Grey’s Anatomy: Why Jackson & Ben Aren’t Real Friends

Jackson Avery and Ben Warren’s friendship is one of the more underrated ones of Grey’s Anatomy. Both of them actually worked at the same hospital, Mercy West, before the merger with Seattle Grace in Season 6, although it’s unlikely that the two were friends before then, due to their different specialities.

It took a long time for these two to become friends, but it started around the time Jackson decided to get the Plastics Posse back together, in honor of Mark Sloan. Since then, Jackson and Ben have become firm friends. However, it’s questionable as to whether they were real friends, or just amicable acquaintances.

10 Ben Used To Be Jackson’s Superior

While this isn’t reason alone to declare that their friendship wasn’t real, it does complicate matters slightly due to Ben’s frequent career changes. It’s never easy to be friendly with someone who’s higher up, professionally speaking, and it’s even harder when that person then becomes one’s subordinate (more of which later on).

When Ben and Jackson first arrived on the show, Ben was an attending anesthesiologist, while Jackson was just a lowly resident. Due to their different positions, it was obvious that the two men probably hadn’t even spoken before, let alone gotten friendly.

9 Jackson Was Ben’s Boss

This is where Ben’s career choices make things a little bit more confusing. After becoming dissatisfied with being an anesthesiologist, Ben wanted to become a surgeon. However, that meant starting the whole learning process again from scratch. Therefor, he became an intern at Grey Sloan Memorial.

This meant that Jackson, who originally was Ben’s subordinate, became one of his bosses instead. Jackson was a plastics attending, who took Ben under his wing. While this was how Ben and Jackson became friends, the sudden role reversal must have been more than slightly disconcerting.

8 Ben Was Just A Replacement For Mark Sloan

In Season 8 of Grey’s Anatomy, Mark Sloan decided to take Jackson under his wing after seeing him take control in the operating room. Together, the two surgeons formed the Plastics Posse. While Jackson was initially uncomfortable with the name, he gradually started to see and enjoy the perks.

When Mark passed in the Season 9 premiere, Jackson was visibly devastated. Over the course of the season, Jackson recruited Ben to become a member of the Plastics Posse 2.0. While Jackson meant well, it felt like he was just using Ben to recreate the golden days that he had with Mark.

7 The Age Gap

First of all, a large age gap doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t be friends with someone by any means. However, when it comes to one’s professional life, it can be a bit awkward.

Jackson and Ben are good friends but their age gap does reduce the things that they have in common. When Jackson was a resident, he and his friends would go to the bar for a drink after a long hard shift. If the day was particularly brutal then they’d all go to Meredith Grey’s place for a party. Ben already did all that partying when he was a resident.

6 They Didn’t Spend Much Time Together

Although Ben and Jackson successfully reformed the Plastics Posse at work, they didn’t really spend much time together outside of work. Of course, if they had had a bad day at work (which was always likely on Grey’s Anatomy), they would go for a drink with their respective friends, but they rarely went for a drink with each other.

In fairness to them both, Jackson did invite Ben on to his newly acquired boat back in Grey’s Anatomy‘s fourteenth season, but he also invited Alex Karev, Owen Hunt and Andrew DeLuca as well. They’ve never hung out just the two of them.

5 They Rarely Talked After Ben Left

Ben’s career change from anesthesiologist to a surgical intern did surprise a lot of people, particularly his wife, Miranda Bailey. However, everyone got used to Ben’s new status, including Jackson and just as everything had become the new normal, Ben decided he wanted to undergo another change in career.

Ben’s indecision over what he wants to do with his life has been a source of criticism for both fans and Ben’s peers. Jackson, to be fair, was fairly supportive of Ben’s wishes but once Ben actually left the hospital, he and Jackson never really talk anymore.

4 Ben Wasn’t There For Jackson When He Lost His Son

One of the most heartbreaking storylines ever shown on Grey’s Anatomy was the loss of April Kepner and Jackson’s son, Samuel. April got pregnant near the end of Season 10 and she and Jackson were over the moon. Unfortunately, their happiness was to be short lived.

Thanks to an ultrasound, April and Jackson were informed that their baby wouldn’t live for more than a few minutes once he was born. This was absolutely devastating for the young couple and their friends rallied around them in their time of need. Apart from Ben, apparently.

3 Jackson Didn’t Support Ben During His Separation From Bailey

At the end of Season 14, Bailey realized that she needed less stress in her life due to her heart attack earlier in the season. As a result, she took a sabbatical from her job as Chief of Surgery and gave it to Alex on a temporary basis. However, that wasn’t enough for Bailey.

She announced to Ben that she needed a break from their relationship, as worrying about him getting hurt or dying was stressing her out too. Ben was deeply upset by this unwanted development and so his friends should have been there for him to support him. However, Jackson made no attempt to help him.

2 Ben’s Wife Is Jackson’s Boss

Miranda Bailey is one of the best characters that Grey’s Anatomy has ever produced. She is incredibly morally sound, she is the voice of reason around the hospital, and so many other characters look to her for advice and help that she practically holds the whole hospital together.

However, she does have her drawbacks as well. She is a stickler for the rules and has been known to react without thinking on occasion. When she fired Alex, Meredith and Richard Webber, many of the surgeons disliked this action, including Jackson, which must have made his and Ben’s friendship a bit awkward.

1 Ben Wasn’t Present For The Shooting

The last couple of episodes of Season 6 were probably the most dramatic episodes ever seen on television. The grief-stricken husband of a former patient who died while under hospital care returned to Seattle Grace Mercy West with a fully loaded gun and nothing left to lose.

The doctors and surgeons in the hospital had to fight for their lives, as well as the lives of several others. Needless to say, this event left all traumatized and scared. Jackson’s friends were killed during the shooting but Ben had a day off so he missed everything. This wasn’t Ben’s fault but it meant there wasn’t anything he could say to make it better to Jackson.

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