‘Grey’s Anatomy’ season 12, episode 9 reaction: Meredith’s life-or-death struggle; Jackson, April’s status

Tonight’s midseason premiere of “Grey’s Anatomy” was very fittingly titled “The Sound of Silence,” especially when you consider that there were definitely long stretches over the course of the hour where not much was actually said on the show. Meredith was attacked by a patient who was not of their own mind thanks to their condition, and most of the hour was about her recovery over six weeks. She couldn’t speak at one point, let along hear or understand what was going on. She left in the end with a new-found perspective on what life means and how we should not be afraid of using our voices to express ourselves when it matters.

The great news for Meredith is that it looks like she’ll be okay physically on the other side of this struggle. Emotionally? That could be a rather different story. She has to come to terms with how so many terrible things seem to happen to her, but it’s possible that she and Penny now have a better understanding of each other after she really took responsibility for caring for her more so than almost any other doctor.

In talking about specific scenes, how about when the patient returned to the hospital to profusely apologize for what happened with his family, and Meredith seemed to understand and forgive him? There are few people on TV with this sort of inner strength.

In the end we’d say that this is one of the best midseason premieres that this show has had through twelve seasons, even though we do certainly understand anyone out there hurt over not getting to see much of the other characters … especially with it looking like Jackson and Avery are heading for divorce.

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