Grey’s Anatomy Season 16, Episode 9 Recap: A Whole Lotta Shakeups Going On

It's fall finale time for Grey's Anatomy, which means viewers were probably expecting some bombshells — and they were not disappointed. 

Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) is back at work and she's pumped about it, right up until she meets the new head of pediatric surgery, Cormac Hayes (Richard Flood), who is a real piece of work. But it turns out he's an Irish widow who plays by his own rules, so obviously, he and Meredith are going to have a contentious relationship that will probably turn romantic. After all, Hayes is a "congratulations on not becoming a drifter-slash-getting dumped by a resident present" from Cristina (Sandra Oh). She later calls him “McWidow,” which is an excellent joke.

And DeLuca (Giacomo Gianniotti) may have just blown it with Meredith. He voices his concerns about not being Meredith's "equal" to Link (Chris Carmack) and Link tells him bluntly that he's not Meredith's equal. Nobody is. She's the best, and DeLuca is still just a resident. But that doesn't mean Meredith doesn't respect him, so he needs to get over himself and fix this. Does the arrival of Hayes mean DeLuca is too late?

Speaking of relationship drama, I said last week that it seemed like Catherine (Debbie Allen) didn't know that Jackson (Jesse Williams) and Maggie (Kelly McCreary) had broken up and it turns out that was correct. She was quite surprised to see Jackson canoodling with Vic (Barrett Doss) and was less than cordial upon meeting her — "Station 19? What is that, a TV channel?" That is, like, way harsh, Tai.

But really, Catherine is just lashing out because she's upset about Richard (James Pickens Jr.) and Gemma (Jasmine Guy) working together. She fumes over that at Grey Sloane, then goes to Pac North to talk to Richard, but when she hears from an intern that he's in his office "with his wife," she storms off and just assumes Richard is having an affair and not that it was a mistake on the intern's part — and honestly, it was kind of a dumb mistake and definitely some contrived drama.

What was not contrived, however, is the whole baby storyline this week. It is very well done and incredibly touching. 

It starts with Jo (Camilla Luddington), who decided, on the advice of her therapist, to sign up to be a safe haven volunteer and today's the day she gets a call from the Station 19 firehouse. She goes to pick up a three-day-old baby and it's a lot for her to handle, wondering how someone could abandon their baby like this. Ben (Jason George) is there to help talk her through everything, but it's still really hard for her not to let it upset her.

But that storyline dovetails nicely with Ben and Miranda (Chandra Wilson), who lose their baby. Ben is the one who tells Jo that the baby from the firehouse didn't get "abandoned" by her parents, she just hasn't "met" her parents yet. And now she can because obviously Ben and Miranda are going to adopt her.

Of course, it's still really sad because we aren’t at that happy point yet. It’s especially heartbreaking when Bailey A) can't be around Ben with his sad eyes looking at her like that and B) tells Amelia that the baby "is a girl" but doesn't tell her what happened, so Amelia just happily hugs her and runs off. Poor Bailey and Ben.

And also, before we can get to Ben and Bailey adopting the baby, Jo takes it home first. Oh, Jo. That is not going to end well. You can't keep that baby! You are not ready for that, girl. You gotta keep working on yourself for a while.

But wait! There's more baby drama! Amelia finally has an ultrasound — she was understandably hesitant to have one after what she found out when she was pregnant with Christopher and all the heartbreak that followed with it — but during her ultrasound, she finds out she's four weeks farther along than she thought. Know what that means? That Owen (Kevin McKidd) might be the father of her baby. Ruh roh.

Please don't let that be true. Please don't let that be true. The Owen love life drama is already so convoluted — especially because a beautiful new doctor just started at Pac North and he obviously hits it off with her. Not only that, but Koracick (Greg Germann) tells Teddy (Kim Raver) point-blank that he would marry her tomorrow if she'd agree. And Owen hasn't even proposed to her. Ugh, sometimes I just want Owen to go away.

Marriage isn't the only thing Koracick offers Teddy, by the way. He also just casually asks her to be his new head of cardio because Maggie quits. She has a heart surgery that goes wrong and is now in limbo, with a man having to be on the bypass machine until his heart (hopefully) starts back up again. It's too much like how she lost her cousin two weeks ago and she quits because she feels like she can't trust her anymore.

Hmmm. So will Maggie go be the new head of cardio at Pac North? Or is that what the new, pretty Dr. Lopez (Amanda Payton) was hired for?

There are a lot of storylines left up in the air and just when you think that's it... a car crashes into the bar where Ben, Captain Herrera (Miguel Sandoval), Jackson, Levi (Jake Borelli) and all the other interns are having drinks! It's surprising and intense and it'll all be resolved when the show returns with a big Station 19 crossover event in January.