Maya and Carina Pull a Callie and Arizona on “Station 19”
As far as I’m concerned, this was easily a Top Two Marina episode — and there’s a strong argument that it’s not #2. Despite my proud Love Is A Lie badge that I carry around in my wallet at all times, there is nothing that gets me going quite like an epic Shondaland romance. And last night Carina and Maya proved once and for all, if they were any doubters left, that they deserved to be listed among the greats.
After their last fake!first date ended with delivering a baby to a woman who had gone on a real!first date with Carina not too long ago, Maya and Carina decide to try again. Carina’s exhausted though, so they scrap Maya’s original plans and decide to head to Joe’s Bar. The very same bar where they first met (and yes there was a shot-by-shot recreation! It was perfect!)
At Joe’s Bar they encounter Helm (has anyone else noticed that Helm or Kai always show up like mascots when an episode is going to be especially gay?), who is bartending for a Bachelorette Party that going on now hour 17 of partying. Of course, the bachelorette falls and busts her face open, which leads to Carina and Maya tending to her.
While taking care of the freaked out bachelorette, Carina tells her that if she’s marrying the person she’s meant to be with, the bruises on her face won’t matter. None of it will matter. Her person matters. Maya agrees, saying that the day she married her wife was at once the most grounding and best day of her life. Yes, this is when I started squealing into my elbow.
The bachelorette party realizes that Maya and Carina are actually married to each other!! Prompting the bride-to-be to declare that they’re the hottest couple ever (correct) and that she now regrets marrying a man (also correct!!).
Then, in what I do believe was meant to be a stand in and shout out to the Marina fandom directly, Helm tells Carina and Maya that they are hashtag Goals and role models of what’s possible. Which, in another world, would maybe be too on the nose? But in this moment? Just felt perfect.
(Also it’s reminiscent of when Helm thought Meredith Grey was Goals, Helm is a queer woman who falls in love with unattainable women over 35 and that is probably the most authentically lesbian thing about her tbh.)
Ok so then Maya jokes that they really can’t seem to get through a fake!first date with out a medical emergency, so Carina, still all caught up on their love confessions from just a little while earlier, lowers her voice and looks at Maya beneath her eyelashes and suggests maybe… they take the date back to their apartment, and take a hot shower. You know.
You know that means they have sex. Extremely hot sex. Calzona Season Six Shower Sex, but Maya goes down on Carina whereas in ye olden days of Grey’s Anatomy the camera cut away, which probably means this is the hottest gay sex scene we’ve had yet in Shondaland. Thoughts? Let me know in the comments.
Later, safe and warm and in their bed, Carina worries that their shower sex Means SomethingTM that she’s not ready for it to mean, that being back in their apartment is too soon. It’s all too soon. The last time she was here, she was so hurt. Maya hurt her. Maya left her alone.
And Maya — ok this is when, an episode that already had me near tears from joy, and then for a while, lust, and now in absolute just, devastating, emotional honesty — Maya holds Carina, hair still wet from the shower, and promises her this: She knows that the day she was committed, the day she yelled at Carina that “We’re OVER” — something died between them that day. She knows that. But this? This part that comes next. This part that they are rebuilding? It’s going to be stronger, more brilliant, than everything they had before.
