Perfect Storm

"I had this badass professor in med school. She seemed invincible. Then, one day, she needed her gallbladder out. And the surgery killed her. Her platelets stopped clotting, she bled out on the table. Everything that could have gone wrong, did go wrong. Surgeons have a name for it. We call it a "perfect storm". Funny. Never thought it would happen to me. There's an end to every storm. Once all the trees have been uprooted, once all the houses have been ripped apart, the wind will hush, the clouds will part, the rain will stop. The sky will clear in an instant and only then, in those quiet moments after the storm, do we learn who was strong enough to survive it."

- Meredith Grey

Perfect Storm is the second part of the Season 9 finale and the 196th overall episode of Grey's Anatomy.

Short Summary
Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital enters crisis mode as the storm rages, resources become scarce, and patients flood in by the busload. Meanwhile, one of the doctors fights for their life.

Full Summary
As the perfect storm continues raging over Seattle, Derek and Cristina are running through a completely dark hallway at the hospital. Meanwhile, Meredith's voice over talks about the "perfect storm" in medicine, which is when everything that can go wrong, goes wrong. "Funny. I never thought it would happen to me," she says.

Five hours earlier...

In the elevator to the roof, Owen explains to Ethan that he and his dad are going to be moved to a safer hospital. Ethan asks him to come too, but Owen says he's needed here. The elevator arrives and medivac guys tell them to wait, as they'll send a gurney down. When Ethan is transported to the helicopter, Cristina asks Owen if he was planning on telling her he wanted to adopt Ethan. He tries to brush her, saying it didn't happen. "Owen, you want kids," she says. Owen says it's only about Ethan in particular. "The fact that you weren't lying to yourself, doesn't make me feel better about you lying to me," she says. Owen says he's not lying about loving her and wanting to spend his life with her. Cristina thinks he'll one day look at her and only see the thing she couldn't give him. As the medivac guy brings in the gurney, Cristina gets a page.

In Meredith's room, Derek is comforting his wife, who's in labor. Cristina comes in, and the light flicker. While Cristina repeats to Derek everything that Meredith says, he goes off to get Meredith ice chips and find their OB/GYN. Meredith asks Cristina to tell her about Owen, as this helps her with the pain.

Shane and Ben are in the OR, waiting for Bailey to get ready to operate on a man who was cleaning his gutters during hurricane-force winds, which will be the first time she'll operate ever since the infection. As she's ready, Bailey says she can't do it and leaves.

In the ER, Jackson and Owen are worried about the hospital, as the light constantly flicker. Frank, the hospital maintenance guy, tells them to worry about the patient as he'll make the hospital his patient. Richard agrees with Owen that a lot of people came to the hospital to sit out the storm while they're not eving sick. April is still getting used to wearing her engagement ring and Callie suggests she pin it to her scrub top, like she and Arizona do. Bailey comes to Owen, saying the patient needs surgery immediately and that he's already under. She asks for an available  surgeon. When Owen tells her she's available, she says she's not available to operate. The patient's father, Mr. Strickland, overhears her saying this and he asks if everything's okay. Richard, who overheard Bailey talking too, steps in and takes over. Bailey tells Hunt she wants to help in any way she can, but he says it's hard when she won't touch a patient. Callie suggests Bailey check on surplus blood supply in the ORs. Bailey leaves and Callie tells Hunt to cut Bailey some slack. Alex and Jo come in, and Owen asks what happened to Jo. "A tree," Alex says and they continue walking. Jackson comes to the OR with an incubator to transport the baby to another hospital. He asks Alex to help him. "I thought Arizona was overseeing this? Has anyone seen her?" Callie asks.

Arizona is getting dressed in the on-call room. Lauren, who's still lying in bed, asks her if she's okay. Arizona says the NICU is understaffed and that she should be there already. Lauren proposes to help out, but Arizona tells her not to and quickly leaves.

