She Took It and Ran With It

Calzona Review 14x23

Grey's Anatomy  “ Cold As Ice”

This is it. One last episode to go before the final goodbye.

Penultimate episode 23 finally gave us a definite idea of April and Arizona's new directions before they bid Grey Sloan Memorial goodbye. 

This episode which started with much lightness with April sending out e-invites for the Jolex wedding, became one intense tearjerker mainly due to April’s brush with death.

It also gives significant testament  to double-board certified Arizona Robbins’ career achievements as a fetal surgeon and assures us  of how she will continue to save more mothers’ and babies' lives even after she exits her hospital home of many years.

Great Privilege For Bailey

In this episode, Arizona has started her goodbyes and solidified her intention to move to New York.

She started her big goodbye in the ep by giving notice to Chief Bailey who, upon being informed of her leaving,  gave her a verbal tribute so touching that it did not only make Arizona tear up but Jessica Capshaw as well.

Arizona: I'm leaving, I'm moving to New York. It's for Sofia. It's what she needs. And you know its gonna be great. So please, be happy for me, and Sofia.

Bailey: I thought you were a pixie stick. When I met you, I thought you were an empty vessel full of sugar who skated in the hospital. I didn't know then that it would be one of the great privileges of my life to know you and to work with you.

Arizona: Nope I can't. Sorry for that. Thank you. You too.

With my trained Grey’s eye, that was Jessica Capshaw right there in that scene, who could not hold back her tears. 

Wingman Webber Reacts  

In her next scene, it was her wingman Richard Webber's turn to react about her plans to leave soon:

Richard : Were you going to tell me? That  I had  to hear it from Mt Sinai?

Arizona :There's nothing to tell yet

Webber: Tell me why would you be on a job search? Is it because of the Harper Avery scandal? Because the changes to the foundation are real. Look and I would've thought that if you had any reservations, you might talk with me. I thought we were friends.

I know these scenes were both meant to pay tribute to Arizona. They are showing us her last scenes with characters with whom she had important ties with. 

Just an aside, see, this is one benefit of characters who are given enough time to close their stories and are given scenes to properly say goodbye, unlike Callie who suddenly left. She wasn’t able to have proper goodbyes with  characters who developed close ties with her. 

It pained me though to see these goodbye scenes, where characters paid tribute or questioned her planned departure. They were not easily willing to let her go. They treasured Arizona's value in the hospital. Sadly, behind the scenes, the opposite was happening. The production powers-that-be had lacked creative vitamins potent enough to make her character stay. 

Her Mentor is Back

Fetal surgery mentor Nicole Herman with whom Arizona had not been in communication with for a long time has come back to the hospital in all her sarcastic glory.

Little did we know that Arizona had not taken it nicely that Herman her mentor, had not reached out to her for a long time.

Herman's headaches and dizziness led her to seek a consult with the doctor who took out her brain tumor, Amelia Shepherd (who labelled this consult probably the worst consult of her life)  and after all tests, turned out that she was all right and the tumor had not come back. 

Her blindness jokes were witty but these could not ease the overall tension and tears pervading the episode because April's fate and Jackson's faith were hanging in the balance, as Arizona was saying her goodbyes.

Eventually Herman admitted to Arizona that she actually came to Grey Sloan to partner up with her and offered Arizona a most rewarding new noble endeavor that was too hard to pass up. 

“Callie’s Been Great”

Even before Webber could tell her about what befell her hospital BFF, Arizona cut him off trying to defend her decision to leave, and made mention of Calliope Torres which is always a welcome word in our Calzona-loving world.

Arizona: Okay I know that you’re mad but i was gonna tell you... You listen. You think I wanna leave? I’m making this choice for my daughter who needs both of her parents and if you wanna gripe then you should gripe at Calliope Torres for moving into the land of crap coffee and hot garbage smells...

Webber: Robbins...

Arizona: You know, Callie's gonna be great, she's been surprisingly..

Webber: Arizona. It's not about New York. It's about April Kepner. 

Arizona: What??

