Grey’s Anatomy season 16 episode 15 review: Webber’s secret, Jo’s discovery

This week’s two biggest reveals have fans devastated about possibly losing two original Grey’s Anatomy characters in the same season.

It’s been a while since an episode of Grey’s Anatomy has left me feeling this sad. And we haven’t even gotten to the “goodbye Alex” episode yet.

Every now and then, the show puts our favorite characters through the toughest situations to help them grow — but not usually all at once. This week’s episode had a lot of bombshells. And things are only going to go downhill from here.

As many predicted, Bailey ends the episode with a new “son” (she hasn’t formally adopted him, but what a sweet moment). Will this create a bunch of drama between her and Ben? Absolutely. We wouldn’t expect anything less. But it was still about the happiest moment we got last night.

Where do we start with the sad times? Teddy cheating on Owen with Tom? DeLuca being awful to Meredith? Hayes and Meredith bonding but still on a “friends-only” basis? Or should we stop right here and talk about Richard Webber?

After a potentially disastrous incident with a patient, he reveals he’s experiencing tremors in his hands. Parkinson’s? We’re not sure, and neither is he. But his storyline could go one of two ways: Either he will retire and leave the show, or he will switch to teaching full-time and continue working at Grey Sloan, but not as a surgeon.

The latter option seems to be the one they’ve been setting up so far this season, and it would be the perfect fit for him despite the devastating reality of the situation. But him retiring and leaving Seatle would also be a fitting ending — much better than killing him off. Hasn’t his character almost died at least twice now? He deserves a much less dramatic ending at this point.

Hopefully he’s smart enough to know not to try operating or keeping his condition (whatever it might be) a secret.

Even more heartbreaking, though, is Jo’s breakdown after learning something puzzling about Alex’s wherabouts.

We find out that Jo, desperate to speak to her husband (as she should be at this point), called his mother in Iowa to see if he’s still there. She learns he never arrived, and is now convinced he has left her for good.

There seem to be two types of reactions to this news: disbelief (there’s no way he would have acted so out of character, something terrible must have happened) and frustration (how could he act so out of character? How could he just leave?).

It’s very possible they’re making us believe he left, only to reveal in next week’s farewell episode that Jo only assumed he left her … when in reality, he never made it to Iowa because something happened to him.

Based on next week’s preview, it looks like they’re planning a decent sendoff to give us closure. We also know Justin Chambers won’t be making an appearance. So at this point, the only logical ending seems to be to kill him off-screen and have the other characters (sigh … and us) react.

Until next week, we’ll just have to settle for re-watching his best moments and buying as many tissue boxes as we can carry.

Do you think Webber is leaving the show? Is Jo’s assumption right — or just a red herring?