to speak to a supervisor.

Once the docs leave the room, Cristina explains to Heather that the guys are neighbors, and that Crum's husband left him for Schultz way back when. Of course, she then left Schultz for another neighbor, but Crum's still focused on the first leaving. Heather is scandalized yet thoroughly delighted by the gossip but Cristina has no time for it since she needs to arrange for Crum to speak to a supervisor. Tentatively, Heather points out that since she just helped buy the hospital, Cristina is her own supervisor. Cristina doesn't seem to hate this idea, and sends Heather away so that she can think.

Princess is standing with Mere at the OR board, indignant that all of her surgeries are getting pushed even though there's no alternative since they don't have enough staff available. Alex storms over and tells Mere he needs her to go pick up his kidney in Missoula and when Mere tells him she's busy figuring out the OR board, he gets his panties in a bunch and insults her for turning into an uncaring upper manager. Princess is stoked to learn that Jaelyn is getting a kidney, but Alex blatantly ignores her while he needles Meredith. Finally, bristling at the idea that she's possibly now the enemy, Mere tells Princess to book her a plane. Princess then manages to finagle herself a seat on said plane to go help harvest.

By Lauren S

April goes in to talk to Brad and is troubled that he won't hear her out about various other treatment options. He's remarkably upbeat even though it's obvious that he has a really hard time breathing even with the ventilator, and he's very sure about the decision he's made. He admits to April that the reason he worked it out with Owen is because he didn't want to waste precious moments of her life having the argument with her that they are having now. April just can't bring herself to really hear what he's saying and she keeps pleading with him to reconsider. But he wants to do this and do it now, before he contracts some sort of infection or something that would render the organs useless. He finally puts out his hand, and when April takes it, he tells her that she's fired.

Did Pegasus decree that every single piece of paper in the hospital would be put into a binder? Alex now has one which he is showing to Jaelyn as he tells her all about the millions of meds she will have to take and the strict schedule on which she'll have to take them. He goes over the possible side effects, which sound like the legal disclaimers they give at the end of pharmaceutical TV ads: weight gain, thinning hair, eyeballs falling out, growing a third foot, suddenly speaking Parseltongue... I can't blame Jaelyn for starting to look legitimately freaked out as he goes down the list.

By Lauren S

Cristina goes to the lounge where she finds April pouring over info on a Pegasus tablet -- seriously, it's like they left so fast they forgot to pick up their belongings -- and fretting over Brad and his refusal to listen to her plan. Cristina reminds her that he's a doctor and knows the score already, and then interrupts April's rebuttal by opining that she thinks what he's doing is awesome, saving a ton of other peoples' lives since he does have perfectly good organs that can go to good use. April rolls her eyes but Cristina doesn't notice, because she's just given herself a brilliant idea and runs out.

As Mere and Princess wait for their plane to take off, Mere calls Derek to fill him in on what is going on and Princess overhears him calling Alex a giant baby. Once she's off the phone, Princess immediately tries to defend him by explaining that he's defensive since he's feeling left out. Mere dryly reminds her that she speaks fluent Alex, thankyouverymuch. Princess was really just looking for an excuse to talk about him, though, and she fishes for reassurance that Alex is just feeling abandoned right now and he doesn't actually hate her now that she has a boyfriend. Mere has a nickname to maintain, however, so Medusa tells Princess that it could be that, or he could really just hate her now.

Speaking of Alex, he goes to talk to Jaelyn and finds that she's locked herself in the bathroom. Her dad tells Alex that she's a champion at the silent treatment and he's sure she won't crack. I thought that maybe there was going to be a twist that she'd passed out or died behind the door and that Alex would once again prove he has a hidden gooey center by figuring it out and saving the day. But then we hear the BEEP BOOP of texting and realize she's just being a frightened teenager with a jerky boyfriend. Alex knows just who she is texting and runs downstairs.

He finds Theo sullenly poking away at his phone; when the kid refuses to hand it over, Alex rips the phone out of his hands and smirks when Theo realizes he can't do anything about it since he's hooked up to the dialysis machine. Alex learns from reading the conversation that they call him "Dr. Douche Face" but this just makes him even less sorry for stealing the phone and he "borrows" it for a moment and goes back to Jaelyn's room.

