This week's episode of Grey's Anatomy, "The Room Where It Happens" -- thanks, Hamilton! -- is unlike any other show has ever done before. The chapter is a "bottle-nekc episode," taking place entirely in an O.R. and only star characters Meredith (Ellen Pompeo), Owen (Kevin McKidd), Stephanie (Jerrika Hinton) and Webber (James Pickens Jr.).
Grey's Anatomy Season 13 Episode 8 Highlights A Challenging Surgery That Triggered Powerful Memories For Meredith, Richard, Owen, And Stephanie
"The episode is basically a one-act play, and that's awesome," Hinton tells TVGuide.com. "It's the structure of the episode itself that requires more from you. Because you're shooting it in order and because it is theater essentially, you must be alive in every moment, and you must constantly be listening and constantly be focused. It's a fantastic challenge that I would love to have more often. Normally the way that we shoot things, you're shooting a two-page thing and you're done. This was not that. It was all of us in there for 12 or 14 hours a day for eight or nine days. ... It was a really phenomenal, wonderful challenge that I wish we could do more of."
As the team operates on a badly bashed patient, Webber applies some of his new teaching abilities courtesy of Eliza Minnick and directs the doctors to construct a personal connection with their patient. In Webber's mind, the doctors should give their patients priorities, rather than treat them as John or Jane Does.
Personal Connections With Patients On The Surgical Table
"Typically in our show, the audience experiences us having these connections to our patients, and it's something that we normally fight against," Hinton says. "In this episode, we're kind of encouraged to lean into that, and it's interesting to see how that helps this particular case. ... The benefit of encouraging that personal connection is that it does a great deal to help undercut that god complex that surgeons can have, and that is exhibited often in our show.
The more human you see the person on the table, the more you fight for them, and the more the fight is about them, and not about your own prowess and power. ... In terms of how it could be a detriment to the process, it's kind of the flip side of that same coin. The more human you make your patient, the more entwined with the outcome you are. You don't have that professional sense of... not necessarily remove, but distance. And so, it can be hard to navigate what is prudent in the moment."
She continues: "There was nobody that could advocate for her in the way that she wanted when she was a kid growing up. And so, she now gets to do that and is compelled to do so, because if this patient dies on the table and no one advocates for him in a proper way and all of it gets mired down in all the bickering and who's right, who's wrong, then that's on her shoulder. This is perhaps the first time that she's had the opportunity to seriously advocate for somebody and seriously take responsibility and kind of a deep ownership in a patient's outcome. ... That's a responsibility she doesn't take lightly."
