After months of waiting, season 13 of “Grey’s Anatomy” has finally arrived. Last season, we left off with an up-and-coming love triangle, a wedding, a life-threatening birth and a physical assault. All of this summed up to a whole bunch of drama waiting to break the surface and that left the audience in anticipation of the next season.

Was the wait really worth it? Not really. A lot of the issues were wrapped up quickly in this first episode, save for the main focus: Alex Karev’s (Justin Chambers) assault on Andrew DeLuca (Giacomo Gianniotti). It’s clear this assault is going to be the main focus for quite a bit of the season—deservingly so, as this is something that has not happened between characters before in the history of the show—but it just seems a bit overly dramatic. Everyone was losing his or her cool over this assault when they all should have taken a large breath and handled the situation better. They also probably shouldn’t have lied so much, but they all have a really bad habit of keeping the truth to themselves.

Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) and Karev are at the heart of all the problems in the episode, and it was strange watching them interact. Since Christina Yang’s (Sandra Oh) departure, Karev has become Meredith’s “person”, and this jump from frenemies to best pals being uncharacteristic of the two. I was surprised the lengths Meredith goes to in the episode to protect Karev, only to give him up at the end. Actually, I was surprised by a lot of the excuses that were made during the episode: assault is assault, end of story. There is no circumstance where beating up a man who did nothing wrong is right.

Besides the focus on the assault, there is a little focus on the love triangle and the other issues are basically left unaddressed for later episodes. Meredith pushes her feelings aside so that Maggie Pierce (Kelly McCreary) can be happy, though we all know that won’t last long. While I admire her sisterly love, it’s the wrong thing to do in this situation since Maggie’s love is never going to be reciprocated. That just goes to show how selfless of a character Meredith has developed into, although this will surely blow up in her face.

Overall, the episode was an okay start to the season. There have certainly been better season openers. Had the focus on Karev and DeLuca not been so intense or the situation not been so dramatically played out, I might have enjoyed it more. I am interested to see what happens to Karev in the following episodes though. If he’s found guilty, he’s clearly going to prison and won’t be practicing medicine anymore. However if he is let off the hook, will he still be able to practice at the hospital? Or will he be booted out? We shall see as this season pans out.

Show: “Grey’s Anatomy,” Season 13, Episode 1

Creator: Shonda Rhimes

Airs: Thursdays at 8 p.m. on ABC

Rating: 3.5 Stars