By Lauren S

Heather and Cristina have gathered Statler and Waldorf together and Heather explains that they want to do a domino transplant, where they'd give Schultz his new heart and lungs and then take his old heart and put it into Crum's chest. Crum, however, wants nothing to do with his rival's ticker and refuses. Schultz is delighted at the idea that Crum would somehow be dependent on him, which only makes Crum more adamant that he won't accept the heart. Even when Cristina points out that the new heart would have 80% function to Crum's currently horrible 10%, Crum refuses and eventually he marches out of the room.

Cristina then gets on the phone with Mere while Mere makes her way to get the new kidney. Really, it's just a way for Cristina to tell Mere about the fight Derek and Owen got into earlier. She laments that the hospital is a mess with people acting like idiots and the OR board a complete disaster. Mere just comments dryly that it's been one day under their control and already the hospital is spinning out of control. With that, she arrives at the Missoula OR and hangs up the phone.

Before Princess can say anything Mere orders her to stop listening to her conversations. But Princess is now panicked at the idea that the hospital is falling apart, and doesn't seem to believe Meredith when she says that it's fine. Her fears seem to be justified when they walk into the OR to find the surgeons sewing up the organ donor, and no one having any idea why Mere and Princess are there or where their kidney might be.

Princess finds a nurse holding an ice bowl with a kidney in it, and proceeds to threaten her to within an inch of her life, demanding she hand over their kidney unless she has paperwork that proves it isn't theirs. Before she can actually pull out a scalpel and cut the woman, Mere runs back in and says that she found the kidney on a plane to Seattle though she has no idea how it got there. The nurse looks relieved to be making it out of this without serious bodily injury.

Leah looks over Alex's shoulder as he stands in Jaelyn's room and texts an emoticon of a bee and an ice cube. He explains to a skeptical Leah that this means, "be chill." Is that really a thing? I know I'm out of touch with the kids today, but it might be worse than I realized. Of course, Sullen Theo would never stoop to using emoticons, since he feels no joy, so this tips Jaelyn off to the fact that it's Alex. The good news is that she opens the door and agrees to at least have a conversation with him though she insists that it be in the bathroom.

By Lauren S

Alex tells her that she needs the kidney, but she admits to being freaked out by turning bald and fat because of the meds. And while Theo definitely affected her mood earlier, she's very clearly just a teenager who is understandably freaked out. She asks if she can take the kidney that comes along but Alex knows she needs the one that is here and ready, and so he thinks a moment and comes up with a story. He tells her how he liked a girl but didn't tell her that he did, and now she's going out with a dude with big arms. No, seriously, those were his words. Jaelyn worries that Dr. Douche Face is hitting on her but Alex was just trying to get to her using the only thing on his mind right now, which is Princess. He tells her that she has to take the good things when she has the chance or else someone will. Jaelyn is still a little confused by the tale of the dude with big arms, but she does get the gist of it and decides to go ahead with the transplant after all, much to the relief of her parents. And while the door is so thin you can hear the BEEP BOOP of texting clear as day, I guess we're all going to pretend that Jaelyn's parents and Leah -- standing right on the other side of the door -- didn't hear anything of their conversation so Leah can't just go and inform Princess of Alex's feelings.

He then calls Mere and is mighty pissed to find out that the kidney hopped a plane without her. No one has any idea what is going on, but he just barks at Mere to deal with it and then hangs up on her.

Richard comes across Jackson and his binders and asks if needs help, commenting that he seems a bit overwhelmed. Bailey is there too and gives him a bit of a hard time, but he promises to have an answer for her soon regarding her hernia repair. He's horrified when she tells him he's too late, and without an answer she just went ahead and did it her own way. Seriously, if these are Pegasus protocols, and Pegasus is no longer at all involved with the hospital, how could this get them in trouble? If a scalpel falls in the forest and no Pegasus is flying by, does it make a cut? Forgive me, readers -- I'm turning into a punchy lunatic from all of these questions and from having to recap hours of people yelling at and blaming each other for their various crappy situations. Cristina comes up so that he can sign off on the domino transplant, even though Jackson hadn't realized he's the one who signs off on those kinds of things now. April then joins them so he hands her the folder with the destination info for all of Brad's organs. She gripes that she was fired but Jackson is way too tired and just tells her to deal with it. Alex then comes up to demand what happened to his kidney, and it's clear that the hospital has turned into a complete and utter circus. It takes Bailey to solve the kidney puzzle -- she tells them about the Pegasus protocols and shows them that when a kidney is coming from outside a certain distance, it's to fly unaccompanied to Seattle to not waste any doctors' precious time retrieving it. So basically, the whole situation boils down to Pegasus being stupid and no one having an idea what's going on other than Bailey. Though actually, that part seems fairly normal.

