It’s evening in Seattle when Season 21, Episode 6, “Night Moves,” begins, and Owen Hunt and Teddy Altman are sitting down to a dinner out together — or, they’re trying, at least. Teddy is responding to a request from one of her nurses about a patient when Owen spots David Beckman, one of Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital’s cardiothoracic surgeons. David re-introduces them to his wife, Dr. Cass Beckman (a new recurring character played by Sophia Bush), who is a trauma surgeon at Seattle Presbyterian. Almost immediately, both Owen and David get paged back to Grey Sloan, but they suggest the two women — who have met just once before — share dinner instead. Owen mouths an apology at Teddy as he and David leave their wives behind, unsure what their dinner together will bring.
Atticus “Link” Lincoln, who has also been paged, is getting ready to head out the door while Jo Wilson cleans around him. Both Scout and Luna are sick, and Link and Jo seem to still be sitting in the argument they had at the end of Season 21, Episode 5, “You Make My Heart Explode.” Not that sick toddlers are making that any easier.
At Grey Sloan Memorial, Jules Millin brings blankets from the warmer to the room of Chloe Yasuda, who is now in chemotherapy after her surgery in Season 21, Episode 4, “This One’s for the Girls.” Mika Yasuda is also there, sort of trying to sleep, and Millin has brought her a warm blanket as well. Yasuda has been working a lot to make up for taking time off to help Chloe after her surgery, and Millin tells her that she needs to get some rest.
In the Pediatric wing, Levi Schmitt stops by to see Ofelia, whose leg he and Lucas Adams saved in “You Make My Heart Explode.” He runs into Monica Beltran while leaving her room, and they talk about Ofelia getting ready to move to rehab briefly before Beltran congratulates Schmitt on getting the research position with Wilkinson, Beltran’s colleague in Texas. He hasn’t accepted yet and gets a little worried when Beltran tells him that he should take his time deciding. She reminds him that it doesn’t guarantee a peds fellowship, so she doesn’t want him to be resentful if it doesn’t work out, but that if she were him, she would take it. Before they can talk about it anymore, Schmitt gets a page from Richard Webber.
In the main atrium of the hospital, Simone Griffith finds Lucas Adams, who tells her that he has hit his 80-hour limit for the week and been sent home by Bailey, though he just plans to sleep in an on-call room. Benson Kwan joins them to give Griffith her choice of ER consults, and as Adams is getting on the elevator and tells her that he’ll catch her in the morning, Griffith offhandedly says, “Love you.” Both of them look stunned as the elevator doors close.
Millin is working with Winston Ndugu overnight, and is checking on Darren Riley when Ndugu walks in. Riley, who has been in the ICU since “This One’s for the Girls,” is still on ECMO, but that’s about to be over. Millin updates Ndugu, and then Riley says, “I did walk to the chair today, but I could also use a new lung.” “Well, how about I go get you one?” Ndugu says, surprising both Millin and Riley. He tells Millin she has the whole floor for the night and then leaves to go procure the band teacher a new lung.
In Webber’s office, he and Miranda Bailey tell Schmitt that they know about the position he has been offered in Texas, as they called to check that he was in good standing at Grey Sloan. He starts to apologize, but they’re glad they found out — it gives them the opportunity to present him with their offer, which is a position as a General Surgery attending once he completes his residency. The offer comes with a great salary, money for research, and several other perks, but they don’t expect him to make the decision right away. Webber tells him to think about it, and then Bailey suggests they try it out. He’s supposed to be on her service for the night anyway; now he’s just going to be acting as the attending.
Link has finally arrived at Grey Sloan and immediately runs into Amelia Shepherd, who asks him about Scout. Her final surgery has been pushed, so she tells him that she’s going to go pick him up from Jo’s. “That would be great,” Link says and then catches himself. “Don’t tell Jo I said that. She’s trying to do it all.”
Griffith is down in the ER, stressing about having said “love you” to Adams, and Kwan is not helping. He tells her that it’s going to be awkward between her and Adams because Adams didn’t say anything back, and then when Griffith hands her patient information off to Kwan and begins to follow Bailey out to the ambulance bay, he drops his voice. “Love you,” he teases.
Schmitt comes into the ER in dark blue scrubs and spots Taryn Helm. She gives him a hard time for having promoted himself, and then he tells her that he’s acting as an attending for the shift after getting the early offer from Webber and Bailey. Helm wants to know where her crappy research job that she can leverage for an attending gig is, but Schmitt reminds her that it’s clinical research, so not crappy. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do yet or even how James feels about it, but Helm tells him that she has zero sympathy for him and his decision. “You have two job offers and a boyfriend,” she says, just before Schmitt has to go running out the door to a trauma.
