For the last few years, Alex and Jo have each become two of my favorite characters on Grey’s Anatomy. Alex’s near 180 personality change and Jo’s successes, in spite of her circumstances, are things that I’ve greatly admired and latched onto as a source of inspiration for my own path. With each shady girl Alex hooked up with prior to getting with Jo, and for each bump in their collective road, I’ve cringed, while their celebrations have been my celebrations.
So when Jo revealed that she was applying to hospitals all over the country for her upcoming fellowship in this week’s “Old Scars, Future Hearts,” half of me was thrilled with her ambition, having a slew of options before her to choose from to make her career the best it can be, and the other half was devastated at the thought of her leaving Alex, and Grey Sloan, in the dust.
When Alex discovered her applications, he started to regress. A pre-op visit with a young patient and his boyfriend triggered a flashback to Alex’s first love, a brief glimpse of him and his girlfriend studying on a couch 24 years earlier. A series of flashbacks revealed what Alex’s life with his mother was really like: she would came running through the house, in this instance interrupting them on the couch, believing that somebody was coming for her. Alex would jump up to hold her, assuring her that nobody was there. He asked his girlfriend to grab her pills off the counter, and when he went to meet her at a party later, he overheard her telling her friends that it was only a matter of time before he went crazy too, needing to find a way to break up with him. My poor bb.
After the pre-op meeting, Jo found Alex to confirm the patient’s status. When he didn’t answer, she asked him if he was really that angry about her applications since he did the same thing when he was applying for fellowships. “And that’s why I didn’t say anything. Go ahead and do what you want.” His tone wasn’t malicious but the words still held the implication, and I was screaming inside for him to ask her to stay.
When their young patient tried to refuse his heart transplant, because he was afraid his new heart wouldn’t love his boyfriend, Jo told him that while your first love usually hurts, it’s not supposed to kill you, triggering her first flashback. Fifteen years earlier, Jo was living in her car outside of the high school. After waking up to the movements of her car getting towed, a classmate paid off the driver to let her out of it. They got together, and he tried to convince her to move into his parents’ house. She was sure they’d hate his “street-rat girlfriend,” but he told her, “They’ll love you as much as I do.” He was a year ahead of her, and after graduation he asked her to move in with him at college. She was meant to drop him off to check out the place herself, and when he and his parents were standing outside waiting for her the next morning, she was crossing the Connecticut state line, and I honestly hurt for him after how good he’d been to her.
When Jo tried to get Alex to talk about everything later, he resorted to picking a petty fight instead of being honest about his feelings. “Oh, so you’re punishing me for taking steps to further my career?”
“Of course not!” he said, “I just didn’t think you’d be so excited to consider leaving Seattle.”
But for the first time Jo can leave. She can do exactly what she wants to do, since she’s not hiding from Paul anymore. “I thought that you of all people would get that,” she said.
“I’m happy Paul’s gone. And I’m happy you’re free. I just didn’t realize he was the only one keeping you here.” This is where my conflicted feelings come into play, because of course the majority of relationships we’ve seen Alex in have ended with the girl running away, but at the same time he knows how big of a deal it is that Jo can finally go anywhere and be anything that she wants. And on the other hand, I want them both to stay on my screen every week.
He spent that night with Meredith, who tried to talk him down by reminding him of the fact that it’s good she can keep her options open, as well as the fact that she’s not abandoning him like Izzy did. When he went home the next night, Jo was waiting for him. She told him how, despite trying and trying, she never felt like she fit in anywhere. Because of that, she always kept moving and moving. “Maybe I was running from my circumstances …myself… anyone who dared to love me…”
Before she could continue with her speech, Alex cut her off, going to rummage through drawers and starting to panic when he couldn’t find what he was looking for—her engagement ring. You could probably guess that this is where I started to freak out a little. Jo finally got through to him that she was already wearing it, and knelt in front of him. “I always thought that there was something wrong with me, and I always wanted to run. Until I met you. …you and me, we just fit. And I don’t want to leave you, Alex. I want a great big giant career, but I never want to go anywhere without you.”
I am #blessed. With Derek gone, this is my endgame, and finally, finally (so it seems), they are officially endgame. But please, oh please, let them be endgame in Seattle, I’m begging anyone and everyone that will listen. Everyone is leaving and everyone is dying, and I can’t take these two joining that group.