Grey's Anatomy Drops Some Truth Bombs About Race and White Privilege

Suffice it to say, the newbies are not fitting in very well on Grey's Anatomy.

First we have Penny (Samantha Sloyan), who is simultaneously getting run ragged by Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) and relegated to menial duties like making sure a brain-dead patient is still, well, brain-dead.

Then there's Nathan Riggs (Martin Henderson), who crashes into Grey Sloan like a tornado - and has Owen (Kevin McKidd), Maggie (Kelly McCreary) and Meredith all on his bad side by the end of the episode.

Plus, we get some real talk about race relations and white privilege!

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Let's recap the events of "Something Against You":

First, Meredith, Jo (Camilla Luddington) and Penny are called to the office in the middle of the night to deal with Mr. Jaffe, an elderly patient who's been on the waiting list for a nearly-impossible-to-match new kidney for 18 months.

At the same time, Callie (Sara Ramirez) is getting pretty pissed off about Meredith's treatment of Penny - namely, when it involves Penny getting called away in the middle of them making out (when she's not falling asleep, that is). But Callie takes her frustration a bit too far, and asks Webber (James Pickens Jr.) to step in and put Penny on someone else's service. Fortunately, both Webber and an eavesdropping Amelia (Caterina Scorsone) recognize this for what it is - Callie wanting to spend more time with her new girlfriend - and shut her down.

Also wanting to spend more time with her significant other is Bailey (Chandra Wilson), who, despite putting on a good show and feeding Jackson (Jesse Williams) pancakes, actually wants him out of her and Ben's (Jason Winston George) house ASAP.

As they prepare to give Mr. Jaffe his transplant, Meredith, Jo and Penny discover that he has a massive tumor on his head. It's cancer, and thus he may be ineligible for a transplant. The silver lining of all of this is that we get to see Amelia back in tumor porn mode, and few things on this show are more amusing than Caterina Scorsone when Amelia is devising ways to tackle a tumor.

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Meanwhile, Arizona (Jessica Capshaw) is trying to dip her toe back into the dating pool, and decides that the best way to do this is to invite April (Sarah Drew) to a lesbian bar. But April has to turn down the invitation, because she has a date herself - Jackson has asked her to dinner so that they can talk. Unfortunately, April thinks that the conversation will be about them getting back together, while Jackson tells Ben that he just wants to finalize the details of their divorce. Arizona later turns to Alex (Justin Chambers) to accompany her to lesbian trivia night. He's not interested, but Webber - a huge trivia fan - is. LOL.)

Maggie finds out that Bailey hired Riggs without her knowledge, and they butt heads throughout the episode. His presence also causes Owen to have post-traumatic breakdown in an on-call room, which Blond Intern walks in on. Maggie later confides in Amelia, Meredith and Alex over takeout that she feels like she's in Riggs' shadow because he's 1) a dude and 2) white. No. 2 comes as quite a shock to Amelia.

While Jackson and April are at their dinner, having an enjoyable time but not talking about any of the practical matters they had planned to, Bailey and Ben are busy getting down - until she finds out he didn't actually talk to Jackson about leaving and shuts it down.

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After the conversation with Maggie about race, Amelia is now paranoid that Stephanie (Jerrika Hinton) may think she "took Jo's side" in their argument a few episodes ago because they are both white. Stephanie tells her everything is cool, but Amelia later takes her concerns about whether or not she's unconsciously a racist to Maggie (who questions if Amelia is coming to her as a "sister" or a "sistah"). "Did Edwards tell you she's okay? Then don't give her the extra work of making you feel good about it," Maggie advises. "If you feel uncomfortable having done it, check your white privilege and don't do it again."

Eventually, both Penny's and Riggs' situations come to a head. When Callie confronts Meredith in front of Penny, Penny is mortified and tells Callie to "shut up and stay out of it." But, she then stands up for herself and asks Meredith to treat her like any other resident or kick her off her service entirely - and Meredith invites her to take Jo's place on Mr. Jaffe's surgery as a result.

Then, as Bailey is introducing Riggs to the rest of the team, Owen goes off on Bailey's hiring decision, calling the addition of Riggs a "bad call" that was "thoughtless." We still don't know what their history is, other than Owen admitting to Meredith (after a little Cristina Yang-referencing prompting) that he hates Riggs. Earlier in the episode, Owen asked Meredith how she could stand to work with Penny every day. Foreshadowing, perhaps?

At the end of the hour, Meredith coldly turns down Riggs' invitation to grab a drink with the simple excuse, "I'm a friend of Owen Hunt's." (No further explanation needed, apparently.) Jo is angry that Penny got to step in for the final surgery on Mr. Jaffe, when he was really her patient all along. Stephanie and Penny head out for a drink, while Webber accompanies Arizona to trivia night - which he doesn't even realize is at a lesbian bar until Arizona points it out. Poor Richard. But he takes it all in stride, and enthusiastically steps into the role of wingman for Arizona.

And, Ben finally confronts Jackson, who agrees to GTFO out of their house. But where's he going to stay? Surprise - at April's, where they have passionate make-up(?) sex. But neither of them looks particularly thrilled afterwards - and as the camera pans up, Meredith's voiceover is saying something about regrets. Uh oh.

What did you think, Grey's fans? What did you think of Amelia's racism concerns? Are you rooting for Jackson and April to reconcile? And how is Penny fitting into Grey Sloan? Sound off in the comments!

Grey's Anatomy airs Thursdays at 8/7c on ABC.

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