She arrives in the NICU and assures a worried dad that it's perfectly safe. Stephanie, who's on the phone with the ER, tells them that the evacuations have to stop due to the weather. When the lights flicker, Arizona needs to ease the worried parents again. She tells Alex, Jo and Stephanie to make sure the parents are happy and act calm. Suddenly, Lauren comes over, asking they need help. "Yes" "No!", Alex and Arizona says simultaneously. Lauren says she won't sit around when there's a room full of babies that need help and asks Alex what she can do.

Connie, the OB/GYN enters Meredith's room. Meredith asks if she can push, but the Connie says she needs to check first. She tells Meredith not to push as there is face presentation. She says they'll need to do a C-section, which Meredith doesn't like as she didn't want to have surgery. While Cristina tries to ease her, the lights go out. Derek tells everyone in the room not to panic as the back-up generators will kick in any second, but they don't.

Richard is operating on Bailey's patient, in a dark OR. He tells nurses to find all the lights they can. Owen comes in with Frank to check if Webber needs anything. Frank says the emergency light should've kicked on. "Frank, when the generator went out in '06, you said there was air in a fuel system. Then you told me it would never happen again," Richard says. "Yes, Sir," Frank says. "Well, then maybe you should get your ass down there and get looking," Richard yells. When Frank and Owen leave, Shane managed to get the echo back on. Richard sees there's pericardial effusion, and tells to page Jeff Russell, but Shane says Russell didn't make it in because of the storm. He tells Richard that Dr. Yang is the senior cardio surgeon in charge. "Okay, then get Yang," Richard says and Shane runs off.

Cristina asks Connie if she can't just reposition the baby, but Connie says that's risky for both Meredith and the baby. Shane comes in, and tells her Richard needs her on the OR. "To do what? I can't operate in the dark. No one is  operating the dark," Cristina says, to Dr. Ryan as well. Meredith tells Cristina to go. Before leaving, Cristina tells Shane to keep her updated on Meredith. Dr. Ryan assures them a vaginal delivery is not an option as it may be fatal, and tells them the C-section won't endanger either of them. "We're having a C-section in the dark," Meredith decides.

In the NICU, Alex tries to get back to the conversation he had with Jo before the tree crashed into his house. Suddenly, Arizona comes over and asks Alex to discretely check the monitor behind her. There's a red light, which means the battery is running low. "Oh crap," Alex says. Arizona urges them to keep smiling so they won't alarm the parents. They all put up a fake smile. She asks Jo to slowly casually check the drawer where they keep the spare batteries, but it turns out there are no batteries in there.

In the OR, someone comes in with blood for the patient. "Thank you, nurse!" Richard says. He then sees it's Bailey and apoligizes, but she leaves without really listening. Ben and Richard both confess that their attempts to get Bailey back to the OR didn't work. Cristina, after having taken a look at the echo, says she needs to open up the patient to find out where exactly the blood is exiting the heart, but she refuses to open up the patient under the current circumstances. Richard says she helped teaching the Syrian doctors how to operate under these conditions and he convinces her to do it by telling her details about the patient's life.

"You two own the hospital. Can I request that ORs will be stocked with more than one flashlight in the future?" Dr. Ryan asks. "Get this baby out of me safely and you can have whatever you want," Meredith replies. While Meredith and Derek are talking baby names, Heather comes in. She says she was asked by Owen to go to the ORs to tell the staff that Frank is trying to fix the emergency lights. Shane tells her they need help with the flashlights they're using to light Meredith's belly and gives one to Heather. Derek, who's sitting next to Meredith to calm her down, tells Connie not to mess up. She tells him to sit down and let her work, and starts cutting. In the hospital, the doctors and interns are doing their best to make their patients comfortable in the hall, when right outside the doors a runaway bus flips over, crashes and catches fire. April, Owen, Callie, Miranda, Jackson, Leah and Matthew run outside to help the passangers. Helped by others, they rush to get them out of the wreckage and inside the hospital before the bus will explode due to a gas leak. Owen instructs Bailey to handle an emergency triage, while he and Jackson go inside the flipped bus to help another passenger.

