[Warning: The following post contains MAJOR spoilers about Grey’s Anatomy Season 21 Episode 8, “Hit the Floor.”]
It’s no secret that Ben Warren (Jason George) has had some major issues in his medical career at Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital. He was competent enough as an anesthesiologist, but as a surgical resident, he has often struggled to follow the rules. Remember when he was on probation for doing a C-section without the right equipment, even after the elevator opened for him to get help? Now that he’s back at the hospital full time, it seems his trend of agitating authority figures is going to continue apace on Grey’s Anatomy. Only this time there might be real consequences.
In the midseason premiere, the hospital deals with the fallout of Ben’s decision not to close the emergency department to traumas during the heatwave, which was a direct defiance of Teddy Altman’s (Kim Raver) orders. Sure, he was thinking like a first responder — and begrudgingly so — but he directly disobeyed his big boss, and now there are consequences.
After the dust settles on the day, and Altman has to play clean-up for another intern’s mistake, Ben approaches her with an idea that’s not altogether terrible. He wants to couple his firefighter knowhow with his medical training and update the emergency protocols of the hospital, which is somehow still unprepared for natural disasters despite everything that’s happened to its doctors over the years.
After Teddy offers a hard pass, he asks her to explain, and she puts him into his place without mincing words: “As much as you can’t seem to grasp this, you are a resident on a trial basis. You have no business devising protocols that you can’t follow. If I were you, I would spend less time assuming that you have a permanent position here and more time proving that you should have one. We’re done here, Dr. Warren,” she says.
Jason George did warn fans in an interview with TV Insider that his return to the hospital (and to Grey’s full time after the conclusion of spinoff Station 19) wouldn’t be smooth sailing, warning that Miranda Bailey (Chandra Wilson) has reason to worry “if he’s actually going to make it through the program” because Ben’s the kind of guy who’ll “risk his job” to do the right thing. And now it seems like he’s already got at least one strike against him where the reigning chief of surgery is concerned. To be continued…
Elsewhere in the episode, we learn that the gunshot heard in the midseason premiere teasers was taken not by any of our heroes, but by the convenience store robber himself, with Lucas Adams (Niko Terho) left suffering from some post-traumatic stress. Luckily for him, Ben is good at calming people down during a panic attack, and he helps him through it.
Also, Jo Wilson (Camilla Luddington) walks away without physical injury but finds out that the stress of the stick-up threatens to cause preterm labor. She’ll need a procedure to close her cervix, and as much as she hates the idea of a younger OB intern doing it, she needs it now. Link (Chris Carmack) is a numbskull about it until Miranda sets him straight, so all’s well on that front, too.
We’ll have to wait and see whether and how Ben will take Teddy’s advice to heart when next week’s episode finds him treating an unexpected crash victim alongside Dr. Ndugu (Anthony Hill).
Grey’s Anatomy, Thursdays, 10/9c, ABC