If you noticed, she said "Callie's gonna be great, she's been surprisingly..."  this excites and intrigues me. To me, it feels like Callie is excited to welcome back her daughter and wife to New York. Who knows? She might just be overly excited and decide to attend the Jolex wedding and pick up her fam. Maybe ;) 

Arizona Reveals The Mapril Secret

April's best friend Arizona, ironically was one of the last to find out about  April's accident. She only knew about it after the bypass and she provided the "surprising" revelation about Matthew and April's love reboot which to many viewers, in truth, was not really surprising, and not necessarily pleasing either:

"She and Matthew Taylor have been doing volunteer work together. A clinic.

They've been seeing each other for months now. She didn't wanna tell anybody. She didn't want the judgments or the opinions about how long .... whether or not she was doing the right thing....they've been through so much since they were together. She lost a child, he lost a wife and that they knew each other's pain like they knew their own. And that they knew how fragile it is, how rare it is. That something good could come out of so much pain. And they fell in love. Again. She's in love."

She held best friend April's hand. And together with Jackson, Owen, etc. stayed by April's bedside, waiting, praying for her to wake up from her coma.

She hysterically sobbed with joy when April woke up. This was her best friend and she survived. It gives a peaceful feeling that in these final moments, all is well with April and Arizona’s friendship.  This friendship has stayed true to the end. Bless Kepzona.

Parallels

Arizona’s revelation  was a lovely story of reconciliation, if only it were not about Matthew and April. Would rather not focus on thoughts on April and Matthew ending up together. Japril love was all over the place in this episode, so nope, it is not necessary  to comment on this reconciliation between Mapril because no offense, I am more inclined to be indifferent to it. 

Would  rather concentrate on Arizona's words and how they can apply to Arizona and Calliope Torres. ..

Let me repeat that beautiful narration:

"...they knew each other's pain like they knew their own. And that they knew how fragile it is, how rare it is. That something good could come out of so much pain. And they fell in love. Again."

What if. Just what if these words were applicable to our Calzona. What If after all the pain and the separation  they had been through, after the divorce, the custody battle, the peacemaking, their new partners, what if in the end, they were still the ones fated to be each other's happy ending? So much for what ifs…

She Made Herman Proud

Great is Arizona’s love for daughter Sofia that she has planned on giving up fetal surgery and was about to go back to peds surgery, and it made me thankful that Herman was there to thwart this underachievement step. From Herman, we discover that Arizona had already performed 76 procedures since they saw each other.  "I've been following you. Our time together was short but you just took it and ran with it." 

Arizona: Yeah it was short but meaningful

Herman and Arizona continued their catch up conversation during Herman’s CT. Herman was still praising Arizona.

Herman: That obstetrical cart thing? You're making people talk. I've heard it. 

Arizona: Yeah well I’m going back into peds surgery

Herman: What?

Arizona: Yeah i have to.  I have to go back to New York with my daughter and there's already three fetal surgeons there so Mt Sinai offered me...

Herman: Oh no, no Robbins, this is unacceptable

Arizona: Hey listen,I don’t have a choice. I know that shocked you but if you come around to say hello, it wouldn’t be.

Their dialogue continues in Herman’s hospital room.

Herman: This is impressive, Robbins. This is good. You did good. You, you really ran with it. 

Arizona: I didn’t have much of a choice..

Herman: Are you still pouting? I hear pouting.

Arizina: You’ve been following my work?  I mean and you didn’t think to reach out? To make me know that you’re all right? To see if I’m all right? Cause you were my mentor and you were supposed to be my friend. And …

Herman: You were fine. You are fine. And don’t for a second think about quitting fetal surgery. 

Arizona: Oh no. You don’t get to have an opinion about that. You dropped me and you just moved on. That's unacceptable. 

Herman: Robbins I didn't know...you saved my life. 

Arizona: Shepherd saved your life. 

Herman: No, Yes but no, after blind school, I hit a rough patch. I mean the blindness I could cope with, but  I was put on this earth to do surgery and then suddenly... so I went very very dark. No pun intended. And then I kept hearing about you and your dozens of exit procedures and the acardiac twin and you saved quads. And i said ‘crap! I downloaded my entire brain into that girl in mere months and she would now save all these babies.’ 

