'Grey's Anatomy' Season 11 Episode 4 Recap 'Only Mama Knows'- Do Meredith & Half-Sister Maggie Finally Make Up?

In the words of Ellis Grey, "The carousel never stops turning."

This episode focused on Meredith Grey and Richard Webber's memories of the Ellis Grey that they knew. It takes the viewers on a journey through flashbacks of the former mother and lover, and shows viewers a different side to the former surgeon's relationships.

Mer, still shocked by the news that Maggie is her half-sister, still can't remember a time in her life when her mother was pregnant. Thinking that she must have blocked it out, she reaches back through her memory trying to remember any details. However, when the only thing she can remember is a carousel and her mother failed suicide attempt, she calls Richard for help.

Grey knows that Webber has her mother's diary from the Spring of 1983 the time that she thinks her mother was pregnant, and asks the former chief if she can look over the notes to see if her mother might have alluded to something about being with child.

The episode also focuses on Maggie Pierce's decision to leave Seattle Grace after her not so warm welcome from her half-sis, Meredith. However, as her and Derek Shepherd get to know one another in and out of the operating room, it seems that she might have a friend in the hospital after all.

Derek, unaware of why the doctor would be packing it in so soon, keeps on questioning her, to which she replies that he should ask his wife of the reason she's leaving. However, Meredith and Derek aren't really on speaking terms, so he is still in the dark about the whole half-sister thing.

However, when Maggie does end up telling him that he is her half brother-in-law he couldn't be more excited about the news, and about the fact that he is adding yet another sister to his family. The two embrace in a hug, which is probably the first family experience that Maggie has gotten since coming to the hospital.

One of the central themes, and recurring flashbacks, of the last few episodes is what happened the day that Meredith was at the carousel. Viewers finally learn that this is the day that Richard told Ellis that he wasn't leaving his wife Adele to be with her.

After the events at the carousel, Ellis Grey goes home and slits her wrist, which viewers get to see in a gruesome flashback. As the middle-age Ellis collapses on the floor, 5-year-old Meredith calls 911 reporting that her mother tried to commit suicide. How she even knows how to dial the phone and even knows about suicide at this age, we are still puzzled about. The paramedics who show up to the scene tell the young Mer that she is very resourceful and could have saved her mother's life.

In one of Richard's flashbacks, he thinks about the time that Ellis was in the hospital and they talk about the life they could have had, had Webber left Adele and been with her. They even bring up the hypothetical kid that they wanted to have, which turned out to be not so hypothetical after all.

When Richard finally tells Mer what happened at the carousel that day, he also owns up to the fact that he wishes he had been with her mother, and that both their lives could have been so much better.

Realizing that Richard made a mistake in not leaving Adele, Mer comes to the conclusion that she doesn't want to miss out on time with her half-sister, so she decides to make a truce.

Meredith meets up with her sister and offers out an olive branch by showing her the journal from the time around when she thinks her mother was pregnant.

The two bond over the memory of Ellis Grey.

Catch an all-new episode next Thursday at 8 pm on ABC.

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