In the dark OR, Dr. Ryan delivers Meredith and Derek's baby. Meredith worries when she doesn't hear him crying. Soon enough, there's crying and Derek shows their son to Meredith. He then hands his son back to the nurses because his breathing is low. Dr. Ryan assures them it's not uncommon and that the baby will be brought to the NICU to make sure everything is okay. Meredith instructs Derek not to leave their baby's side to make sure he's okay, and Derek instructs the same thing to Heather and Shane.

In a supply closet, Arizona and Alex are looking for batteries with no luck. Arizona blames herself for not having thought about batteries and then confesses to Alex she cheated on Callie. He then confesses his love for Jo, and tells her he blames himself for damaging all the women he had a relationship with.

Bailey and Leah are looking for meds, but they can't open the electronic locks without electricity.

Connie Ryan is closing up Meredith, while teaching the interns to tell mothers of newborns positive things. When an OB nurse comes in to get Dr. Ryan for another patient, she leaves, trusting Shane to close up Meredith for her.

In another OR, Cristina is worried she'll kill the patient in the dark as she can't see where the leak is. Richard tells everyone to turn off the lights and be quiet and tells Cristina to listen to the heart, as she knows what a healthy heart sounds like. So she does, and she locates the leak and starts to repair it.

In the NICU, Arizona instructs the doctors to manually ventilate the babies when the machines' batteries die. Derek comes in with his son, and Alex takes a look. One machine dies, and Jo walksover to ventilate the baby while keeping the mother calm by talking about the baby. Stephanie and Lauren find two more red battery lights, and they assure Arizona they'll bag the babies all night if they have to. Suddenly, a worried father calls out to Arizona, asking if the red light is the battery light. His question worries the other parents as well.

Bailey comes back to the ER and sees the messy scene. Instead of jumping in, she goes back to "figure out the meds." Callie sees this and looks a little disappointed.

Jackson is trying to get a woman out of the bus and she's asking about her three-year-old daughter. Hunt says everyone is inside. Jackson and Hunt try to get the woman out of the bus.

Shane is trying to close Meredith up and Heather notices a lot of blood. Meredith sees blood coming through her IV and realizes that she could have been bleeding internally after her fall on the stairs. She tells Shane to open her up again and find the source of the bleed. He's nervous, but she's going to have to walk him through it. She orders him not to let her bleed out on the table. Shane cuts.

Hunt and Jackson pry the woman from where she was pinned in the bus, but she can't walk out on her own because her leg hurts too much. Jackson breaks the roof's escape window.

Arizona is managing the chaos in the baby unit and parents are outraged. They're all yelling at Arizona, with one in particular telling her there clearly aren't enough doctors to manually ventilate all the babies in the room. Derek, who is there with his new baby, tells them all to shut up. He says that while they're right that there aren't enough doctors in the room, there are enough people. Jo jumps in and explains that it's easy. She shows some parents how to do it, and they seem to get it. Arizona looks impressed. Alex looks on with eyes that show he's in love with Jo.

Shane finds the spleen is the source of Meredith's bleeding. She talks him through immobilizing it, assessing the bleeding, and stopping the hemorrhage. She tells him this is his OR and he needs to do this confidently. She can't walk him through it completely because she's going to lose consciousness. She tells him, too, that if she arrests for more than nine minutes he cannot revive her. She asks him to confirm that he understands her wishes. He says nothing. She persists. Finally, he says, "Yes, Dr. Grey." She then tells him to tell Derek she knows "the baby's name is" She can't finish before she loses consciousness.

After surgery, Cristina tells Webber he made her a better doctor. She thanks him. She goes to check on Meredith. Ben comes over and tells Webber that he sees what Bailey means when she says that he can "pull greatness right out of people."