Arizona: Thanks I needed to hear you say that. 

Herman : This isn't about you. This is about me. You made me realize that I could teach. And that I could matter. I could save more babies by creating more Robbinses than I ever could myself with two working eyeballs. You made me see that. And THAT saved my life. And I didn’t reach out because I didn’t know how to thank you sufficiently and I still don't. So I'm just not going to.  Cool?

Herman was such a proud teacher as she, having also gone through her own struggles, was  inspired by Arizona to teach more.

It was a glorious moment when she invited Arizona to be her partner in the Robbins Herman Center for Women's Health. Did I mention the witty repartee between them was amusing?

Herman: I could've seen Koracik actually but i wanted to come talk to you.

Arizona: Well that would be a switch

Herman: Oh stop. I've blown enough smoke up your butt already we're good now. Your obstetrical cart. It needs to be on every delivery floor in the country.

I just got a grant from HHS and I want to start,  call it the Robbins Herman Center for Women's Health. 

I will teach fetal surgery, you will perform it and together we will launch your maternal mortality prevention program and together we will make this country safe for women and babies.  What do you say?

Arizona: Could we do it in New York?

Herman: Wherever you want.

Arizona. A True Inspiration.

It was too good to be true and Arizona couldn’t hide her excitement and hugged Herman hard.

Herman may have been absent all those years but she was following her student all that time, very much impressed by her achievements, and now this. This was the dream of a lifetime for Arizona, and the concept was materializing right at that moment.

This center would boost Arizona's maternal mortality prevention program and her life-saving carts were envisioned to be at every delivery floor in the country. There was only one remaining request, that it be done in New York and boom. It was a go.

The elation from the big yes from Herman set a high note in the ep. This would enable Arizona  to achieve even bigger goals and save more babies, at a place where she, her daughter  and wife, were happy. 

Fantastic exit for our revered fetal surgeon who may have stumbled a lot in her personal life but  career-wise, never failed to make us proud.

She did not stop at being one of the best peds surgeons. She strove to achieve more in the name of medicine.

She took up a new specialty and became one of the most brilliant fetal surgeons after being mentored by Herman. And she again did not stop there. She came up with a noble endavour, her maternal mortality prevention project that would serve even more good for babies and mothers in the country.

That's our Arizona Robbins.  A successful, revered surgeon, a loyal friend, a respectable colleague, a loving mother. 

 She has and is and will always be an inspiration.

In spite of all the emotional  and physical challenges she had faced over the years,  she remained undaunted in making the best of herself. She was taught by a great mentor and she made her mentor proud.

She did not put her newfound knowledge to waste. She used her learnings and became brilliant at it. She was determined to achieve what was possible and went beyond, to save more lives.

That concludes Arizona's career story. And it is more than a perfect career ending that I could hope for. 

All good things come to an end but as a fan, I honestly do want to say goodbye to her on a positive note.

As she said to Bailey, let's be happy for her. It's for her daughter, sure. But maybe not right now. The wound of this loss will have to heal and that will take time.

I truly wish that the next episode, even if the Jolex wedding takes center stage, will still be a fitting tribute to Arizona and in essence, Calzona, as 14x23 was a tribute to April.

We are aware that Carina will be in the finale but I hope that we will be given a conclusion we have deserved for so long.

The episode ends with a potter analogy with change :

"...And potters they see the repairs as something beautiful. They know that the unexpected happens. Change happens. They know that nobody gets through this world in one piece. That doesn’t have to diminish us. The cracks are part of our history. They will always be with us. They made us better. They made us stronger,  they made us something new."

Only one most  important aspect of Arizona's life is left to be concluded, which I will not speak about now. I think it is wiser to just wait. 

I will wait to be surprised,

 wait to be amazed and 

wait to be made to believe again in true love.  

That what was once shattered and broken will again be made whole, sturdier and more beautiful. 

Yes. You bet I will wait for our most longed-for happily ever after.

It will be one of the last few times I will say this. And I say it with so much conviction and so much love in my heart...

For the final finale of Arizona and Calzona on Grey's,  I remain 

#CalzonaStrong

#CalzonaForever 

#AndEver

Twitter:

@GAFan8