Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Season 20 on ABC and Hulu Is Still Thriving In Its Post-Meredith Grey Era

Grey’s Anatomy has run for so long that it’s easy to think of the show like Saturday Night Live – people have their preferred eras and favorite cast members from certain decades who have come and gone. (And through it all, Ellen Pompeo, like Kenan Thompson, has managed to stick around for way longer than anyone expected). Airing on ABC (and the next day on Hulu), the 20th season of Grey’s manages to evoke the same emotion and drama we have come to expect and love from the show, proof that the formula is still working despite the fact that we’ve had to invest in the newer, younger cast and Pompeo has taken on a reduced role.

GREY’S ANATOMY (SEASON 20): STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: “Researchers say the average length of a dream is two to three minutes, but many people experience their dreams as hours, if they can remember them at all,” Meredith Grey narrates, as we see flashbacks to the end of the previous season and hear the voices of cast members recounting key moments that happened during the season 19 finale, as Teddy Altman (Kim Raver) collapses, and Sam Sutton (Sam Page) lies dead on an operating table. Then we flash to the present as Teddy is rushed down a hallway on a gurney and into surgery. Meredith’s dream soliloquy continues for a while until she says, “Honestly, no one knows why we dream or why we have nightmares. We just hope that after the dream, we wake up.”

The Gist: After the montage of scenes that serve to bridge last season to the current one, we watch as Nick (Scott Speedman) rushes into a room where interns Millin (Adelaide Kane), Adams (Niko Terho), Griffith (Alexis Floyd), Yasuda (Midori Francis), Kwan (Harry Shum Jr.), all sit. He assumes a spot at a podium and cordially greets them with a “Good morning,” before switching gears and asking, “So which one of you am I firing?” See, because they all signed out in order to attend Griffith’s wedding, none of them was able to help with Sam’s surgery and that sweet old flying squirrel went to that great acorn shop in the sky. As their teacher, Nick is pissed; someone is dead because no one was where they should have been when they were most needed. All the young interns to point fingers at one another and Nick tells them all that they are, under NO circumstances, to practice medicine while he assesses the situation. (None of them listen to that last piece.)

Meanwhile, Teddy is now out of surgery where she received a new aortic valve, the result of her tooth infection which obviously got very out of hand and caused bacteria to spread through her body. Her prognosis seems positive, although Schmitt (Jake Borelli) never gave her a CT scan after her surgery, which is protocol. Eventually Teddy is rushed back into surgery due to a blood clot, where she’s operated on by Dr. Ndugu (Anthony Hill) and Owen (Kevin McKidd) is freaked out because that’s his wife in there.

Meanwhile meanwhile, Catherine (Debbie Allen) has brought Meredith to Seattle to have an in-person conversation about the fracas she caused with her revelation that all of her past Alzheimer’s research is wrong. Catherine has had to do serious damage control with the hospital’s donors, and warns Meredith to keep her big, honest mouth shut. (Only one episode of season 20 was made available to press before the premiere, so I’m going to assume that despite Meredith’s heavy presence in this episode, she’s going to be back in Boston where she’ll live as a recurring character, showing up in between trips to Santarpio’s and Kelly’s Roast Beef.)

Since it wouldn’t be Grey’s without something truly wild happening in the middle of an episode, Griffith and Adams go for a walk where they find themselves forced to help an EMT help a patient in an ambulance parked outside the hospital. Hey, but Nick said…

Nevermind, what Nick said! We are here to help people, not let them die (unless it was Sam)! So Griffith and Adams hop in the ambulance, but as they do, a car careens into the back door, trapping them inside with the patient. (The car is a driverless ride-share automobile, and a passenger is also trapped inside, he was beta-testing the car and jokes on us, AI will kill us all!)

Meredith and Bailey (Chandra Wilson) happen to pass the scene and Meredith springs into action to help Adams and Griffith (who is also injured), and as this driverless car, which can’t be stopped, continues to back up and then charge forward, slamming into the ambulance over and over like it’s Cujo the Rav4, they have to perform emergency surgery to open the patient up to stop his internal bleeding. Moments like this are why we watch this show, right?

And so, after that drama settles and we get a couple more surgery montages, Meredith heads back to Boston, but before she does, she promises Catherine she’ll pursue her regular Alzheimer’s research. This is a lie, instead she passes on a series of secret files to Amelia Shepherd (Caterina Scorsone), to be their keeper, as Meredith continues to, pardon the term , do her own research. And Nick, who so desperately wanted to keep his interns in check (for his own sake, so he could ultimately move to Boston to be with Meredith), realizes that he doesn’t want to be their leader any longer. To their relief, none of them are fired but – twist! – they have a new teacher now, and her name is Miranda Bailey.

Our Take: Sometimes weekly shows are better when they’re binged. Lost, Succession, The Sopranos, most of them benefit when viewers are able to watch episodes back-to-back to keep up with the minor details and complex stories. And now, finally, ABC, Disney, and Hulu seem to have caught on that there’s definitely an audience for people who want to binge Grey’s Anatomy, all 19 seasons (and counting) of the medical soap opera that gave us McSteamy, McDreamy, and, (less successful as a nickname) McWidow. Hulu is now carrying over 400 episodes of mostly great, heightened emotional drama, along with the latest season that still sees Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) in a reduced role, but fortunately, at least in the first episode of the season, we get just enough of her to remember what she brings to the show.

The show’s enormous cast has always meant that there was more to it than just Meredith Grey, and now we’ve slowly begun the process of weaning ourselves off of her drama. The core group of new interns, all of whom are back this season, have invigorated the show. Even though their behavior can feel petty and immature, the fact that a few of the show’s early-season heavies like Debbie Allen, Chandra Wilson and James Pickens Jr. have stuck around (and we can also look forward to the eventual return of Jessica Capshaw’s Arizona Robbins at some point) help keep us rooted in the lore of Grey Sloane Memorial. If not for the familiar faces of cast members who have been with the show for a while, I’m not sure we’d still care as much about the show. The show seems positioned to survive the departure of its namesake, but if it loses anyone else, I worry how long it’ll be before it codes.

Sex and Skin: None so far, but this is Grey’s, so if this elevator/gurney/ambulance is a rockin’…

Parting Shot: Nick walks into his room full of interns who are all terrified that he’s going to fire them. He assures them all tat none of them will be leaving their jobs at the hospital… but he is. Who’s going to replace him, they wonder? And in walks Bailey, who announces her iconic line, “I have five rules.”

Memorable Dialogue: An irritated Catherine (played, as you know, by dancer and choreographer Debbie Allen) confronts Meredith after she upended all of their Alzheimer’s research and told all of the hospital’s donors she wanted to start from scratch. Catherine had to do damage control all night as a result, and she tells Meredith, “I haven’t had to dance like that since the ’80s.” Yes, Debbie, I see you referencing your Fame days!

Our Call: STREAM IT! The Grey’s cast has changed over the years, but the show has managed to stay familiar and retain so much of what makes it addictive. Time will tell if Pompeo’s absence diminishes what made this series the flagship of Shondaland, but for now, it’s off to a great start.

Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.