In the ambulance bay, two teenagers have been brought in from a concert venue where scaffolding collapsed. The 17-year-old girl, Joni, has an unstable pelvis but is otherwise stable and is very preoccupied with where her boyfriend is. Griffith and Beltran take Joni inside as the other ambulance pulls up with 19-year-old Vaughn, who has a penetrating injury — a piece of the scaffolding went right through his abdomen. It’ll be tricky to handle, but Schmitt is ready to take point.
Teddy Altman and the Open Marriage
At the fancy restaurant, Cass is having trouble getting the attention of a waiter, and both she and Teddy are struggling to find something they want to eat on the menu. “Honestly, I think the best meal I’ve ever had is when Owen and I shared a can of refried beans on flatbread.” Cass is surprised, though impressed, to learn that Teddy was in the military because she looks so poised and put together. Teddy tells her that she’d rather be in combat boots and a t-shirt — and would rather be eating a burger, so Cass suggests they ditch the fancy menu and go find some fries.
At the bar next door, over burgers and fries and several glasses of wine, Teddy and Cass share about their husbands, their jobs, and their children — and wonder why it is that their children’s schools send so many emails. At a certain point, Teddy reveals that she and Owen are scheduling sex, which is going about as well as it sounds. When she apologizes for the overshare, Cass brushes her off. Cass tells Teddy that she and David had similar problems several years prior and their solution was one that surprises Teddy. They opened their marriage, which Cass knows doesn’t work for everyone but definitely works for them. Before the end of the night, Teddy reveals that she has had a great time and that maybe what she needed was a break from Owen, and Cass misreads the situation. They share a brief kiss but Teddy stops it, telling Cass that Teddy and Owen have a very closed marriage. It ends the night pretty abruptly, with Teddy calling herself a ride home.
Amelia Shepherd Tries to Reassure Jo Wilson
When Amelia arrives at Jo and Link’s apartment to pick up Scout, Jo immediately assumes that she’s there because Link sent her. Amelia tries to tell her that she just wants to take care of her sick kid, but Jo is clearly upset about something and isn’t quite hearing her. On their way out the door, Scout vomits all over Amelia, so they end up staying a little longer. Amelia bathes Scout and puts him down for a nap before joining Jo in the living room. As she’s folding laundry, Jo reveals that she’s upset because Luna asked for her daycare teacher, Jessica, when she woke up sick. It threw Jo for a loop — she was already stressing about doing everything right and being the mother she didn’t have, so to hear her kid ask for someone else felt like a punch right to the gut.
As they continue to talk about Jo feeling like a terrible mother, she accidentally reveals that she’s pregnant with twins. Amelia tries to offer some congratulations but gets cut off by a crying Luna, and Jo leaves to see what she needs. While she’s gone, Amelia makes Jo something to eat — “It was going to be the best grilled cheese sandwich you ever had but I couldn’t find cheese so it’s… toast.” — and while Jo eats, they talk. Amelia brings Link up, and Jo admits that they aren’t in the best place. Amelia tries to reassure her, saying that she thinks he was always in love with Jo. Jo reminds her that Link proposed with three rings, but Amelia tells her that she thinks he was trying to force them into something because he was scared to leave. It’s supposed to be reassuring, a statement about how much Link loves Jo, but it’s Amelia, so it doesn’t come out quite right. As she leaves to check on Scout, the audience can see it on Jo’s face. Now she’s worried she’s forcing Link into something.
Two Teens Show Benson and Griffith What Love Looks Like
Joni and Vaughn, who’ve come to the hospital after a collapse at the Air Guitar Regional Championship, continue to ask about each other as the teams run through procedures in the trauma rooms. Joni has a fractured pelvis, so Beltran and Link take her up to CT while Griffith puts in the orders and waits for Joni’s parents. They don’t particularly like Vaughn, so they’re not thrilled to discover that Joni was hurt at an event for/with Vaughn, and when Joni’s father threatens to strangle Vaughn, Griffith has to tell him he can’t invoke violence in the emergency room and then shuffles them out of the room when Vaughn’s roommate, Gish, corrects the dad’s use of “idiot guitar mime” to “air musician.”
