Although Shonda Rhimes left many of her "Grey’s Anatomy" fans feeling sore and heartbroken at the end of season 11, she has already roped them back into the drama at Grey-Sloan Memorial Hospital with the first few episodes of season 12. With only five episodes out so far, the season has already been chockfull of emotion, drama, and action. The gaping Derek Shepherd-shaped hole in the show was weird at first, but Rhimes has used it to her advantage by focusing on Meredith’s new adjustment to life as a widow—coupled with heart-wrenching moments of loneliness and flashbacks to their happy life together, of course.
This season began with a tumultuous start, in terms of everyone’s love life, that is. We’ve got Jo and Alex going strong, but there are definitely some possibilities for problems in their future if Alex can’t commit to Jo as strongly as she wants him to. Avery and Kepner are a mess, and Kepner’s tough new militaristic attitude is really not helping the matter as much as she thinks it is. With Avery pushing for a divorce and Kepner standing her ground on the fact that they’re staying together, we’re all sitting here hoping they work things out.
Owen and Amy are still doing their weird song-and-dance, making us all just want to grab them and tell them to just admit their feelings for each other and be together already! Although, I’m sure I’m not the only one who is secretly hoping Yang will come back to help Meredith and rekindle her love with Owen—*sigh*.
Things are getting really steamy for Pierce though, with the handsome new intern DeLuca. They seem to be the newest budding couple and it’s adorable. With Pierce’s awkward-yet-endearing personality and DeLuca’s sweetness, they both seem like a very good pair. His good looks and charm could be Rhimes’ way of introducing a new McDreamy, but he has yet to earn his nickname—maybe McHottie?
The biggest shock of all came with the past few episodes, when Callie’s new love interest Penny finally made an appearance and it was revealed that she was the intern in charge of Derek the night he died. The episode where this is discovered is extremely tense, since she is brought to Meredith’s house for a dinner party as Callie’s date and Meredith recognizes her immediately, but waits until halfway through dinner to lose it and reveal who she is to everyone else. This is followed by a breakdown from Amy, then another breakdown from Meredith where she finally puts Amy in her place over the whole Derek situation. As if this episode wasn’t emotional enough, Rhimes throws some nostalgia into the mix by having Alex comfort Meredith, sitting on the floor with her and drinking tequila—in other words, being her person.
Although she’s tough, Meredith still needs to be applauded on how composed she is while dealing with Penny at the hospital.
In last week’s episode, tensions were high amongst everyone, especially Jackson and April, but it seems as if her manipulative way of getting Jackson to operate on a young boy with deformed hands could have possibly started to bring them closer.
On top of all of this, Jo and Stephanie are fighting, Bailey is Chief, and Penny is working at Grey-Sloan Memorial—as if they don’t have enough drama as it is. The start of this season is already so gripping and scandalous, Grey’s fans can already tell they’re in for a rough ride this season.
