Grey's Anatomy: Did Alex Go to Prison?

A war is brewing at Grey Sloan Memorial.

On Thursday's episode of Grey's Anatomy, Eliza Minnick (Marika Dominczyk) is welcomed to the hospital with cold shoulders rather than open arms. The transition of power she's planning is not going to go smoothly, to put it mildly.

But not everyone can focus on office politics, since two of the doctors are MIA. Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) spends the entire episode frantically trying to track down Alex (Justin Chambers), not knowing whether he actually followed through with his decision to take the two-year prison sentence plea deal. And Owen (Kevin McKidd) is distracted by fretting over Amelia's (Caterina Scorsone) whereabouts, especially after she gives Stephanie (Jerrika Hinton) a heads up over email that she won't be at work that day.

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So, where were they? Well, as it turns out, Alex (presumably) did not take the plea deal, since Meredith discovers him in her bed, where he's spent the entire day sleeping. And Amelia is hiding out in Stephanie's apartment, where she's eating Stephanie's last yogurt and looking at/signing off on brain scans that Stephanie is sneaking to her. When Stephanie expresses reservations about lying to Owen about Amelia's whereabouts, Amelia begs her not to tell Owen the truth because "he'll try to fix it and it can't be fixed."

At the end of the episode, Stephanie finally breaks and assures Owen that Amelia is safe, without divulging her whereabouts. He responds by instructing Stephanie, "Tell her to come home." She relays the message to her new roommate, but all Amelia wants to talk about are the medical cases Stephanie handled that day.

Back at the hospital, Minnick shakes things up by doing generally annoying things like rearranging Bailey's (Chandra Wilson) surgery board, saying that she's well-versed in pushing people like Webber (James Pickens Jr.) into an early retirement, and making a callous comment to Arizona (Jessica Capshaw) about Alex going to prison. But perhaps the most irritating thing about her is that she refuses Webber's offer of a conciliatory coffee because she "doesn't need" caffeine.

In solidarity with Webber, none of the attendings will let Minnick scrub in on their surgeries or try to implement her fast-track teaching methods. The only doctor who does welcome her into his OR is Webber himself, and things quickly get testy between them when Minnick essentially tells him to get on board or get out of her way.

Bailey tries to quell the revolt by quickly calling an emergency staff meeting when she realizes Minnick isn't exactly fitting in with her new colleagues right off the bat. But they all refuse to attend in order to, according to Webber, "send a message." Webber explains to Bailey that he and his colleagues are upset over the way the change is being handled, not the change itself. She in turn accuses him of being "butt hurt."

At the end of the day, Minnick tries to find at least one ally, and thanks Arizona for having enough faith in Murphy (Tessa Ferrer) to handle a baby that Arizona had just delivered. That's the type of teaching Minnick is looking for, she says. (And let's be honest, she's probably trying to score a date with Arizona as well.)

But the praise from her soon-to-be boss(?) doesn't do much to brighten the last 48 hours for Arizona, who heads home and tells her roommate DeLuca (Giacomo Giannotti), of all people, how much she misses Alex. Good thing she apparently won't have to miss him for long.

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