Seal Our Fate

"When you become an intern, there's a ceremony where you get your white coat. Like magic, you're a doctor. My parents came to my white coat ceremony. I can still picture them. So happy, so proud. They say your life flashes before your eyes right before you die. The important moments. The moments that tested you. The moments that made you who you are. I don't know about my life flashing before me. I was thinking about my white coat and how I'm glad I have it on me right now. It's the moment my life started. Seems fitting it should be on me when it ends. A doctor puts on his white coat to save lives, defy death. But once he takes it off, he's vulnerable, just like anybody else. Human. We're all gonna die. We don't get much say over how or when, but we do decide how we're gonna live. So do it, decide. Is this the life you wanna live? Is this the person you wanna love? Is this the best you can be? Can you be stronger? Kinder? More compassionate? Decide. Breathe in, breathe out, and decide."

- Richard Webber

Seal Our Fate is the season ten premiere and the 197th overall episode of Grey's Anatomy.

Short Summary
The Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital doctors are faced with the devastation left by the storm. A giant mudslide in Seattle injures a group of first responders and citizens, causing the already shorthanded ER to spring into action. Meanwhile, Meredith is faced with a tough decision that will affect the life of a loved one, Callie is rocked by the reality of Arizona’s infidelity, and Richard’s life is in extreme danger.

Full Summary
Owen is walking through the busy ER. He picks up an empty chips bag and throws it into a trash can.

Leah, Shane, and Heather are sitting in the intern locker room. They're exhausted.

Meredith, baby Bailey, Zola, and Derek are still together in Meredith's room. Owen comes in. He tells them that the board needs to come together and he congratulates them.

Arizona and Callie are still standing in front of each other. Callie picks up her white coat, walks past Arizona, and angrily slams the door.

"April, you're getting married," Jackson says to April, who's standing in front of his bed. "Unless I'm not," April says. Stephanie comes in and she starts comforting Jackson. "I just heard," she says. Jackson looks at April, who leaves.

In the hall, which is filled with patients and their family members, Bailey asks a nurse to page Dr. Webber.

In the hospital basement, the circuit box is still sparking and Richard is still lying motionlessly on the ground. The page plays over the intercom.

The board members have gathered in Meredith's room, where Bailey is holding Derek Bailey Shepherd. Owen wants her to go, but Bailey says she has "Bailey business" to discuss with the baby and sits down on a chair. Arizona asks what Zola thinks of the baby, and Meredith says that she wants to take him to daycare to show him off.

Derek asks where Richard is, and Owen replies that paged all the board members. "Avery should be here too," Derek then says, and Owen tells him that Jackson dislocated a shoulder saving a kid from the bus crash. Meredith asks what bus crash. "She had a baby, she doesn't know things," Cristina says. Derek and Owen fill her in, and Arizona asks for the bad news. Owen says the blood bank is flooded and the ER looks like it was ransacked. Derek asks if they have to close the ER, which Owen advises them to do. They're dangerously low on meds and personnel can't make it. Meredith says that she may be able to coordinate with the hospital's suppliers. "I had a baby, I'm not dead," she defends herself. Owen tells them that they'll start with discharging all possible patients. "Like me!" Meredith says, but Derek wants her to stay in bed as she had major abdominal surgery. Jackson comes in to tell them that the airport reopened, and that he just put Dr. Boswell on a cab. "Who's Dr. Boswell?" Cristina asks. "She's the woman Arizona slept with last night," Callie replies.

Heather, Shane, Stephanie, and April wait outside. Owen and Jackson approach from inside and wonder why people are still coming, as the hospital is closed to incoming trauma. April says there was a mudslide, so there are multiple casualties coming in. Jackson asks about Seattle Presbyterian Hospital, but Owen says that they're even worse off than GSM. Owen asks for as many supplies as they can get.

Leah, dressed in plain clothes, tells Owen she was going to go home because her shift is over. She's hungry and tired and her teeth have stuff growing on them. Owen just looks at her and she asks if he can forget she said anything. He agrees and she turns around to re-enter the hospital.