Bailey is still struggling to get the meds cabinet open. Heather comes in and asks Bailey to come with Meredith. Bailey freezes for a moment, then grabs an IV stand and beats the locked medicine cabinet until it breaks opens. Heather and Leah are stunned.

"Don't just stand there, get the meds," Bailey tells them, before turning to Heather and saying, "Let's go."

Hunt wheels the woman from the bus into the hospital, but Jackson sees a tiny shoe and decides to look for the little girl. He looks in another part of the bus and sees the girl sitting there, frozen. She looks at him, but won't come to him, and it's unclear whether Jackson can fit into the space where she's sitting.

Bailey is scrubbing in while Shane tells her he can't control the bleeding. She asks for a second set of latex gloves before stepping in.

Jackson keeps trying to coax the little girl out of the bus, but she won't come. Hunt, Callie and April look on as the bus explodes.

Derek is with the baby when Cristina comes to get him. The look on her face says it all. Now we're back to where the episode started and Cristina and Derek are running down the dark hallway.

April screams for Jackson and, finally, he emerges from the rain and smoke with the little girl in his arms. He walks past April to hand the girl to her mother, who cries and thanks Jackson as she hugs her child. April cries and Matthew puts an arm around her shoulder.

Webber looks around in the basement for Frank, the hospital maintenance man who went to check on the electrical system. He finds Frank slumped on the ground next to the circuit box and starts trying to revive him.

Callie checks Jackson out for any injuries when April comes in and hits him, shouting at him, "You could've died!" Callie tells April to take a walk, and April leaves, crying. She runs by Matthew, who seems to understand that her behavior indicates she is not over Jackson.

Derek and Cristina stand and talk sullenly about the baby, but Derek is worried about Meredith.

"Hey, Meredith Grey has survived a bomb, a drowning, a gunman, and a plane crash, and she's still here," Crsitina tells him. "She's going to die when she's, like, 90. Old and warm in her bed. She's not going to die today. Today, she's going to be fine."

"I hope so," Derek says.

"She has to be," Cristina says. "She's our person."

Bailey comes out and tells Derek and Cristina that Meredith had a massive bleed in her spleen.

"I removed it, but" Bailey can't finish before she breaks down crying. Inside the OR, Shane tells Derek and Cristina that Meredith is fine. Bailey fixed her and Heather notes that Shane assisted. Bailey thought it'd be better for Meredith to recover in the OR. Bailey comes back in and apologizes for crying and Derek gives her a big hug.

Webber gets Frank sent up for treatment. Frank tells Webber he was right about what had gone wrong. Webber apologizes for having yelled at him and sends him on his way. Frank tells Webber he fixed the problem, he just has to flip the transfer switch. Webber goes looking for it.

Meanwhile, Alex is still looking at Jo from afar and Arizona tells him that Jo did great and must have a great teacher. Lauren comes over to Arizona and asks if they're going to talk. Arizona says she made a mistake but doesn't want to talk about it right now. Lauren says she's not going to leave things like this. She tells Arizona that if she changes her mind … but Callie walks up and interrupts Lauren mid-sentence. The lights come back on and everyone breathes a sigh of relief. Then, Callie notices Arizona's ring is pinned to Lauren's scrub top. Lauren stammers through an explanation of how a baby vomited on her and Arizona "was nice enough to let me borrow some scrubs." Callie is stone faced, not buying it, and looks stunned as her eyes meet Arizona's.

Alex finds Jo staring out the window and they talk about the tree that came through the window. He says he has to tell her something, but she stops him. She says they "work as friends" so well, she doesn't want to mess it up and that she always does. He tells her he's going to say the words, right now. He finally says, "I love you." She smiles and they kiss. A lot.

April finds Jackson in his ER bed. She steps inside and closes the curtains behind her. She tells him she wants him. She starts to cry, saying she hasn't been fair to him and she's hurt him, but when the bus exploded and she thought he was gone … She can't finish. "You're getting married," he reminds her. "Unless you give me a reason not to," she says.

