Grey's Anatomy Episode 10.20 Go It Alone

Meredith advises Cristina to be funny during her Harper Avery acceptance speech. That's a tall order given the subject matter of the work she's doing for others. Speaking of her patients, the parents in family with the three kids with heart issues are fighting with each other nonstop. They can't see how much they are hurting their children. Cristina can. She sends the parents away so she can practice her speech while playing Jenga with the kids. All game-playing comes to an end when Ivy starts rejecting her heart.

Cristina does a biopsy on Ivy. While doing so, she lets Owen that she'd prefer to go to her award ceremony in Boston alone. Elsewhere, Alex discovers that Frankie is also having heart issues. With a little help from Braden's hide-and-seek car cam, he finds her passed out on the floor. She's in heart failure. Cristina may miss her flight. All three kids are put on the heart transplant list. John, the dad, has no idea this is happening. When he finally returns, he and his wife remember how much they love each other.

Richard cons Meredith into pulling an all-nighter to monitor a gastric bypass patient. That means Derek has to deal with the kids. It won't be easy since he's overwhelmed with his Washington gig along with his daily duties at the hospital. He gets the second years to bail on karaoke night (Ben was bailing anyway to drink warm milk) in order to scrub in with him on a late-night life-saving surgery. When Leah makes a mistake, Derek angrily tells everyone to be quiet while he works.

Meredith must do an emergency surgery on her bypass patient while trying to find out who has her kids. She knows it's not Derek. He's still working at the hospital. As it turns out, Callie and Arizona canceled their date night to watch the MerDer munchkins. This leads to a discussion about who is having their next baby. They decide to flip a coin until Arizona decides she doesn't want to do it. They never do see who won the toss.

The mother of a young deaf girl gets angry at Jackson when he suggests using a device for her ears. She believes her daughter was born this way and doesn't need to be fixed. This leads to conversation at home between Jackson and April. It's all about how they have very differing views. Actually it's a full-blown fight about religion. Jackson ends up screaming that he doesn't believe God is real. This makes April pity her husband. She asks Arizona and Callie if she can stay with them for a while.

Once the night shift ends, Richard finds Ben asleep in the hall. He missed the entire brain surgery. Much to Leah's relief, the patient is okay. Derek advises her to remember this “what if” moment so the mistake she made won't happen again. He also realizes that he and Meredith are juggling too much. Something has to give. In other news, Bailey is injecting her young patient, Braden, with a variation of the HIV-virus to kick-start his immune system and Alex has been moonlighting to see if private practice life suits him. So far it does even though he's exhausted.

Cristina arrives in Boston where she's treated like a rock star. She's swarmed by people wanting to bend her ear. This has her freaking out about being there alone. She wishes Meredith and Owen were there. Surprise, surprise. They are there. They're waiting for her inside. Cristina is beyond happy and they haven't even announced the winner yet. Then they do. The Harper Avery award goes to... not Dr. Cristina Yang.