Jo and Alex enter an on-call room kissing. Alex stops them and says he can't have sex in an on-call room because he's a grown up with a house. Jo reminds him that there's a tree in his house. They remove their tops and kiss again. Jo interrupts to ask him if he slept with Leah and Heather in there. She thinks she can't do it, but decides she can. They start again, but Alex gets paged. She says no one will die if he doesn't answer a page for two minutes. They kiss again, but she pulls back and says that now she's thinking about dead people, so they give up.

A paramedic brings in a patient from the mudslide, a man named Lenny who was helping an older woman out of her house. He says he's got 12 guys out there helping. He appears to have aspirated mud, so he is moved to a trauma room.

Cristina is in Meredith's bed and she says that she and Owen ended it and she feels like she's going to die. Meredith says they always end things and they'll start it again. Cristina wants to nap, just for 20 minutes. She's about to rest, but she brings up Arizona cheating on Callie and they both agree that it was shocking. She asks Meredith about the having two Baileys thing, but Meredith assures her that it's fine, because if she says Bailey peed on her, she's clearly talking about her son. Cristina tells Meredith to wake her in 20 minutes, but before she can even fall asleep, she gets paged away.

Derek is performing a neuro exam on an older woman. Her name is Lydia Ashford and she's worried about her house. Owen concludes that it's the same house Lenny mentioned. She asks if it's gone, but Owen says he doesn't know. He asks Alex to tell Lenny that Lydia Ashford made it. He shouts it across the ER, but Owen says he could have done that and he wanted Alex to walk over there. He apologizes, but he needs a consult.

Ross found supplies in outpatient surgery. Derek tells him to stay there and page Brooks to get scans on the lady. Shane says he can take her, but Derek insists that Heather do it.

Bailey says the mayor is on the phone and wants information on the mudslide casualties. She says she informed him it was too soon to tell, but he wants to hear it from Owen.

Bailey looks around and doesn't see Webber, so she approaches Shane. Bailey wants him to go find Dr. Webber, but he has to deliver a message from Derek to Heather. Bailey asks if it's life threatening, as not having enough general surgeons in the ER is life threatening. "Go find Webber!" she says. As he leaves the ER, he bumps into Cristina. She tells him that last she saw Richard, he went to check on the generator. He asks where the generator is. "How the hell should I know?" she asks, and walks away. Heather then comes over and gives him lidocaine. She wants to go to Derek, but then Shane says that Derek wants her to go find Dr. Webber. "You sure?" Heather asks, as Derek just paged her for a small emergency. Shane tells her that Derek wants her to go find Dr. Webber, and he says that Richard went to the generator. Heather then walks away.

Jackson is treating Sasha, a first responder. She is describing the scene and getting her leg caught under her car. She's asking if he can save her leg. He thinks he can, but he's more worried about her neck because there's a lot of debris in the wound.

A fire fighter passes and Sasha calls out to him. He says everyone's accounted for except Lauenstein, Phil G., and Brian. Brian is Sasha's fiancé. Tilden says that Brian will be fine and jokes that he's giving himself a mud facial for the wedding.

Heather enters the basement, where the circuit box is sparking. She sees Richard's motionless body, and as she steps closer, she steps into a puddle and gets electrocuted herself. She falls down and bumps her head. Her body lies motionlessly on the ground. Richard's eyes open and he watches her fall to the ground.

Owen and Alex approach Oscar Hallis, who has a concussion. Owen is more worried about his leg. Alex is going to hang ampicillin, but Jo stops him because the patient is allergic to penicillin. She reveals sharpie with his vitals on his leg. Owen says it's a military trick. He suggests an alternate drug and tells them to keep an eye out for allergic reaction. Jo says they don't have any of the cefazolin, but he just tells her to find some.

Owen makes an announcement for them to check for vitals written in sharpie and notes that whoever wrote it probably saved Oscar's life.

