Grey’s Anatomy returns to core instincts in Season 22, Episode 5 — the hour titled “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” — while setting up a perilous fall finale in “When I Crash” on Thursday, November 13, 2025 at 10 p.m. ET on ABC, with next‑day streaming on Hulu. The latest recap reveals how personal histories crash into hospital chaos, and why Jo Wilson’s delivery and Teddy Altman’s field rescue now look like life‑or‑death turns.
What happens in S22E5: “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child”
(Disney/Bahareh Ritter)
Meredith Grey’s voice‑over frames the theme: there’s “always one patient who can change everything for a doctor,” and this week that proves true for Simone, Benson Kwan, and Jo.
Simone’s exit shift is derailed when Lucas is late, so Richard Webber reassigns her to Regina Evans — a transfer battling congestive heart failure, renal failure, and hospital‑acquired pneumonia. A photo at Regina’s bedside shows Simone’s mother, Denise, turning the consult into a reckoning with a past Simone thought she knew. Regina describes teenage adventures with Denise — “sneaking pot into a concert by A Tribe Called Quest” and staying out all night before “serious lectures from Mama Joyce,” Simone’s grandmother.
Complications follow — “as is tradition at Grey Sloan Memorial.” Doctors find an aneurysm; it’s not emergent, so they schedule surgery for the next day, leaving time for Simone to confess that she and Ebony aren’t close because her sister blames her for their mother’s death. Simone blames herself, too — “She made her mother a statistic.” Regina refuses to let that guilt stand and shares her own: a dream acceptance to a prestigious culinary institute in Paris late in Denise’s pregnancy, and Denise urges her to go. When Regina’s oxygen suddenly drops, code blue efforts fail. Regina dies, and Simone — and Lucas, who softens enough to offer her a ride home — has to sit with grief and a complicated inheritance.
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Kwan’s house call, Bailey’s line in the sand
At the clinic, Benson Kwan realizes patient Mercedes Hernandez has missed multiple appointments and a prescription refill; with PCOS and diabetes, she’s courting cascading complications. He and Jules go to her home and find a crisis: Mercedes can’t rise from the couch, her son Javi and her mother are terrified, and a diabetic infection has turned a toe necrotic — it “falls off” when touched.
Mercedes refuses the hospital; she fears ICE surveillance and vanishing like a cousin “taken off the street.” Kwan calls in Miranda Bailey, who arrives with a fully stocked ambulance. They save the foot and secure a promise about medication pick‑ups, but Bailey is furious at a system where families risk death to avoid detention. She is proud — and firm that the off‑books house call is a “fireable offense” she’s letting slide with a warning. Meanwhile, Javi’s toy velociraptors — Benito and Josh — comfort him; he gives Josh to Jules, who passes it to Winston Ndugu as he stresses about presenting Nora Young’s surgery. Winston declines the toy, but not the look he gives Jules as she walks away.
Jo, Link, and a birth plan that won’t budge
(Disney/Anne Marie Fox)
Jo Wilson and Atticus “Link” Lincoln argue baptism after Link’s mother presses the issue for their twins. Link isn’t religious — “Scout’s not baptized either” — while Jo reveals a surprising spiritual streak tied to a Korean church that fed her as a teen; she says she prayed when Link was hurt and found comfort. Link counters with memories of a hospital church group that told kids “God was watching over them,” even as children died, and adds he doesn’t see God in “the planet burning” or “people starving.” They table the debate when Jo’s patient Amy insists on a medication‑free vaginal birth despite a breech baby. Amy’s grief surfaces: her husband, Kevin, “died three months ago.” Jo reframes control as care, and delivers a healthy baby girl — before her own water breaks. Twins incoming.
Fall finale: “When I Crash” raises the stakes for Jo and Teddy
(Disney/Anne Marie Fox)
The “When I Crash” promo teases Jo facing complications during delivery — she says she can’t breathe — and Winston tells Link that “her heart is failing.” Teddy Altman crawls under an unsecured bus to help a victim and appears to get trapped. The fall finale airs Thursday, November 13, 2025 at 10 p.m. ET on ABC, with next‑day streaming on Hulu.
Camilla Luddington’s own warning amplifies the dread. On the Call It What It Is podcast after the Season 22 premiere, she offered “a little teaser for going into this season” about “what is a character’s storyline that will shock people this season?” Her answer: “I think Jo’s. I really thought hard about it, but what I’m filming right now, ugh.” Later, with a new video for the show, she joked about spoilers: “This is bad, actually. This is bad, because now you can see every expression, it’s gonna give more away if you watch us.”
Those comments land just “weeks” after Natalie Morales’s Monica Beltran died in the Season 22 premiere, and while Teddy is separated from Owen Hunt, her “reignited fling” with Sophia Bush’s Cass Beckman has only just begun. The questions now — Will Jo or Teddy be the next to go? Will Link be left to raise four children? Will the twins survive? — are exactly the ones the promo stirs up.
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Cast and characters referenced in this episode and preview
- Meredith Grey (voice‑over)
- Simone; Lucas; Richard Webber; Regina Evans; Denise; Ebony; “Mama Joyce”
- Benson Kwan; Jules; Mercedes Hernandez; Javi; Benito; Josh; Miranda Bailey
- Winston Ndugu; Nora Young
- Jo Wilson; Atticus “Link” Lincoln; Amy; Kevin; Scout
- Teddy Altman; Owen Hunt; Cass Beckman (played by Sophia Bush); Monica Beltran (played by Natalie Morales)
Why S22E5 matters for the “When I Crash” fallout
Simone’s arc reframes the show’s central idea that “one patient can change everything.” Losing Regina reopens family wounds and nudges Lucas out of his post‑breakup stasis. That small thaw may matter in a crisis‑heavy fall finale, where cohesive personal ties often decide who gets help fastest.
Kwan and Bailey’s street‑side intervention shows Grey Sloan at its best and angriest, pairing compassion with a critique of the forces that keep patients away. It also quietly moves Jules and Winston into a flirt adjacent space — a thread that could cross with high‑stakes OR scenes if Teddy’s bus rescue goes sideways.
Most of all, Jo and Link’s baptism dispute reveals clashing worldviews under stress. The show doesn’t resolve faith vs. doubt; it boxes the debate and makes room for the medical emergency. If the promo’s “her heart is failing” line lands on Jo, the series is signaling the kind of midseason cliffhanger that reshapes families for the rest of Season 22. If it lands on a baby, the writers are daring the audience to sit with a different kind of grief.
Where to watch
Grey’s Anatomy airs Thursdays at 10 p.m. ET on ABC. New episodes stream the next day on Hulu.
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