Cristina, having given Crum some time to stew, then goes to talk to him and very nicely tells him to get over himself and take the heart. She tries to remind him that the whole wife leaving thing happened long ago, but Crum tells her with real pain in his eyes that it still feels like yesterday. Cristina accepts this, and comes up with a new idea -- if he can't forgive the guy, he should beat him by outliving him with his own heart. Crum contemplates this for a little while, and then, at Cristina's suggestion, smiles at the idea of dancing on Schultz grave with Schultz's own heart. This is finally enough to get him to agree to the transplant.

Brad, meanwhile, is explaining what is going to happen to his family: they will be in the OR and once his heart stops, he'll flatline and the alarm will go off. Once he is declared dead, the doctors only have five minutes to harvest his organs so the family will have to leave immediately. His mom, Hazel, is starting to falter as he speaks and asks him if he's really surely sure about all of this. She begins to cry as she admits she wants more time with him, though she promises to support his decision. April comes in with the folder and when she hears this, she starts telling all of them about the people who are going to get Brad's organs. Brad smiles at her and seems immensely happy and grateful that she gets it. She does, although she's still super sad about it. Hazel hugs Brad as April continues to tell them about all of the lives he is about to save.

It seems the job of figuring out the OR board is getting passed around and Cristina is the latest one to take a totally halfhearted stab at it. Derek comes to ask her if it's straightened out and she uses it as a chance to give him hell for continuing to blame Owen. Derek gets super defensive, of course, and basically whines that Owen started it so Cristina informs him that Owen fully blames himself already which makes it that much worse when Derek keeps heaping it on as well. Cristina is smart enough to figure out that there's something deeper going on with Derek so she tells him to figure his own shit out and forgive Owen already.

And now it's Surgery Time for everyone. April and Brad's family are all in scrubs and walk alongside him as he's taken into the OR. Finally, he nods and they get him all set while his mom holds his hand. As he's anesthetized, he smiles, ready for it. His parents, on the other hand, look gutted.

The unaccompanied kidney arrives at Seattle in a cooler, and Mere signs for it like she would an order of toilet paper from Amazon Prime.

Alex wheels Jaelyn to the OR while down another hall, Cristina is wheeling Mr. Schultz. There's a traffic jam when both of them try to go into the same OR, and it quickly dissolves into a snide argument about whose OR it actually is. April comes out to yell at them for being too loud while Brad is trying to die, and Jaelyn gets spooked and offers up the OR to Schultz immediately though Alex overrides her. Bailey comes up to watch the commotion as it dissolves into a complete screaming disaster. Finally, Callie walks up and yells at everyone to shut up while she figures out the board. Then Jackson arrives and thinks a moment before taking control. He sends April back in and courteously lets Brad have as much time as he needs to die. He then declares that heart and lungs trump a kidney, so Cristina gets the OR first. When Alex tries to argue, he shuts him up while Bailey looks on approvingly. She then backs him up and sends a glowering Alex away. Even Callie gives Jackson a little nod for his handling of the situation.

Alex is still in his brokenhearted bad mood when his surgery begins so he takes it out on Mere and Princess -- she asks to scrub in but he cuts her off before she even finishes the question and she storms out. Exasperated, Mere asks if he wants her to apologize for buying the hospital. She's sorry he thinks of them as his bosses now, but she reminds him that they did to for everyone, including him. She also makes a point of touting Princess rabid attempts to get the other kidney. She then warns Alex what he's been warned ten million times before: drop the attitude before no one wants to work with him anymore. I actually like Alex -- Joe R and I agree to disagree about him -- but I do think we need to come up with more storylines for him because we can only watch this cycle SO MANY TIMES.