Arizona is working on a patient with Leah. The sharpie on his chest indicates that he's getting worse fast. His BP was better in the field. She says they need to stabilize his pelvis. They have the sheet ready and she and Leah begin pulling. Arizona tells Leah to pull harder. Callie comes up for information. Leah says there's an open-book pelvic fracture and a liver lac. Arizona says harder again, but Leah is afraid of making it worse. Callie takes over and says she can't make it worse because this is as bad as it gets. She and Arizona finish stabilizing the pelvis and Callie tells Leah to book an OR and get her Bailey. Arizona questions why she needs Bailey. Callie says she needs a general surgeon for the liver lac. Arizona reminds her that she's a general surgeon, but Callie wants Bailey.

Stephanie is carrying supplies when Jo comes up behind her and asks for cefazolin. Stephanie says they were hoarding it in OB. Jo wants some of it, but Stephanie wants a chest tube and a granola bar for it. Jo denies having a granola bar, but Stephanie says she has granola bar breath. Jo agrees to the trade.

Meredith, who has witnessed the exchange, asks what's going on. Jo says there was a huge mudslide and she has to go. Stephanie says there are a lot of crush injuries, but takes a moment to say Meredith's baby is cute. Meredith still thought the ER was closed, so she is confused.

Downstairs, Shane gives Derek the CT results. Derek asks why Heather didn't do the scans and Shane tells him that she was busy, so he did it. Shane tells Derek what the scan showed. Derek tells Shane to have Heather continue to examine the patient, which upsets him.

Derek checks on Lydia, who is still worried about her house. Derek says he's more worried about her and says that her fingers are crushed. He calls for an ortho consult and does a neuro exam.

Owen enters the trauma room where April is working on Lenny Shulte. She reports on the patient's vitals and says it took a long time to find a chest tube. April tells the patient they're going to put in a chest tube to help him breathe and asks if there's anyone they can call. He says his wife. Owen dismisses the firefighters from the room. They insert the chest tube and Stephanie gets splashed with feces. Owen says the patient's colon has been pushed up into his chest. The risk of infection is high, so he needs surgery. Owen asks Stephanie to find Bailey to run the ER while he's in surgery with April.

Stephanie finds Bailey in the ER, but Bailey is disgusted by the smell of feces. Stephanie relays Owen's message, but Bailey says she's going to operate with Callie on a pelvis, so she can't. She asks where Richard is. Stephanie doesn't know, so Bailey says someone needs to find him.

Shane, in search of Heather, goes down to the basement, where he finds both of them unconscious.

They bring the two of them into the ER and Bailey gives report on their statuses. Brooks has head trauma and her pupils are unresponsive. As Bailey says this, Heather begins seizing. Derek steps in and rolls her on her side. He shouts at Ross, who is stunned, and they wheel her off.

Bailey continues to work on Webber with Cristina.

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
 * Camilla Luddington as Dr. Jo Wilson
 * Gaius Charles as Dr. Shane Ross
 * Jerrika Hinton as Dr. Stephanie Edwards
 * Tessa Ferrer as Dr. Leah Murphy
 * Patrick Dempsey as Dr. Derek Shepherd

Guest Stars

 * Veronica Cartwright as Lydia Ashford
 * Tina Majorino as Dr. Heather Brooks
 * Heather Hemmens as Sasha
 * Bobby Campo as Brian

Co-Starring

 * Josh Clark as Lenny Shulte
 * Milda Dacys as Marla Shulte
 * Bobby Neely as Tilden
 * Alexander Wraith as Oscar Hallis
 * Aaron Scotti as Firefighter
 * Payton Silver as Dr. Knox
 * Kate Mines as Nurse Gloria
 * Grace Rowe as Paramedic
 * Brent Alan Henry as Paramedic #2
 * Eve & Elle Tanz as Derek Bailey Shepherd

Notes and Trivia

 * This episode scored 9.27 million viewers, making it the least watched season premiere in the show's history.
 * This episode's title originated from the song Seal Our Fate, originally sung by Gloria Estefan.
 * The table read for this episode took place on Monday, July 15, 2013.
 * This episode and the next one form a two-hour premiere.
 * Season 10 starts exactly were season nine left off.