‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Midseason Finale Recap: Hacker Strikes Hospital Computers, Jo Has Scary Run-In With An Ex

Grey’s Anatomy has stumbled upon it’s season 13 midseason finale and with it a new type of disease – a computer virus that infiltrates the hospital’s medical records.

GREY’S ANATOMY MIDSEASON FINALE RECAP

Last week, Meredith Grey won the prestigious Harper Avery award and is giving an interview on her success when the issue strikes. Jo is gaining her confidence for her newly earned chief resident position, but realizes she doesn’t know how to be tough. Bailey and Webber are squabbling about a multimillion dollar contest that Jackson is backing, but he thinks she’s only pushing him so she can enter it herself.

Jo is up to the task of assigning interns to surgeons, but Meredith chooses her own first. She picks Schmitt, aka glasses, who reminds her of George so much that she hopes to like him. Meanwhile, Jo, Karev, and new intern Pony (named for her perky ponytail) are working on a 7-year-old with a blood vessel disorder. Maggie and Jackson are helping an older man with lung congestion, and April and Owen are in the ER when their patient flatlines and an intern uses the paddles to shock him, but turns out he was just sleeping.

Grey Sloan Memorial is in a frenzy as all the machines start beeping, regardless of the patients they’re hooked up to. Bailey can’t access medical records, and when the IT team finally gets there to help, an ominous message flashes on the computer screens: “Hello Grey Sloan Memorial. Currently we control your hospital. We own your servers. We own your systems. We own your patients’ medical records.”

The hacker then demands exactly 4,932 Bitcoin ($20 million) to release their hold, and threaten to delete the entire hospital’s medical records if they don’t pay up. The FBI show up suddenly and tell everyone to power down their phones and other electronic devices.

While the younger docs are stressing and fighting over their places in line for the CT machine, Webber is in his element – the old school guy who knows how to work without technology. He teaches the flailing youngsters how to run various tests with simple hospital tools, like an IV bag and a newspaper.

Bailey gets sucked into the mix when she realizes they may have been targeted because of that multimillion dollar contest she so badly wanted – one that she has an anonymous donor for. She figures the hackers know, and want her to ask that donor for the Bitcoin, which she considers but the FBI tells her not to do it.

Back in the OR, Meredith and Glasses are doing their surgery with just a scope, and it’s going well until she realizes the patient needs blood. Glasses, though, can’t get into the electronically locked blood vault. But, luckily, Meredith and the patient have the same blood type, so she hooks herself up.

Back with Karev’s child patient, Frankie is throwing up because he may have thrown another clot, but the docs don’t know if it’s safe to give him the blood thinner, because they can’t see his file. Frankie asks Karev to marry his mother if he dies, so he knows she’ll be safe.

Owen has had enough of this and tells Bailey they have to start evacuating patients. She agrees and also calls the donor – who we then realize is Jackson and Maggie’s older patient with the lung congestion. He’s currently on a helicopter, struggling to survive, with his cell phone ringing covered in blood.

At the end of the suspenseful episode, Jo discovers that Frankie can’t have the blood thinner, just as Karev is about to administer it. She’s in a separate building, and her texts to Karev won’t go through. She runs to stop him but gets stopped dead in her tracks by the sight of Paul, her abusive estranged husband (played by Matthew Morrison). “Hey Brooke. Oh, wait, it’s Jo now, right?” he says, and the credits role.