Season 2, Episode 21 and 22 – Stuck / Happy Birthday

At her condo, Amy is finishing a workout on her Peleton. Jake walks up and kisses her. He tells her that Rachel is coming by the hospital because her biopsy site isn’t healing well. She says thanks for telling her. Michael calls to tell Amy that Liz filed a HR complaint against Richard and he’s supporting her. Amy is glad, but isn’t convinced that Richard will face any consequences. 

At Westside, Michael has just informed Richard about Liz’s HR complaint. Richard leaves a message for his lawyer, then checks in on Joan, who is still his patient. He says she’s trending in the right direction, but it’s only been three days so she can’t leave the hospital yet. Liz walks into the room with an IV bag, and Joan feels the tension between Liz and Richard. When Liz leaves, Joan asks Richard if Liz came forward. He says yes, Amy must’ve put Liz up to it. Joan says no, it was her. She told Liz to use her voice.  

Amy, Jake, and TJ assess Herman, a Holocaust survivor who is about to turn 90. Jake advises Amy on how to mentor TJ as she practices to be Chief Resident.

Amy and Jake meet their next patient, a middle-aged woman accompanied by her brother Ben, whom we find out is a surgeon in New York. Jake introduces himself. Ben says he met Amy at a conference three years ago. She doesn’t remember it, of course. He says they got into a debate, and she ripped him a new one in front of a roomful of surgeons. Jake laughs and says that sounds about right. Later in the episode, Ben mentions that his sister has been sick a while, and he wishes he lived closer so he could do more for her. 

Richard and Lucy treat an older male patient. Seemingly out of nowhere, the patient codes and dies. Amy thinks there’s something suspicious about the patient’s death because Richard has a bad track record, especially when he’s distracted, which he is because of Liz’s HR complaint. Neither Michael nor Jake support Amy’s theory. She’s fuming, but she keeps her emotions in check and starts investigating the patient’s death on her own. 

Rachel is sitting in a hospital bed as Jake hooks her up to IV medication for a minor infection. It’s clear that she and Jake have discussed his relationship with Amy before. Rachel says Amy didn’t look thrilled to see her at the hospital today. Jake admits Amy wasn’t happy that he kept Rachel’s secret for a week. Jake says it’s fine, though…he and Amy are fine. Rachel isn’t convinced. 

Distracted by her investigation into Richard’s patient’s death, Amy forgets to discharge Herman from the hospital as Jake requested. Jake is frustrated that she didn’t give Herman the respect he deserves (as a Holocaust survivor on his 90th birthday), suggesting that she went ahead and did her own thing to the detriment of others as usual. He storms off, saying he’ll discharge Herman himself. Amy feels terrible, but continues her investigation into Richard’s patient. After consulting with Joan and requesting more lab tests, Amy figures out that the patient had a hemorrhagic fever. She is terrified. She convinces Michael to immediately lock down the floor and quarantine Richard, Lucy, Liz, and Gina, who were all in the infected patient’s room.

While they are quarantined together, Liz and Richard get their HR situation out into the open with Gina. Richard apologizes to Liz. Not long after, he starts to feel very ill and tests positive. Then the same thing happens to Liz. Gina is the only one left. Amy talks to Gina from outside the hospital room where she’s in quarantine, now alone. Gina so wishes that she could be out there helping the staff. While talking about Lucy’s death, Amy has another memory flash of Covid. Gina sees what is happening and tells Amy that she can always take phenobarbital to stop the memory seizures. Amy says it has too many potential side effects (drowsiness, confusion, etc..). Amy and Gina say they love each other, and Amy gets back to work. 

More and more people test positive and become gravely ill. Liz and Richard are hanging on, but not doing well. Amy, Jake, Joan, Sonya, and Michael work together to create a drug cocktail. They ask all the patients in the ICU if they’ll try the cocktail. Being in the ICU in full hazmat gear surrounded by dying patients, Amy’s memory flashes get more and more disturbing. Jake notices and asks if she’s having memories. She says she just needs a minute and walks away. As she sneaks off to the room where medications are stored, she runs into Ben. She says TJ was praising his surgical skills…and his playlist. It’s very friendly, almost flirtatious. As soon as Ben walks away, Amy finds a bottle of phenobarbital and takes one pill. 

As Amy continues treating patients, she seems more and more sleepy and out of it. Richard briefly gets better from the drug cocktail, but then it causes him to crash. Now they know the drug cocktail isn’t safe. The team rushes to save Richard. Distracted by her medication, Amy pricks her finger with a needle that has Richard’s blood on it. Everyone freezes, panicked, knowing Amy has been exposed and must be quarantined immediately. Jake removes her from the ICU and leads her to a patient room. Neither of them says a word. Things do not seem ok between them. Later in the episode, Jake tells Rachel that Amy got the virus because she took medication that distracted her and didn’t tell him until afterward. It feels like an unnecessary amount of information to share with Rachel. Throughout the episode, Jake seems to blame Amy for everything. 

Amy calls Katie to tell her she tested positive. It’s a brutal and emotional conversation. Amy says she’s sorry for everything she ever did. We know she’s referring to the years after Danny’s death. Katie tells Amy that she doesn’t need to apologize again. She’s already been forgiven and needs Amy to know that. Amy says she does know that. 

