Tonight on ABC their hit drama Grey’s Anatomy returns with all-new Thursday, January 30, 2020, season 16 episode 11 and we have your Grey’s Anatomy recap below. On tonight’s Grey’s Anatomy season 16 episode 11 called “A Hard Pill To Swallow,” as per the ABC synopsis, “Richard finds out Maggie quit Grey Sloan and is concerned about how she’s handling the death of her patient who was her estranged cousin.
Bailey returns to work after taking some personal time off, although Koracick doesn’t make her first day as easy as she’d like. Meanwhile, Meredith thinks she might miss DeLuca, and Amelia has an update for Link on her pregnancy.”
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Grey’s Anatomy begins tonight with Dr. Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) saying that more than half of the country doesn’t see the doctor as they don’t have access and a lot of others simply don’t want to. She is busy texting with Cristina as Dr. Amelia Shepherd (Caterina Scorsone) curiously watches her. She jokes that she wishes she could just stay in bed like Dr. Maggie Pierce (Kelly McCreary), but says she is going to face this with honesty as soon as she can. Dr. Cormac Hayes (Richard flood) walks in, and ties Amelia’s shoes for her; talking to Meredith about the coffee before slipping away. Amelia says Cormac is a very well wrapped gift, causing Meredith to untie her shoe again.
Dr. Jo Karev (Camilla Luddington) talks to Dr. Teddy Altman (Kim Raver) about patients, but she is more frantic about the fact that she lost her engagement ring, which was a Hunt family heirloom. Meanwhile, Dr. Andrew DeLuca (Giacomo Gianniotti) is interrupted by Meredith, who didn’t like being told to take some time to think. He reveals that one of his patients is not getting better after a simple surgery. She feels he should fill Dr. Miranda Bailey (Chandra Wilson) on it; before she leaves she whispers in Italian that she misses Andrew. He reminds her that he didn’t dump her so she doesn’t need to miss him.
Dr. Atticus Lincoln (Chris Carmack) joins Amelia outside at the coffee cart. Amelia hates this but promises him that no blood test will change the way she feels about him. He is confused until she admits that she is more pregnant than she thought, which means there is a chance he is not the father. She reveals it took her a few days to work up the nerve, but says she is talking to him first even though it might be Dr. Owen Hunt’s (Kevin McKidd) baby. She doesn’t need a paternity test to reveal that she loves him. She knows she has had time to process this and leaves him to give him time to think.
DeLuca greets Bailey, giving her an update on all the patients, revealing Dr. Levi Schmitt (Jake Borelli) is out on medical leave and he was busy. She is willing to help him with his lapi patient but they are interrupted by Dr. Thomas Koracick (Greg Germann) who learns that she went on some personal days. He demands that the next time she wants some vacay she needs to run it up the flag pole, especially by him!!
Bailey and DeLuca come to see his patient, Suzanne (Sarah Rafferty) who admits she has a little sore throat, but she wants to go home. She is told she can’t go home until she is fever-free for at least 24 hours. Her kids don’t want to leave her side as their father had a migraine and went to the hospital, but never survived; frightening them all.
Dr Hayes runs into Meredith, who has no idea what Cristina said to him. He learns they call the eR the “Pit.” A patient comes in coughing and he is vomiting blood, causing Meredith and Cormac to take him on as a patient. At home, Maggie tries to sneak up the stairs but her father, Dr. Richard Webber (James Pickens Jr) is at the door, refusing to leave. He suggests making pancakes for them as she definitely doesn’t look like she could go out.
Jo finds Link outside, who reveals what Amelia just told him about the baby. A man screams for help as he helps his friend, Chuck (Connor Tillman) who cannot speak as an entire fish is stuck in his throat, but his hand is also severely cut. Hayes questions the swim team about his patient’s bleeding but no one seems to have any answers.
Richard finds the kitchen empty as Maggie feels he doesn’t need to “forgive her” or “put her back together”; saying she doesn’t deserve this. She doesn’t want to seek therapy for being the surgeon who killed her cousin and being sued by her uncle. She is a mess and feels useless, mean and awful. She wants to go back to him never being able to look at him. He suggests they start with coffee.
Owen comes into the hospital on his day off, wanting to see Teddy, who blurts out that she lost the ring. He tells her it is okay, that the ring is more important to his mom but reassures her they will find it and look for it together.
