I started watching watching Grey’s Anatomy late. I watched my first episode the summer before my freshman year in college, so almost two years ago. It took me a little while to get into it and I took a break for bit, but I am back in at full throttle. I am going through episodes like nobody’s business. This may make me sound like a bad person, but my favorite episodes of Grey’s Anatomy are always the ones with mass casualties. Whenever I hear everyone’s pagers going off at once calling them to the er, I know I’m in for a good ride. To make me sound even worse, they are also the best episodes to playing drinking games to. Whenever my friends and I decide to play the Grey’s Anatomy drinking game, shown below, we always go for a mass casualty episode. Those are also the best ones to watch if you just want to watch a random episode but also want it to be good. They have so much drama and gore, they immediately take your mind off your significant other who isn’t texting you back. In order to make your search for the perfect episode a whole lot easier, here are the best mass casualty episodes Grey’s has to offer. If you’re behind like me, be careful of spoilers (I tried to keep them to a minimum though). If you’re not, full speed ahead, my friend.
The Train Crash: Season 2, Episode 6
This was the first large scale accident on Grey’s and it was traumatic. Not only were there multiple casualties, this episode features Bonnie and Tom, two characters who get impaled by a pole through their midsections. This episode will forever be ingrained in my memory.
The Bomb Explosion: Season 2, Episodes 16&17
In this whirlwind of an episode, not only does a man comes to the hospital with a live bomb lodged in his chest, but Meredith Grey shoves her hand in said man’s chest to grab the bomb and keep it from going off. The bomb squad leader has to talk her into letting him take her place, because this bomb could literally go off at any minute and removing it could be catastrophic. It’s so dramatic it required two episodes.
The Ferry Crash: Season 3, Episode 15
A barge crashes into the ferry, leaving many people dead and injured. Meredith gets knocked over by a flailing victim and almost drowns and Alex Karev meets pregnant Jane Doe for the first time, which is a massively dramatic storyline in itself.
The Roof Collapse: Season 6, Episode 14
The roof of a popular restaurant collapses on Valentine’s Day, leaving a man with an amputated arm. The doctors then reattach by keeping it viable on his leg. If that’s not freaking awesome, I don’t know what is. There is also a love story between a woman who always eats at the restaurant and the head waiter who always serves her. So it’s definitely awesome.
The Hospital Shooting: Season 6, Episode 23
The widower of a former patient arrives at the hospital seeking revenge for his wife’s death. He shoots eighteen people and eleven of them die and this is probably the most intense episode of Grey’s I have ever seen. I don’t think I will ever move on from the feels this episode put me through.
The Sinkhole: Season 8, Episode 1
A woman gets trapped under her car when a sinkhole opens up in the road. The doctors are forced to talk her own husband through cutting her leg off in order to save her. This is not exactly something that happens every day, so pretty dramatic to say the least. Karev also finds a boy buried underneath all the rubble and has to dig him out.
The Plane Crash: Season 8, Episodes 23&24
Many of the doctors are all on one plane headed for another hospital to help with a surgery on conjoined twins. The plane crashes in the woods, leaving the doctors stranded for a long time with severe injuries. Not everyone survives, and those who do are traumatically injured so be ready for the intense emotions that come. I had some clue about what was going to happen in these episodes, but I was not fully prepared at all for what it would put me through.
The Bus Explosion: Season 9, Episodes 23&24
This episode isn’t just a bus explosion. It’s a bus explosion during a massive storm that caused the hospital to undergo a power outage. Jackson Avery almost kills himself trying to save a little girl. Two other doctors get badly electrocuted trying to get the power back on. Meredith has to have an emergency c-section to give birth to her baby. Let’s just say not everyone survives this “perfect storm” of an episode.
Another Plane Crash: Season 11, Episode 20
A plane crashes down in Seattle, leaving so many people injured or deceased. To make it worse, Meredith has flashbacks to her own plane crash and she doesn’t know where Derek is, who was supposed to be on a plane to DC.