Cristina finds Hunt and asks him if he knows how much she loves him. She tells him how much joy she felt in the OR when she felt that heart. She tells him she's "made for the OR," and that's where she feels "pure joy, content." She asks him if he feels that with just her. "What kind of a question is that?" he asks. She goes on and asks him to listen to his heart. She presses him more and asks him if he really believes that she'll "be enough." She tears up and he does, too. "I wish it were different," she says, then adding, "It already happened." She walks out with tears in her eyes.

Callie, meanwhile, is yelling at Arizona, saying she thought they were past the hard stuff: "I thought we were finally good." She cries while asking Arizona how she could do this. They have a massive shouting match that goes back to the plane crash. Callie refers to "everything we've survived the bankruptcy, Mark, the plane." Arizona snaps back that Callie wasn't on the plane. "You weren't there and you keep acting like you were, but you weren't there!"

"I lost Mark, and you almost died," Callie replies, but Arizona shouts back, "You weren't on the freakin' plane! You want it? The street creed, the badge on honor, the warrior wounds? Then, great, stick out your leg and I will grab a bow saw and let's even the freakin' score!" Arizona cries again that Callie decided to cut off her leg. Callie says it was to save Arizona's life, but Arizona says, "You didn't lose anything!" "Apparently I lost you," Callie says.

Meredith asks Derek what he thinks about Bailey, as a name for the baby. He loves it. Cristina sees them through the window, smiles, and then walks away.

Ben finds Bailey and tells her he couldn't be more impressed. She's in a hurry, though. She says she needs to talk to Webber because he tried to help her and she called him a drunk. She says she owes him everything. "Now, do you know where he is?" she asks Ben.

In the last scene of the season, we see the circuit box sparking and the camera slowly pans across Webber's motionless body, his lab coat burned and smoldering.

Main Cast

 * Ellen Pompeo as Dr. Meredith Grey
 * Sandra Oh as Dr. Cristina Yang
 * Justin Chambers as Dr. Alex Karev
 * Chandra Wilson as Dr. Miranda Bailey
 * James Pickens, Jr. as Dr. Richard Webber
 * Sara Ramírez as Dr. Callie Torres
 * Kevin McKidd as Dr. Owen Hunt
 * Jessica Capshaw as Dr. Arizona Robbins
 * Sarah Drew as Dr. April Kepner
 * Jesse Williams as Dr. Jackson Avery
 * Patrick Dempsey as Dr. Derek Shepherd

Guest Stars

 * Hilarie Burton as Dr. Lauren Boswell
 * Jason George as Dr. Ben Warren
 * LisaGay Hamilton as Dr. Connie Ryan
 * Camilla Luddington as Dr. Jo Wilson
 * Gaius Charles as Dr. Shane Ross
 * Tina Majorino as Dr. Heather Brooks
 * Blue Deckert as Frank
 * Justin Bruening as Paramedic Matthew
 * Jerrika Hinton as Dr. Stephanie Edwards
 * Tessa Ferrer as Dr. Leah Murphy
 * Michael Buie as Paul Dawson
 * Angela Lin as Barbara Yu

Co-Starring

 * Craig Blair as Tim
 * Christine Weatherup as Crystal
 * Jeris Lee Poindexter as Mr. Strickland
 * Nicole J. Butler as Jess
 * Jason E. Kelley as Chuck
 * Catia Ojeda as Allie
 * Kyle Red Silverstein as Ethan Dawson
 * Ludwig Manukian as Bus Driver
 * Casey Corn as OB Nurse
 * Curtis Walker as Medivac Guy
 * Ella Jay Basco as Evie

