‘Grey’s Anatomy’: What Made Jo and Alex Stay in Seattle

Jo Wilson and Alex Karev were picturing what their lives would be like after they moved to Boston for Jo’s exciting new career opportunity while on their honeymoon, but a radical new idea motivated her to change her plans and stay in Seattle after all.

Throughout the two-hour season 15 premiere of Grey’s Anatomy, the newlyweds went from enjoying their beachside time together back to the halls of Grey Sloan Memorial as Jo thought of her next big surgical innovation idea to work on, but she didn’t want to do it at Massachusetts General.

As the couple enjoys their time at the beach, Alex focuses on relaxing and spending time with his new wife. Jo, however is stuck by inspiration as she builds a sandcastle and walks away, distracted by her new idea.

Later in the episode, viewers catch up to Jo who has been busy crafting her idea and working while Alex walked along the beach and enjoyed his time off. When he comes back into their hotel room, Jo reveals she thinks she came up with a plan to revolutionize cancer research and save millions of lives, and that she wants to go back to the hospital to pitch the idea to Meredith Grey.

“I know that I’m ruining our honeymoon,” she says after realizing she has worked the whole time. “Do you hate me?”

Alex responds: “You married me. In the whole history of my life nothing has surprised me more than when you agreed to marry me. I could never hate you.”

The pair then rushes back to the hospital, two days after their wedding and interrupting their vacation, and Jo pitches the idea to Meredith.

She suggests that Meredith talk to Miranda Bailey — who herself is busy trying to find an interim chief of surgery to replace her as she takes a step back from managerial duties — about starting an innovation fellowship at Grey Sloan to fund her research.

When Meredith reaches out to Bailey, she says no claiming that that the hospital has no money after they built a hyperbaric chamber for medical procedures, and the only way she could hire Jo back would be to use the money that was freed up by Alex quitting to go with her to Boston; feeling defeated, Alex suggests they go to Boston anyways and try for the fellowship in another year, but Jo admits she already rejected their offer so it’s too late.

Just as all faith seems lost, Jo and Alex get drunk at Joe’s bar and she decides to drunkenly confront Bailey and pitch her the idea, as a last minute effort to get herself the exciting job. Despite her drunken state, Bailey is impressed and agrees to pay for the fellowship herself and work alongside Jo on the exciting new project.

As for Alex? Bailey shocks Meredith when she appoints him interim chief of surgery, meaning he will also have a new job at the hospital as everyone else’s boss.

We’ll see how the couple settles into married life, and their new career opportunities as the 15th season of Grey’s Anatomy airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.