Chuck’s friend begins to explain how the bar had an aquarium and they had all been drinking and began to dare each other to swallow the fish. Jo looks at Dr. Jackson Avery (Jesse Williams), swearing she questions their entire gender sometimes. They look at the x-ray, realizing that it wasn’t a goldfish as they decide to call the bar to find out what kind of fish it is. Chuck doesn’t want them to tell Roxanne as they promised his fiance he wouldn’t do anything stupid!
Suzanne is with her sister and daughters when the doctors return. Her white count is way up again and they want to monitor her one more night. They are not fans of hospitals, so Bailey suggests they do a CT now as they shouldn’t have to wait.
The fish is discovered to be a Bronze Catfish, which gives off a low level of toxin, but not enough to worry about. Jackson leaves the room causing Jo to wonder if Link is freaking out. She reminds him that Owen will want to be in his child’s life. Link says baby Alison is awesome so Owen has great genes and a great dad, so the kid will have like 8 parents. She is shocked they were even considering not doing a paternity test, so Jo reminds him that he can be mad at her and love her at the same time; causing Link to pause and think.
Teddy thinks she left the ring in the lounge, after showing Meredith the ring. Amelia comes in, joking that Owen is operating on a sink but Owen doesn’t think the ring is down there. Amelia feels a little dizzy, saying it happens with some anxiety. She sits down and Teddy joins her, but before they can talk, Owen gets a call that Leo just threw up all over daycare and they take off to check on him.
Cormac and Meredith wait for the scans to come through for their patient, giving him a chance to tell her that the other day got a little dark for him, asking if they could start over. She quickly agrees, asking how long ago his wife passed. She learns it was 2 years, saying that it is tough but it does get a little bit better. Scans are up and they find he has lungs of a 60 yr old smoker, not those of a young athlete. They are betting that he vapes, something his coach denies but his teammates reveal he does.
He shows them the scans, as they laugh that it is disgusting. Cormac orders them to get out of his face and tell the school that they are turning their lungs to rubbish. His father is told that his son is not dying and given medical options, as Meredith gives other options besides surgery. Cormac defers the patient to her.
Maggie tells Richard she just wants to be alone, but he is there to know why she quit. He admits the reason he couldn’t look at her is that he sent her in there and knew it was likely she would lose her cousin but wanted to give her a fighting chance. Maggie feels she wasn’t a lost cause but she died because Maggie made a mistake. She didn’t know the protocol was different; feeling she was arrogant and blinded by her own emotions and now Saddie is dead. She can’t go back into an OR and act as she belongs there after what she has done. She pleads with him to leave her, and he does.
Teddy and Owen check on Leo, Teddy’s feeling that Owen is mad at her over the ring. They see Leo’s scans and find that Leo swallowed her engagement ring. Meanwhile, Meredith performs the surgery with Cormac, who stands back saying he has performed these surgeries before and very often there is a rebleed, which happens almost immediately. He says they need to open him up but Meredith wants to put in another coil. Cormac tells her not to be sorry as they tried it her way and now they will do it his.
Jackson is still shocked at all the things he sees in the OR, where Link feels that Chuck could have simply been in the moment and happy. He didn’t want to let his friends down and put in him in an impossible situation. Jackson says if he only didn’t swallow the fish; causing Jo to look at Link.
Meredith and Cormac work hard on their patient, as he explains how the other vape surgeries went. He explains how he worked with another colleague who tried to save a patient too but didn’t get even as successful as Meredith did. She learns he is talking about Dr. Cristina Yang.
Bailey and DeLuca have Suzanne in the CT machine, waiting for the scans to come up. Tom finds them, complaining that he sees his chief working with DeLuca instead of getting herself back into the real world. Bailey closes the door and returns to what they were doing. Suddenly the alarms sound and a “Code Blue” is called; both working hard on her pleading with her to make it as her kids need her.
