‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Season 14 Episode 13 Recap: Kidney Transplant Goes Awry

Season 13 Episode 14 of Grey’s Anatomy starts on Alex’s first day back to work where he’s tasked with a kidney transplant from a mother to her son. Jo and Stephanie are his interns.

A seemingly homeless and unstable woman wanders into the hospital and collapses as Riggs and De Luca try to figure out what’s going on.

The mother and son, Cynthia and Chris, are unpleasantly surprised by Chris’s father and Jo unknowingly made it happen.

Eliza and Arizona are still hiding their friendship from the rest of the attendings, all except for April who is enjoying her new position that was once Meredith’s.

The female patient is still unaware of her surroundings and the doctors notice an out of date pacemaker that they must remove.

Cynthia explains that she left with Chris after her husband abused them. Jo takes this news to heart and asks Owen to get him to leave. He reacts defensively and aggressively. Alex checks on Jo since she’s been in an abusive situation as well but she doesn’t take it as intended.

The homeless woman luckily will be able to be identified by her old pacemaker if they contact the company who made it.

As a healthy kidney is removed from Cynthia, her other kidney begins to fail. The good one hasn’t been put into her son yet but now the doctors must chose who it should go to. There is unfortunately no formal protocol and since the moms kidney wasn’t put into the son’s body yet it’s not technically his.

Bailey visits Meredith at home to try and come to a resolution.

If Chris gets his mother’s kidney, she will have to go on dialysis for an undetermined amount of time. They also know that he won’t happily live with his father if she doesn’t survive.

The homeless woman, Claire, is successfully identified from her pacemaker and her parents are called. They’ve thought she was dead for the past 12 years.

As Jo calls around to other hospitals hoping for another kidney, the estranged father hears and offers his. Jo doesn’t want to do it because it will make him a hero, but it is clearly the only option for mother and son to survive.

Meredith stands her ground and refuses to return until Weber is reinstated as director of residency. Bailey is annoyed and upset.

Jo tries to fight everyone else and explain how upset Cynthia will be to learn that a man she hates so much is the person who saved both lives. Weber explains that they have the responsibility to keep everyone alive if possible.

Claire, the homeless girl, went missing at 20 and her parents thought she was abducted. It is determined that she has schizophrenia.

Before the father goes under, Jo reminds him he’s not the hero. She tells him that this isn’t his chance to get back into their lives, and he agrees. He tells her he just wants to do something good after all the bad he’s done. Jo tells him the best thing he can do is not admit he helped at all and to leave them alone.

Claire’s parents try to talk to her but she doesn’t react well. They are hurt but try to remember that she isn’t herself now. The psychiatrist explains the procedure for medication and that it will be up to her to take the medicine. The parents don’t know how to react but it seems like they’re disappointed and don’t think it’s worth it. Maggie doesn’t understand and Riggs explains that they already gave up on her.

Weber goes to see Meredith and tells her to stop trying to protect him and get her job back. She calls Bailey immediately after he leaves.

Arizona tells Eliza she doesn’t want to keep hiding the fact that they’re friends anymore. Eliza agrees an kisses her.

The other residents and surgeons go along with Jo and don’t tell Cynthia who saved their lives.

Riggs has a strong reaction to seeing Claire and her parents reunite and Maggie thanks it has something to do with the fiancé he lost.