In the other trauma room, Hunt arrives to find Schmitt running point and immediately jumps in wherever Schmitt needs him. Vaughn begins to ask them to get a message to Joni, but his pressure starts to tank, and they have to rush him to the OR. Viewers might remember that Schmitt first came to Grey Sloan in Season 14, Episode 1, “Break Down the House,” as a “sub-i,” or a fourth-year medical student, and later was part of Grey’s Anatomy: B-Team. While observing his very first surgery, Schmitt leaned over the body cavity, and his glasses fell off his face and into the body, earning him the nickname “Glasses” for some time. In “Night Moves,” viewers will be able to see just how much Schmitt has grown since then. He runs the surgery well, guiding Kwan, Bailey, and Hunt through the process he decides on and even making a decision to try and save Vaughn’s kidney when he could just remove it — and then succeeding.
When I save a kid, I’m not just saving a life. I’m saving a lifetime.
Up in CT, Beltran and Link discover that not only does Joni have a pelvic fracture, but she’s bleeding near the fracture. Beltran takes the lead as they embolize some of the bleeders and then lets Griffith do some, allowing her to show off the skills she’s developing. After surgery, Vaughn calls Joni, whose mother takes the dad out of the room to give them privacy. Gish turns on “Alone” by Heart — “mood music,” he tells Kwan — and Joni plays an air guitar riff for Vaughn over video. Kwan finally finds himself amused by the lovebirds, which is good because they sure are sweet.
Millin and Yasuda Save a Life
Though she is supposed to be sleeping, Yasuda runs into Millin in the hallway near the ICU partway through the night. Yasuda tells Millin that in a “dumb moment of exhaustion,” she passed her cell phone number off to a patient who wanted a hot dog despite being on a liquid diet, but it’s more than that. Every time she closes her eyes, she pictures the worst outcomes for her sister. Millin reminds her that Chloe is getting the best possible care, and then their conversation is cut off by alarms from the ICU. Mr. Riley’s pump has stopped working. Yasuda reminds Millin that they have to use the emergency hand crank to prevent him from coding, and they get it set up just as they learn that it’s going to be several hours before a new pump is available. Millin’s phone continues to go off as there are no other problems on the floor that she needs to take care of, and she pauses, not sure what to do. To no one’s surprise, Yasuda steps in, promising to handle the crank until they can get a new pump.
You shook me up. In a good way, in a way I didn’t even know I needed.
Once things begin to settle elsewhere on the floor, Millin returns to check on Yasuda and Mr. Riley. Yasuda’s in a grove, and the patient is stable, but she wants to continue to help. Millin has done a lot for her, so she wants to repay the favor, even if Millin doesn’t need her to. Despite Yasuda ending whatever they were beginning in Season 21, Episode 3, “I Can See Clearly Now,” there is obviously still some tension and desire present for both women, even if they aren’t ready to admit it yet. Shortly thereafter, the pump arrives, but Mr. Riley’s stats begin to drop anyway. Yasuda and Millin jump into action, intubating the patient so that he can breathe, but that’s still not helping. Something is very wrong.
On a FaceTime call with Ndugu, Millin tells him what is going on and shows him an x-ray. Mr. Riley’s heart is herniating into the right chest cavity, which is an open space because his lung is gone. Ndugu’s call starts to break up as he explains what they need to do, but Yasuda catches an important statement — they need to pump air into his chest. She takes the lead, which seems to calm Millin down, and they’re able to pump air into his chest through a chest tube, moving the heart back to where it belongs.
When Ndugu arrives back at the hospital, he tells Millin that she did a great job. “I’d say 9 times out of 10, that man would have died tonight.” He offers her the opportunity to scrub in and perform part of the surgery — “after what you did tonight, you deserve it” — but Millin isn’t interested in taking the credit. As they head for the OR, Millin tells him about the role Yasuda played in saving Mr. Riley’s life. She is the one who deserves the praise. Ndugu asks Yasuda to scrub in with him instead, which she tells Millin she did not need to do. As Millin tries to leave, Yasuda spits out that she misses her, misses them. “You shook me up,” she says. “In a good way, in a way I didn’t even know I needed.” When Yasuda finally stops talking, Millin softly tells her that she wishes Yasuda wasn’t already scrubbed in, and Yasuda asks if she wants her surgery back. It’s not that. “I really want to kiss you,” Millin tells her. “Right now, for a very long time.” It’s sweet and sexy and exactly what the audience needed.
Schmitt’s Big Decision
After Vaughn’s very successful surgery, Schmitt is riding high. His practice night as a General Surgery Attending has gone very well, and he even tells James as much. “I’m thinking there might be more for me here,” he says when James asks him about Texas. “Webber offered me an attending position.” Plus, there is a guy, Schmitt tells him. James seems pleased, and truthfully, so does Schmitt.
