Grey's Anatomy Fans Are Divided Over Teddy Taking Over As Chief

Being chief of surgery at Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital isn't exactly a walk in the park. You could get shot. There could be a bomb in a body cavity or two people stuck together by a pole in their tummies. There could be a lion loose in Seattle, a giant ferry boat crash, or a chlamydia outbreak amongst your horned-up surgeons — and all of these things are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. There's a lot to deal with at any given moment, honestly, and it doesn't seem like a particularly appealing job... but season after season on "Grey's Anatomy," any number of attending surgeons are vying for this top spot.

In the nineteenth season of the medical drama, the job ends up falling to Teddy Altman (Kim Raver), who negotiates a decent salary for herself when the position opens up after Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) leaves Seattle and Grey Sloan behind. Teddy, a world-class cardiothoracic surgeon who also served in Afghanistan, is definitely an extraordinarily capable doctor, but is she the right fit for chief of surgery? Can she keep Grey Sloan running like a well-oiled machine in the face of plane crashes, superstorms that cause power outages, or multiple building collapses? Here's how fans feel about Chief Teddy Altman's reign over Grey Sloan.

Apparently, there's a lot of Teddy Altman fans — Tedheads? is that anything? — out there, and plenty of them took to Twitter to express their unbridled joy over their fave getting Grey Sloan's top job. "Okay so that episode wasn't BAD b/c it ended WELL. Teddy is CHIEF. The second female Chief EVER! Such a win," Twitter user @aloraegarooo wrote before praising Teddy on-screen husband Owen Hunt (Kevin McKidd) for protecting his wife from angry reporters at the episode's close. @POSITIONSPOV was a little more blunt about the matter: "CHIEF TEDDY ALTMAN LETS GO." 

Over on Reddit, user yellowchaitea wrote, "Teddy is a good choice for chief because she doesn't care about awards or research. The others burnt out because they wanted to do medical breakthroughs," which is a pretty solid point. Teddy is surrounded by a pretty showy bunch of doctors who inevitably end up squabbling over who gets to make medical history first, whereas Teddy's focus has always been on helping patients and just generally being a solid surgeon. It remains to be seen if Teddy will be a good chief, and she definitely has challenges to overcome; the whole reason that Grey-Sloan is surrounded by angry reporters is due to the fact that Link (Chris Carmack) lost a high-profile patient... which, since she's chief, becomes Teddy's problem. 

So there's definitely a Team Teddy online that thinks she'll be an amazing chief of surgery — but are these those who disagree?

In a word: yes. There are plenty of intrepid "Grey's Anatomy" fans who think Teddy is a terrible choice for Chief of Surgery at Grey Sloan. Those fans were just as vocal as the aforementioned Tedheads, and some parts of Twitter told a very different story about this staffing decision. @alexjayyyy was succinct, at least: "I'm sorry but there was nobody but Teddy to be Chief of Surgery?? Like out of everyone her?" @SamusSilver3 felt similarly, tweeting, "Oh goodness. Don't let that Teddy be chief." On a Reddit thread discussing the episode, Petaline advocated for a former chief to take over again: "I miss Owen as chief! I know this subreddit pretty much hates him but that man was made to lead."

So why the vitriol over Teddy's tenure as chief of Surgery? Fans of "Grey's Anatomy" know that Teddy, to put it gently, doesn't always make the greatest life decisions. Remember the time she married a patient so he could get health insurance? Or the time she butt-dialed her fiancé and left him a voicemail of her hooking up with another guy? Also, she married Owen Hunt. If we're all honest with ourselves, Teddy has had some pretty serious lapses in judgment... which might mean she'll have a few more as chief of surgery.

"Grey's Anatomy" airs on Thursdays at 9PM on ABC, so tune in to see how Teddy's time as chief goes — Internet opinions be damned.