NICU Babies
The babies in the NICU, including Bailey Grey Shepherd, all needed to be ventilated. When the back-up generators of the hospital broke down, there was no electricity anymore. After the batteries of the machines died one by one, the doctors in the NICU were forced to ventilate the babies manually, using bag valve masks. However, when more batteries died, there weren't enough doctors available, so the babies' parents had to step in. Jo Wilson then taught them how to use the bag valve masks, and all parents successfully ventilated their babies.
 * Diagnosis: Various
 * Doctors:
 * Arizona Robbins (pediatric surgeon)
 * Alex Karev (pediatric surgeon)
 * Stephanie Edwards (surgical intern)
 * Jo Wilson (surgical intern)
 * Lauren Boswell (craniofacial surgeon)
 * Treatment: Ventilation

Notes and Trivia

 * This episode's title originated from the song Perfect Storm, originally sung by Evidence.
 * This episode scored 8.99 million viewers.
 * Shonda Rhimes previously revealed on her Twitter page that she didn't consider the season 9 finale to be a catastrophe. However, she later tweeted that she had a big discussion about the season finale with the other Grey's Anatomy writers and that everything turned around.
 * This episode is the second part of a two-part season finale, the first part being Readiness is All.
 * On Twitter, the official hashtag #TheStormIsComing was introduced for this episode.
 * The way Meredith tells Shane how to perform the surgery is reminiscent of how Violet instructed Katie Kent on how to cut Lucas out of her womb.

Quotes

 * Callie: I thought … I thought we were past the hard stuff. I thought... I thought we were finally good!
 * Arizona: We were. We … we are.
 * Callie: We're married!
 * Arizona: I know.
 * Callie: We … Oh God, we have a child!
 * Arizona: I know …
 * Callie: How could you do this?
 * Arizona: I don't–I don't know..Except I did...
 * Callie: After all that's happened this year, everything we've been through, everything we survived. The bankruptcy, Mark, the plane, ...
 * Arizona: Oh! You weren't on the plane, Callie! You weren't in the woods and you did not hear Meredith crying for Lexie and Mark moaning in pain or hearing me scream in pain. You weren't there and you keep acting like you were, but you weren't! But it wasn't your experience!
 * Callie: I lost Mark. You almost died!
 * Arizona: I lost Mark and you almost died. (screaming) You weren't on the freakin' plane! You want it? The street cred, the badge of honor, the warrior wounds? Then great, stick out your leg and I will go grab a bone saw and let's even the score! (crying) Oh...
 * Callie: (shocked) It always comes back to the leg?
 * Arizona: I trusted you, more than anything, more than anyone, in my life. And you decided to cut it off.
 * Callie: (screaming) To save your life!
 * Arizona: You didn't lose anything! I did! I did.
 * (They both are silent for a couple of seconds.)
 * Callie: Apparently, I lost you.


 * Derek: Maybe you should get back in the bed.
 * Cristina: Wanna go back to bed?
 * Meredith: No.
 * Cristina: She says no.
 * Derek: What do you need? Water? A bouncy ball?
 * Meredith: Ice chips.
 * Cristina: She says ice chips.
 * Derek: Are you gonna do this the whole time?
 * (Cristina nods.)


 * Cristina: Do you know how much I love you?
 * Owen: I do
 * Cristina: I felt such joy today in that dark OR. I could hear the blood moving, I knew exactly what the heart muscle was thinking and I realized after, I feel that way all the time. I'm made for the OR. Even the boring procedures, I can feel pure joy. Content. You feel that with just me?
 * Owen: What kind of a question is that?
 * Cristina: Derek watches Zola put apple sauce in her ear and he's enchanted. You felt that way with Ethan.
 * Owen: You're reading way too much into this.
 * Cristina: Okay, if you could stop for a second and listen to your heart...
 * Owen: Cristina, you don't know what I want in my life...
 * Cristina: Am I enough, Owen? Do you really believe I'll be enough?
 * (They are both silent.)
 * Cristina: I wish it were different.
 * Owen: No, no...
 * Cristina: I'm sorry.
 * Owen: Cristina...
 * Cristina: Owen... It already happened.
 * (Cristina walks out of the on-call room.)
 * Owen: Cristina, I said no!
 * (Cristina keeps on walking.)