Station 19 delivered some big twists for both Sullivan and Andy in “The Ghosts That Haunt Me,” and the episode as a whole leaves me confused about their relationship. Andy has been trying to keep news of their marriage quiet while she deals with her grief and returning to work, while Sullivan has been trying to keep the secret of their marriage and his drug overdose. If Station 19 wants me to be rooting for their love story, then it’s pretty unfortunate that I am firmly Team Andy.
Andy and Sullivan were actually apart for most of the episode, with Andy on the scene of a fire and facing the complications of telling Jack about her marriage. In fact, in light of Jack’s skepticism, she admitted that she might have made a mistake and had really been thinking about her father and getting him to walk her down the aisle. She loves Sullivan, but Andy isn’t 100% sure the secret (and very fast) wedding was the right call. Plus, he’s her boss.
While all this was happening, Sullivan was arguing with Ben in his office at the firehouse, with Ben pressuring him to come clean about his drug habit and overdose, and finally yelling at him for not going up onto the roof where Pruitt died. Sullivan finally exploded that he couldn’t go up on the roof because he had to be there for his wife, who was going to lose her father soon anyway.
Ben and I had the same response to the implication that Sullivan let Pruitt die in the fire because Pruitt was going to die soon anyway, but Ben’s indignation faded, even if he was still determined Sullivan had to come clean about his on-the-job overdose to Dixon. So, Andy told somebody about the marriage and Sullivan told somebody about the marriage. All things were more or less equal.
Then the mess hit the fan. Sullivan came clean to Dixon about the marriage before his drug issue, and the whole matter was ultimately resolved (for now, anyway), with Dixon basically sweeping both of Sullivan’s secrets under the rug and saying that Sullivan owes him a favor. Something along these lines was always going to happen, in my book, so I wasn’t surprised or too upset. What did upset me on Andy’s behalf is what Sullivan did after the exchange with Dixon.
Sullivan told Andy that he’d told Dixon and got the all-clear, then decided that a spaghetti dinner attended by all their coworkers and guests was the right time to announce their marriage. Andy was clearly uncomfortable and tried to stop him, but Sullivan just went right ahead and did it. He even went for some PDA while Andy was basically squirming under the scrutiny.
