Grey’s Anatomy season 16 episode 7 review: The death we all saw coming

Grey’s Anatomy is infamous for making fans fall in love with a character only to kill them off by the end of the hour.

Sometimes, even the plot points you can predict, if executed correctly, can still give you all the feelings. Grey’s Anatomy doesn’t always hit the mark. But it did this week.

There are a lot of things we could talk about following episode 7 — Amelia and Owen ending an episode on good terms (finally); Gemma being the actual worst; Alex being his wonderful, amazing self (as usual).

But the event that has stuck with fans the most since last night’s episode is one we all predicted — even though it still hurt when it happened.

At first, it seemed overdone and out of place for “long lost” family members to show up out of nowhere looking for one of their own. But Sabrina quickly went from a woman we were sure we didn’t want around to someone whose death at the end of the episode all but broke our hearts in half.

If you’ve been watching Grey’s for a while — maybe even if you haven’t, but have seen other network medical dramas — you probably saw this coming. The episode spent a lot of time very quickly making you like Sabrina. That’s how they set you up for an emotional loss.

But it’s not without purpose. Losing a patient, especially a family member, should always have a significant impact on at least one character and their development. It’s one way these shows reflect real life: Tragic experiences promote growth.

This isn’t just going to affect Richard and his relationships with his brother and Catherine (I don’t even want to mention Gemma at this point, but how can you not?). Sabrina’s death during surgery is going to have a lasting impact on Maggie, too — possibly in more ways than one.

Since finally breaking up Jaggie, the show has allowed a return of focus to Maggie’s career and her brilliance as a surgeon. Many fans didn’t like this aspect of her in the beginning because it felt like a carbon copy of Lexi Grey (Meredith’s half-sister).

But when Grey’s does stop forcing Maggie to be in a relationship and hones in on her medical knowledge, it’s almost like seeing what Lexi could have become if she’d survived the plane crash. Even Alex goes out of his way to remind her that it wasn’t her fault the surgery failed — she really did do everything she could to try saving her patient.

I have a feeling this experience might motivate her to push for some kind of change in the way things are run at Pac North.

Let’s be honest, they’re not putting any effort into subtlety when dropping hints about everyone leaving Grey Sloan. Which has made a lot of people wonder if this season’s big “finale” is that something is going to happen to the hospital, forcing some kind of merger.

We can’t forget about the emotional impact of Maggie’s experience, either. Family has been a major struggle as well as a driving force for her ever since she came onto the show. She came in search of her biological father and has since lost her mother, almost gotten engaged to her (“technical”) step-brother, and formed an unbreakable trio with Meredith and Amelia.

Knowing how Grey’s usually does things, it wouldn’t be surprising if this somehow led her back to Jackson. I know, I know — I have a headache just thinking about it, too. But we were “promised” a more lighthearted season with a more rom-com feel, and rom-coms almost always end with a happily ever after. Sometimes it takes some big Life Events before that happens.

What we’ve all been waiting for since Maggie first arrived at Grey Sloan is significant character growth. It may have taken many seasons, but we’re finally seeing her have a real opportunity to finally, once and for all, grow up.

Of course, if she could be one of few who decide she doesn’t need a partner to thrive, that would be excellent. But we’ll just have to wait and see how this arc of hers plays out.

How did you feel about Sabrina at the beginning of the episode? Did you like her by the end? Are you OK?