Warning! SPOILERS for Grey’s Anatomy season 18 ahead.
Content Warning: This article contains discussions/references to suicide.
Owen’s actions following his study on veterans whose incurable illnesses were caused by the military’s wrongdoing in Owen (Kevin McKidd), who started studying the link between veterans’ chronic health issues and the use of burn pits by the US military. After meeting Noah (Johnny Rey Diaz) and knowing that his health would have only deteriorated, Owen decided to give Noah’s wife drugs stolen from Grey Sloan so that Noah could decide to end his life on his .
As word got out among the participants in Owen’s study about his willingness to give life-ending drugs to veterans suffering from pulmonary fibrosis, Teddy (Kim Raver) pieced together what Owen was doing. Despite being against Owen’s methods and what she recognized as criminal activity, Teddy understood Owen was only doing what he believed was right in order to give those veterans a less painful death. Still, Teddy knew that when the truth about what Owen was doing came to life, he might have risked prison. Her fears were proven right in Grey’s Anatomy season 18 ending, which saw Teddy and Owen running away from Seattle with Allison and Leo, knowing that Bailey would have had to turn Owen in.
While the outcomes were much different, the Grey’s Anatomy season 18 Owen and Teddy story mirrored something that happened in the medical drama’s season 2 and involved all of MAGIC. Although it was Izzie (Katherine Heigl) that cut Denny Duquette’s LVAD wire to worsen his condition and get him the heart transplant in Grey’s Anatomy season 2 episode 25, Meredith (Ellen Pompeo), Cristina (Sandra Oh), George (T. R. Knight) and Alex (Justin Chambers) all helped her. Similarly, while Owen stole life-ending drugs to give to veterans asking for them, Teddy decided to cover for him and even questioned John, the husband of a veteran from Utah, who wanted the drugs to let her wife die peacefully, or he would’ve turned in Owen to the authorities.
The Grey’s Anatomy season 18 Owen and Teddy storyline mirrored Izzie’s cutting of Denny’s LVAD wire also in Owen and Izzie’s remorseless attitude. Owen defended his actions both to Teddy and Bailey, standing by his belief he had to help those veterans who were left to die painfully while also racking up debt to pay for the meds that kept them alive but couldn’t cure them. Like Owen, before coming clean after Denny’s post-transplant death in Grey’s Anatomy season 2 episode 27, Izzie stood by her decision to do whatever she could to give Denny his heart, as she felt truly seen as herself by him. Unlike Teddy and Owen, though, who were seemingly reported to the police by Bailey, Izzie’s actions weren’t reported to UNOS. Izzie quit her job, but she might not have needed to lose it, despite Chief Webber being set on letting the truth come to light.