Joan, Michael, Sonya, and Jake brainstorm how to mitigate the negative affects of the drug cocktail that sent Richard into a downward spiral. One idea is to use Richard’s immunity…if he survives. They need to get Richard better so he can give blood for antibodies. Amy lashes out at Michael for pushing a medication that killed people. She suggests a way to treat Richard so that he’ll get better more quickly and be able to donate blood. Michael resists. Richard overhears them and tells Michael to do what Amy suggested. 

Rachel comes down with a fever. As she and Jake await her test results, Jake has memories of Covid. In flashbacks, Jake and Rachel argue through a window, him standing outside their house because he was exposed to Covid and can’t come in. Rachel argues that they are losing each other and he doesn’t see it. She’s going to Cabo with her girlfriends because he won’t take time off work. Rachel says they shouln’t even be in Minneapolis. They were supposed to be in Maryland. Back in the present, Rachel finds out that she just has the flu, not the Marburg virus. She tells Jake she’s luckier than she ever realized, looking at him a little too longingly as she says it… 

Amy lies in an ICU bed, very weak. Nora calls. She tells Amy that Katie is scared and wants Nora to stay with her. (Nora notably refers to the house as Amy’s, suggesting that Nora always thought of it as Amy and Michael’s house.) Amy says of course, Nora should go be with Katie. She thanks Nora for everything she did to help Katie through a very dark time. Nora says that if Amy and Michael are supposed to be together, she really hopes that happens. 

As Amy hangs up the phone, she and the patients around her face the uncertainty of their worsening condition and bond over what really matters in life. Hermans tells them he lost his family when he was a kid in the concentration camps, then lost both of his wives and son to cancer. He says all you can do is be grateful and treat everyone with dignity and generosity when they make mistakes. Amy thinks about what he said. 

Gina finds out that she has a genetic mutation that makes her immune to this variant of the Marburg virus. Together with Richard’s antibodies, Gina’s genetic mutation helps the hospital staff create a serum that combats the virus. The only problem is that Richard can’t donate enough blood to give every patient the serum. Michael, Joan, Jake, Sonya, and Gina talk about what to do. Gina says Amy needs to get the serum no matter what and is horrified when no one else agrees. They all acknowledge that they can’t make an impartial decision and decide to randomize who gets the serum. 

Before the serum can be administered to anyone, Amy crashes. She requires multiple surgical procedures at once to quite literally save her life. Joan, TJ, and Ben all work together as surgeons to save Amy. Joan asks for medication to get through the surgery, knowing it’s going to set her health back beyond the point of no return. No one can argue with Joan’s request. Gina and Jake watch Amy’s surgery in agony. By the end of the surgery, Joan is near total collapse and asks Ben to “close” for her. 

Amy wakes up to Joan at her bedside. Everything hurts. Joan tells Amy what happened, how many surgeons it took to save her and why. Amy learns that she didn’t get the serum. Her body has been fighting the virus itself. Liz and Herman got the serum and are getting better, and so is Richard. Seeing how much Joan is struggling to breath and sit up, Amy wonders what she did to get through the surgery. Joan says she’s given all she has and encourages Amy to make the most of her third chance at life. Give. Be of service. Amy says she will. 

A few days later, everyone is packing up to leave the hospital. Quarantine is over. Rachel apologizes to Jake for not understanding what he was going through during Covid and messing up in the worst possible way (by cheating on him). Jake says he’s waited a long time to hear that, but now he understands that Rachel was trying to tell him that they weren’t ok and he woudn’t listen. They hug.  

Michael and Ben congratulate each other on how they handled the outbreak. Michael asks Ben if he’d ever want to move to Minneapolis to be closer to his sister because they have an opening in surgery at Westside. Ben smirks and walks away.  

Jake sits down at Amy’s bedside. He asks why she pushed him away when she was struggling with her memories. She says it’s what she does when she’s scared. She tells him what Allie told her in Season 2, Episode 9 – that Rachel and Jake will ultimately end up together. That’s why she’s scared. She saw how Jake looked at Rachel through her hospital room window a few days ago. Jake doesn’t deny any of it outright, but he doesnt think the issue is about him and Rachel, implying that it’s about Amy and Michael. Amy says they both love their exes and Jake convinced them they could deal with that, but what if they can’t… 

Still in her hospital gown and hooked up to an IV, Amy sits down in Michael’s office. She apologizes for getting angry at him when he made a wrong decison about the drug cocktail. She hates that she gets so enraged when someone she counts on disappoints her. She says she can’t imagine how bad it must have been when Danny died. Losing a son can’t be an excuse anymore. Michael says they can work on this…together. Amy says she loves Michael and she probably always will, but she’d make the same mistakes if they got back together now. She needs to move forward. She needs to be of service, and that’s something they can do together at Westside.  

We see Jake walking to his car alone. Michael walks into his house and hugs Katie and Nora. Nora walks out the door. Gina and Wendy reunite with a hug. TJ and Sonya lie in bed together. Joan lies in bed at home, presumably on hospice, surrounded by her son and grandson. Amy walks into her condo alone. Cutting back and forth between Amy walking around her condo with a new perspective on life, Ben stares at a video of Amy’s face on his phone. He hits play. It’s a video that Amy sent him on November 14th, 2022. Her tone is very flirtatious. Amy says they never text or put anything in writing, so clearly their relationship was a secret. (We also know from Season 1, Episode 5 that Gina was not aware of the relationship.) Ben smiles as he watches the video. Amy is obviously a fond memory for him. We are left to wonder why their relationship was a secret.