Just a few minutes later, Schmitt is running to catch Ofelia before she leaves Grey Sloan for rehab. Her parents are there, and they thank Schmitt profusely for everything he did for their daughter. Ofelia wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye to him, and hands him a thank you card she made him with a picture of him fixing her leg in the helicopter drawn on the front. “So you always remember,” she says, nearly moving Schmitt to tears. He tells her that he wishes he had something to give her, but she tells him that he doesn’t need anything. “I’ll never forget you.” Maybe the decision to be a General Surgery Attending isn’t so easy after all.
The Night Shift’s Final Moments
As day is breaking in Seattle, the Grey Sloan Memorial doctors are beginning to deal with what happened on the night shift. Surprised and inspired by the love of two teenagers, Kwan calls his ex-fiancé, Molly, though he hangs up before leaving a message. Griffith finds Adams in the on-call room and tells him that she’s very self-assured and poised in the OR but around him her “entire brain scrambles” and sometimes she just says things. He tries to give her the out that she is tired and busy, but she cuts him off. “But I do love you, Lucas Adams. I love you. It’s okay if it’s too soon; you don’t have to say it back, but that’s how I feel.” Though his kiss seems to convey some of his feelings, it gets cut short when his phone chimes. As he runs out the door, late for rounds, he pokes his head back around the doorjam. “I love you, too.”
Schmitt finds Webber and Bailey and tells them how great his night was. He used to dream that he would be an attending at Grey Sloan one day, and he thanks them both for everything they’ve taught him. Then he tells them he’s made a decision. “I think I would really like being a general attending here. But, my love is peds. I love the highs and the lows and the goofy things they say. And that when I save a kid, I’m not just saving a life. I’m saving a lifetime.” They taught him to be passionate about his work, so he’s going to do just that — in Texas. Bailey and Webber seem disappointed, but they know they did everything they could to keep him there. “Go make us proud,” Webber tells him, knowing that he will.
Two minutes ago, I was asleep, and now you’re telling me that some woman kissed you?
Outside, Schmitt finds Helm to tell her that he’s taken the position. She starts to cry, but he tries to reassure her, promising that they’ll stay in touch over text and FaceTime and that she can come visit him. “I’ll take you for Tex-Mex,” he jokes. “Assuming that I like it.” Helm shares that she once told Bailey and Webber that she wasn’t there to make friends, “like a reality TV contestant… focused and cutthroat.” But then she met him, and all that changed. He promises that they’ll always be best friends and that she doesn’t need to be sad, and she assures him that they are happy tears. “You’re following your dream, or whatever,” she jokes. Levi was nervous to tell her, but she tells him that their conversation was the easy one. “Think about how hard it’ll be to tell James.” Way to up his stress level, Helm!
Across town and up in the chief of surgery’s office, two partnerships are facing even more problems. Jo tells Link that she doesn’t want to force him into anything — in Season 20, Episode 5, “Never Felt So Alone,” after a pregnancy scare, Link told Jo that he wanted to wait to have more kids because being a parent is exhausting, and shortly after that Jo discovered she was pregnant — but Link gets upset with her. She has lumped him in with all the other people in her life who have left her, despite the fact that Link has been there for her since high school, and he can’t believe she thinks he would back out just because there is about to be even more chaos in their lives. It seems like Jo realizes she made a mistake, but can they salvage it?
The other partnership that is starting to crumble is Teddy and Owen’s. Teddy is back in her office, where Owen is asleep on her couch. He asks her about dinner, and she says they ditched the restaurant for a bar. “Get this, Cass Beckman kissed me,” she tells him, laughing. Things spiral quickly. Owen asks if Teddy kissed her back, and when she says that Cass got the wrong idea, he demands to know how. “Do you think that I provoked this?” She asks, annoyed. “I don’t know, Teddy. Two minutes ago, I was asleep, and now you’re telling me that some woman kissed you?” He leaves abruptly to do rounds, slamming the door behind him as Owen Hunt has struck again.
In the very last seconds of “Night Moves,” viewers are left on a cliffhanger. Mika, who is finally taking Chloe home, is falling asleep at the wheel. Chloe doesn’t notice right away — she’s still groggy and ill from the chemotherapy — and when she finally does, it’s too late. Mika wakes with a jolt at Chloe’s scream, and there’s a honk and a crash as the screen goes black.
It has already been announced that Frances Midori will be leaving Grey’s Anatomy this season, so could this be the way she departs? If it is, Season 21, Episode 7, “If You Leave,” looks like it might be a heartbreaker.
