Spoiler alert! This story contains spoilers about the March 9 episode of Grey’s Anatomy’s Season 19 episode, “Love Don’t Cost a Thing.”
It’s been clear since the beginning of Grey’s Anatomy’s 19th season that Simone Griffith values her privacy, and she’s already had a few skeletons fall out of her closet, including her grandmother’s condition and the reason she was kicked out of her last program. Another big bomb got dropped at the end of last week’s episode, when an old flame showed up, just as things were heating up between her and Lucas. We learned quite a bit more about Trey in “Love Don’t Cost a Thing,” and if this love triangle set off your MerDer radar, you were not alone.
Trey (William Martinez) wasn’t just any old boyfriend showing up on Simone’s doorstep — he was her fiancé. She apparently ghosted him after her viral video incident, and he had finally tracked her down. Lucas (Niko Terho) getting blindsided with the fiancé nobody knew about felt like some kind of Shepherd karmic retribution for McDreamy failing to tell Meredith he was still married — minus Addison’s epic line, “You must be the woman that's been screwing my husband,” of course.
That’s not where the similarities ended either. Trey interrupted Lucas and Simone (Alexis Floyd) during a suuuuper steamy moment, and when she chose to hear her ex out, rather than continue with McDreamy’s nephew, she justified it by pointing out:
We were engaged. We had a whole life. He knows my family. My dad loves him. My grandmother loves him.
Tell me that’s not the 2023 version of Derek Shepherd in Season 2’s “Bring the Pain,” (one of Grey’s Anatomy’s best episodes) when he’s struggling over whether or not to sign Addison’s divorce papers, and in his frustration he tells Meredith:
Addison is my family. That is 11 Thanksgivings, 11 birthdays, 11 Christmases, and in one day I am supposed to sign a piece of paper and end my family?
Lucas skipped past the whole “Pick me, choose me, love me” part (nobody’s begging for love in Season 19), instead asking Simone if she still loved Trey. Her silence was his answer, and just like Derek decided to give his marriage to Addison another shot over a decade ago, Simone got re-engaged to Trey, breaking Lucas’ heart the same way his favorite uncle had devastated Meredith.
This was not the blast from the past I was hoping for, because I’m all in on “Lumone,” but leave it to Mika Yasuda (Midori Francis) and Taryn Helm (Jaicy Elliott) to fix that. Upon seeing how upset Lucas was after Trey’s re-proposal, she turned up the music and forced Lucas to dance it out, just like the good old days of Meredith and Cristina. This is the energy I need to sustain me until Simone comes to her senses. Because she WILL come to her senses, right?
I guess we’ll see, when Grey’s Anatomy returns next Thursday, March 16, at 9 p.m. ET on ABC. In the meantime, you can catch up on this season’s episodes with a Hulu subscription, and stay up to date on all the upcoming premieres with our 2023 TV schedule.
