‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Fans Rejoice After [Spoiler] Engagement

Viewers got a surprising look at doctors Alex Karev, Maggie Pierce and Jo Wilson’s pasts — specifically their first loves — during Thursday’s all-new episode of Grey’s Anatomy, leading to a much-anticipated proposal.

During the episode, Alex (Justin Chambers) starts to remember his first love as a teen after his girlfriend Jo (Camilla Luddington) announces she’s applying to fellowship programs in other cities.

“You apply everywhere it’s what you do,” Jo says.

In the first flashback, a teenage Alex is studying with a beautiful blonde. Alex tries to help her before she takes a biology test until she announces she already took the test and just wanted to see him. The couple then shares a tender kiss.

Later in the episode, the show flashes back to 2004, where a teenage Jo Wilson wakes up to a police towing the car where she’s living. She’s losing he car because of unpaid parking tickets, but a kind stranger volunteers to give the man money to make him go away.

Alex then remembers that as he kissed his first love, his mother, traumatized by his father’s abuse, would run around in her underwear if she forgot to take her pills.

Later, Young Jo is hanging out with her first love in her car as they comment on her mobile living situation. The man volunteers to let her stay with his family, but she refuses to let him help her.

In the present, Jo and Alex argue about her applying to fellowships outside of Seattle. Jo admits she’s happy to finally be free to go wherever she wants after her abusive husband Paul’s death.

Later, teenage Alex arrives at a house party, where he finds his girlfriend making fun of his mother and wondering how she can break up with him since he’s bound to go crazy like her eventually. As he returns home broken-hearted, his mother is having another episode, he calms her down and she calls him her truest love.

Meanwhile, teenage Jo is leaving her boyfriend’s high school graduation party and he asks her to move in with him at college, she doesn’t give him an answer right away. The next day, instead of meeting up with the boy and his parents so they can tour the college town, Jo drives away alone, ending their relationship.

In the present, Alex arrives home and tries to find the ring he bought for Jo after she admits she never felt like she fit in anywhere. She reveals she’s already wearing it.

“All my life I always wanted to run until I met you,” Jo says to Alex. “You’re so screwed up that you make me make sense. You and me, we just fit. And I don’t want to leave you Alex… I never want to go anywhere without you. You are my home.”

Jo and Alex’s engagement reveal brought joy to Grey’s fans on Twitter.

Grey’s Anatomy airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.