With Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) out of the picture, it was high time Grey's Anatomy introduced a new love triangle.
After her ex-fiancé's surprise arrival in Seattle, Dr. Simone Griffin (Alexis Floyd) and Trey (Will Martinez) were at odds about their past and future together.
As they fought — and eventually made up — upstairs, Mika Yasuda (Midori Francis) prepared for a house party and reassured her roommate and fellow intern Lucas Adams (Niko Terho) that he still had a chance with Simone, reminding him that before Trey showed up, "you two were seconds away from boning last night."
Lucas then confronted Simone about Trey's arrival and she immediately apologized
But the Trey rollercoaster continued its bumpy ride. As they chatted outside during the party, Simone got upset when Trey insulted her friends, whom she considered "my people."
When she walked away from Trey after the heated discussion, Lucas found her upstairs and confessed that she was "pretty damn perfect" to him.
As they began to hook up, Trey interrupted from outside the door and told Simone, "You make me better…I love you."
Lucas then questioned if Simone truly loved her ex and encouraged her to "fight for him" if she did. When she didn't answer him, Lucas tried to leave the room and she asked to make sure that Trey wasn't still outside, which pushed him over the edge. "Now you can say you're sorry," he said as he stormed out.
Later in the night, Trey continued to try to win Simone back and eventually proposed for a second time, telling her, "You're my favorite person, you're my past and my future."
He added, "Marry for me for real?" She accepted as Lucas looked on.
The same night, newly named Chief of Surgery Teddy Altman (Kim Raver) and Owen Hunt (Kevin McKidd) invited Miranda Bailey (Chandra Wilson) and Ben Warren (Jason George) to their home for dinner.
Teddy dropped a bombshell over dinner and told Owen that he would not be the Chief of Trauma because she couldn't wait for his medical license to be reinstated. The argument quickly escalated until Bailey stepped in and told the couple that their child Leo was picking up on their tension and lashing out at other children. She added that arguments would lead to "poor leadership" from Teddy in her new role at Grey Sloan Memorial.
She finally told them that they need to "get some help."
After the drama-filled dinner, Bailey confronted her husband about the resentment he had felt which she said she could smell "like cheap cologne."
He admitted that he felt that since she returned to the hospital she hadn't been prioritizing their family in the same way.
Back at the hospital, Dr. Jules Millin (Adelaide Kane) and Benson "Blue" Kwan (Harry Shum Jr.) prepared to scrub in together on Maggie Pierce's (Kelly McCreary) abdominal surgery on an artist named Natalia. She started seizing before the surgery and the doctors realized her cancer had moved into her brain and they needed to perform a risky surgery.
While was concerned about surviving, Natalia admitted that she was "buried in debt" as both she and her husband had their jobs reduced to part-time during the pandemic. Blue suggested the couple get a divorce in order to get better insurance and help manage their debt.
Maggie was upset with the advice and told Blue that he was only there by "invitation" — and swiftly kicked him off the case.
While her husband didn't want to get a divorce, Jules advised him to support his wife's decision, saying, "If you trusted her enough to marry her, trust her enough to unmarry her."
"It feels like we're getting married again," Natalia shared as she signed the divorce papers. "I promise to love until my dying breath…I promise my love for you will only grow." She added, "I'm the luckiest girl in the world."
He vowed to "treat each day as a gift" as she prepared for the risky surgery.
Blue told Maggie he had no regrets about the advice he had given Natalia because his mother's medical debt felt like "a noose around my neck."
Elsewhere in the hospital, Dr. Atticus "Link" Lincoln (Chris Carmack) and Jo Wilson (Camilla Luddington) helped Whitney, a woman who went into labor.
As she struggled with the pain, Whitney told Link he was lucky to not have to push a "watermelon" sized baby out of her "tiny, tiny vagina." He eased Whitney's anxiety and shared that his own child gave him "a reason to put fears aside and think everything might be ok."
After seeing his caring nature with the patient, Jo was impressed by how he handled himself amid his own "major personal crisis," the backlash following Tank's death on last week's episode.
She told Amelia Shepherd (Caterina Scorsone) he was "perfect."
Amelia responded, "He wasn't perfect for me but maybe he's perfect for you."
Grey's Anatomy airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET on ABC.