Jackson tells Chuck he was able to remove all the spikes but he will likely feel discomfort for a few days. Link tells him his hand is repaired and he needs to see them in a few weeks. He doesn’t know what to tell his fiance, but it is too late when she barges in and already knows the truth and angrily confronts him on his stupidity and lack of survival skills. She calls him dumber than a turtle, chicken, and frog. She reveals there won’t be any kind of tux as she wanted to make sure he was okay before dumping him. She confesses that her mother offered her $10,000 to push the wedding back a year; something she refused but now she realizes she was blinded by the sex and laughter. She is leaving him because this is not the life she wants because when someone keeps showing you who they are over and over again, you believe them.
Bailey tells Suzanne’s sister they don’t know what is causing the issues but will keep looking. Mei Li (Mia Lynn Bangunan) runs to her mommy who tells her she is alive and not dying. She isn’t sick like daddy was and these doctors are the best and smartest and they will figure it out. She looks at Bailey, asking if they are going to figure this out, something she promises they will figure it out. She tells DeLuca to create a war room as they are not going to let this mother die.
Richard brings food to Maggie, suggesting they hide the spare key under a better spare rock. She begs him to scream at her. She is upset that she only had family for one day, but Richard lost his niece and probably his brother and she deserves everything they are doing to her. He ignores her, continuing to cook and talks about when his mother died and how he was temperamental sometimes. His mother used to make him pancakes at that time, saying they should talk about it after he had something to eat. He is sharing that tradition with Maggie because he doesn’t have much more from his youth and her.
Over coffee and pancakes, Richard says he went over every second of Saddie and wonders what he could have done better or smarter. He says the family doesn’t operate on family and he knew better but he put Maggie there out of desperation. He knows she won’t make that mistake again. He reminds her that interns are human and imperfect like her. He wants Saddie’s legacy to be that her death taught her something years of schooling didn’t. He wants her to let her insurance settle with Chris; it won’t bring Saddie back but it will feel like he got some justice for her. He knows Saddie wouldn’t want her quitting on her life and saving all those future patients. Richard pushes, as he really wants to talk about Saddie as Maggie feels she really wish she got to know her.
Owen reassures Teddy that Owen is fine and will pass the ring. She feels awful as she couldn’t keep the ring safe for a week. He reminds her that at least she didn’t leave it inside a patient. She loves the ring, as he feels he shouldn’t have given it to her. He suggests getting her a necklace where she can have everyone’s initials on it to always be with her and they will put the ring in the safe, only coming out for special occasions. The two kiss, but suddenly notice that Leo has a very stinky diaper, Teddy more than willing to change it.
Cormac informs his father that Kai’s condition was too far advanced for the coil, so they had to do the lung surgery. It will be a difficult recovery and he will never be able to swim competitively again. His father is upset that he could smell the vape but didn’t do anything about it. Cormac says vape companies are targeting children and are evil. He finds Meredith, promising he won’t rub it in, as she apologizes. He tells her how Yang would give him little notes all the time; she says he is about right but ignores when he asks if she knew Yang.
Tom bumps into Bailey, who reveals to him that she wasn’t on vacation but sat in her house for 3 days, didn’t get out of bed and cried her eyes out as she suffered a miscarriage. She is sad and taking care of it. He suggests she light a candle, explaining that his wife miscarried twice; people think you just get over it but that wasn’t his experience and every year on what would have been their birthday he lights candles as those babies took little pieces of their heart that will never be replaced.
Outside is storming as Amelia finds Link who asked her to join him in the plant room. He says, “when someone shows you who they are, you’re supposed to believe them.” That hit him today, saying they are doctors and he should have known from the beginning if there were questions about paternity. She says she doesn’t think things all the way through and that sometimes hurts people, apologizing to him. He feels there are a bunch of people involved in this and they deserve to know as he deserves to know! He doesn’t know how he will feel about it, suggesting they take it one step at a time as they gather information. He is sorry for being the one to make her cry.
Meredith gets a text from DeLuca who tells her about Suzanne and that he doesn’t know what is going on and how to help her. She asks him to walk her through the entire case. In the meantime, Miranda Bailey sits in the chapel and lights a candle, sitting in one of the pews and thinking. Richard returns home to his wife, Dr. Catherine Fox (Debbie Allen) who learns his day was uneventful. She reveals she knows he didn’t go to work, as he tells her that he was trying to convince Maggie to go back to work and this is not going to work between them if she doesn’t trust him. She confesses that it is time for them to have a much bigger conversation as she reveals that it isn’t working between them.
THE END!
