Spoiler alert! This story contains spoilers for the Season 5 episode of Station 19, “When the Party’s Over.”
Station 19 really knows how to raise viewers’ blood pressure! The latest episode, “When the Party’s Over,” picked up right where last week’s episode left off, with Andy running away from her attacker Jeremy. As the firefighters tried to help Andy, Station 19 seemingly recreated a classic Grey’s Anatomy scene in which the show informed Andy and the viewers alike about what a rape kit entails and a victim's rights in reporting an assault. “When the Party’s Over” had a starkly different ending than its Grey’s counterpart, however, as Andy’s troubles are far from over.
After Andy got away from Jeremy, she ran until she found Maya, Carina, and Jack (having a pretty important conversation of their own). Warren sat with Andy as her advocate as she gave her statement to the police, and she consented to a rape kit, since she had Jeremy’s DNA on her body. In a scene that was reminiscent of Grey’s Anatomy’s Season 15 episode “Silent All These Years,” the doctors of Grey Sloan Memorial walked Andy through the process of consenting to each step of the kit.
Carina performed the kit with the assistance of Taryn Helm (Jaicy Elliot) who made a guest appearance from Grey’s Anatomy. Back on “Silent All These Years,” it was Jo assisting Teddy with a sexual assault victim in one of the medical series’ best episodes. The explanation of a rape kit was something that creator Shonda Rhimes fought to keep in that episode, and I love that they brought it over to Station 19 to inform a new audience and hopefully help more people.
The end of the Grey’s Anatomy story featured one of the series’ most memorable scenes, with Jo forming a “wall of women” to protect the victim as she went into surgery. Station 19’s story was anything but inspiring, as the events took a far more devastating turn. Despite the firefighters’ best efforts (and the efforts of the Grey Sloan doctors), Jeremy ended up dying from the injuries Andy had caused.
Even before that, though, the police had seemed determined to victim-blame (why are Station 19’s police officers the actual worst?). They neglected to offer Andy access to an advocate or rape kit. Then, the officers’ questions to Andy about how much she’d had to drink only became more enraging after Jeremy died, because the police started asking her things like why didn’t she stop to help Jeremy when she realized he was hurt? Her pleas that she had been attacked and that she had acted in self-defense fell on deaf ears, and the episode ended with Andy being arrested.
This issue doesn’t appear to be going away anytime soon, as evidenced by the preview for the next episode. Check it out for yourself:
Unfortunately we’ll have to wait quite a while before we find out how the firefighters are going to help Andy through this. Station 19 will be on hiatus for a few weeks and will return at 8 p.m. ET on Thursday, May 5, on ABC. In the meantime, check out our 2022 TV schedule to see what new and returning shows are premiering soon.