Derek finds Owen jogging up near the trailer and winds up chasing him down with his Porsche in such a way that I worried he'd slip in the mud and run him over and we'd have our big, tragic story arc for the rest of the season. Fortunately, that doesn't happen and he just gets out of the car so the two can talk. Also -- isn't that trailer on Derek's property? So these two hate each other but Owen still lives just down the way? And if that's the case, how did he never stumble upon the others when they were coming and going from the McMansion for their secret hospital-buying meetings? These are questions for which I have no answers, my friends. Back to the matter at hand, Derek (rather grudgingly) admits that no one blames Owen for hiring the plane, and says that Owen shouldn't blame himself for it since he obviously would never have signed off on the company if he knew what would happen. He then rather patronizingly adds that it's time to let it go. That's the pot calling the kettle a martyr, right there. Owen points out that Derek obviously blames him, which he likes to point out again and again, but Derek finally admits that while he's been pissed off, it hasn't been at Owen. It's been at the world... and at Mark. I thought he'd then get into this a little bit deeper but he doesn't, so Owen just tells him he's got to let that go too. They stood up such that I thought we were going to get a hearty bro hug but no, this feud just ends with some ashamed grimaces.

Brad's time is almost up, so April gently tells his family that they should say their goodbyes now so that they can leave as soon as he's gone. But his mom used up all of her remaining self control in talking to him earlier, and when he flatlines and April calls time of death, she lays herself across his body and begins to sob and wail. The harvest team is waiting outside the door and April looks totally conflicted; she finally pleads that they need to leave or else Brad's death will actually turn out to have been for nothing. Hazel is caught up in a mother's grief, though, and doesn't seem to even hear April. Brad's dad watches her, seemingly unable to do anything on account of his own grief. Finally, apologizing profusely, April reaches over and pries Hazel away while she screams. Her husband finally helps her out of the room and with a dejected sigh, April calls the surgeons in. I don't usually get that emotional about the Patients of the Week, but this totally got to me and I found myself needing to take a wee sniffle break.

Once his surgery is over, Alex heads to Joe's to apologize to Princess. She's there with her big-armed boyfriend, but Alex just slides into the booth to him and proceeds to completely ignore him. He apologizes to her, saying he heard about her kidney retrieving efforts, and he thanks her for them. She's kind of shocked, and only turns more so when he asks if he can buy her a beer. By now, Jason is giving him a pointed look and echoes her answer that she is all set. Alex leaves, and even though Princess seemed more confused than enthralled, it takes her a second to totally bring her attention back to Jason.

Catherine and Richard are walking out, and she is crowing about Jackson's success in straightening out the OR issues. Richard admits he got through one day but still seems totally doubtful about his ability to succeed in the long run. He then adds that there's too much at stake for him, and it's not fair to put him in this position. Catherine freaks out and informs Richard that his parenting advice is totally not at all welcome. She stalks off as Richard apologizes but then after literally like two seconds, she turns back around and immediately apologizes herself. She admits that after 28 years of single parenthood (reminding me the backstory I had totally forgotten, which is that Jackson's dad couldn't handle the pressure of being an Avery and ditched them) she's been searching for a man who would care for Jackson like a parent and then when someone did, she just nearly killed him for it. Richard takes her hand and assures her that she'll always know what's best for her son. Thank goodness. Catherine was kind of out of her mind this week, but I love the two of them together so much.

By Lauren S

Jackson, meanwhile, is back at the head of the table but looking much more in control as some random dude hands out papers for everyone to sign. Once that is done, they are officially the new board of directors and the hospital is theirs. Everyone gets up to leave but Jackson calls them back because he'd like to discuss the top priorities. Callie gets in another dig about his mom and the board, but he insists that these are his own thoughts. Mere gets everyone to sit back down, and Jackson begins. First, he wants to reinstate Owen as Chief, and Owen has already agreed to it. , they are going to reopen the ER and get their Level 1 Trauma Certification back. Callie and Arizona are now smiling, but Cristina still looks a little wary. Jackson assures them all that from here on out they will make the decisions and the HAF will follow their lead. He then tells them he has one more thing, and even Mere is worried that he might be pushing his luck. But he forges ahead and reminds them that as a hospital run by doctors, they are special and unique and should do all they can to be the best. With that in mind, he wants to rename the hospital. Fears about Harper Avery come up yet again but he says that the name he had in mind was to honor why they came together and bought the hospital in the first place and which will show just how dedicated they are to making it a success. With that, he turns over a notepad on which he has written out "Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital." He calls for a vote and everyone agrees, though a couple of them can't seem to find their voices over the lumps in their throats. Cristina still seems wary, but on board. And with that happy new change in place, we see that the hospital has accepted its own hot new transplant organ in Jackson Avery.

Lauren S is a writer who lives and works in Atlanta and can be bribed with pastries. She wants everyone to know: "The views expressed in my recaps and anything else I might write on TWoP are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer."