Grey’s Anatomy has seen many character exits, but one of the most emotional departures was that of Derek Shepherd ( Patrick Dempsey ). But when does Derek die in Grey’s Anatomy, and why did it happen? Grey’s Anatomy follows Meredith Grey ( Ellen Pompeo ), who viewers have followed from her days as an intern to becoming Head of General Surgery.

Audiences also witnessed many problems in her personal life, including her relationship with Derek Shepherd, with whom she eventually built a family. Patrick Dempsey’s Derek was in Grey’s Anatomy since the pilot, which is why Derek’s death in season 11 was such a shock. Meredith and Derek’s relationship wasn’t easy to follow, but by Patrick Dempsey’s exit from Grey’s Anatomy they were married with two kids and another due.

Then the unthinkable happened — Derek Shepherd died in Grey’s Anatomy season 11. Derek was offered a job in DC, and relocated part-time against a backdrop of marital tension,.

5/23/2023by Adrienne Tyler ScreenRant.com

Which episode did Derek die?

What Episode Does Derek Die on Grey’s Anatomy? – Derek Shepherd’s death episode was Season 11, Episode 21, “How to Save a Life.” He was involved in a devastating car crash, but the impact wasn’t what killed him. It was a small mistake made by the doctors who operated on him. At Dillard Medical Center – which notably had no trauma center – Derek subconsciously began to report his injuries, which include loss of verbal skills.

His resident, Dr. Penelope Blake, took the reins of his treatment and Derek even complimented her intelligence, but it wasn’t enough to save him. Penelope suggested to her attending that Derek get a CT scan, but the attending believed that the bleeding in his belly was of more importance and skips the CT scan.

Derek, in his mind, fought the attending and backed up Penelope – but she eventually gave up. In surgery, the doctors found Derek’s right pupil blown, and Derek knew he was going to die. After the neurosurgeon arrived late, he was declared braindead, resulting in one of Grey’s Anatomy ‘s saddest deaths.

Why was Derek killed off?

What The Grey’s Anatomy Producers Said About Patrick Dempsey Leaving – In the book How to Save a Life: The Inside Story of Grey’s Anatomy, former executive producers James D. Parriott and Jeannine Renshaw reveal that Derek’s death in season 11 was, at least in part, due to claims of Dempsey terrorizing the set of the show, allegedly complaining about how time-consuming it all was.

  1. What’s more, the producers suggest that the actor butted heads with Shonda Rhimes and Grey’s Anatomy leading lady Ellen Pompeo.
  2. In the 2021 book ( via LA Times ), Parriott was quoted as explaining, ” There were issues sort of terrorizing the set He had this hold on the set where he knew he could stop production and scare people,” If Dempsey had complaints about scheduling or the way scenes were shot, production had to pause to hear him out.

While that should be a common practice on tv and film sets, former executive producers allege that Dempsey’s disruptions were simply because he felt like he was “done” with the show at that point. Parriott further explained that meetings with the network, studio, and actors were held to discuss Dempsey and that he ” didn’t like the inconvenience of coming in every day and working,” Dempsey’s actions caused tension with both Shonda Rhimes and Ellen Pompeo.

  1. While Rhimes was busy trying to make sure the show ran smoothly, Pompeo wanted all the actors to be treated fairly and experience a fair distribution of work.
  2. Renshaw explained in interviews that made it into the book that Pompeo was frustrated with Dempsey and ” would get angry that he wasn’t working as much,” There were episodes in which Pompeo had ” twice as many scenes ” as Dempsey and would become frustrated with his complaints about being on set too long.

While Renshaw acknowledged the tension in the book, she also acknowledged that Dempsey would understand that he often wasn’t the person on set the longest when complaining about the long hours. She said there were times she would remind him, ” Look around you.

What episode does Karev die?

” Leave a Light On “
Grey’s Anatomy episode
An episodic screenshot displaying Stevens and Karev sleeping with their 2 children, Alexis and Eli.
Episode no. Season 16 Episode 16
Directed by Debbie Allen
Written by Elisabeth Finch
Featured music
  • ” Shiny Happy People “
  • ” Turn to Stone “
  • “Beautiful and Brutal”
Original air date March 5, 2020
Running time 43 minutes
Guest appearances
  • Jason George as Dr. Ben Warren
  • BJ Tanner as William George Bailey Jones
Episode chronology
← Previous “Snowblind” Next → “Life on Mars?”

/td> Grey’s Anatomy (season 16) List of episodes

Leave a Light On ” is the sixteenth episode of the sixteenth season of the American medical drama television series Grey’s Anatomy and the 358th episode overall, which aired on ABC on March 5, 2020. The episode was written by Elisabeth Finch and directed by Debbie Allen,

  1. It marked the final appearance of Justin Chambers as Alex Karev,
  2. On January 10, 2020, it was announced that Chambers left the series, having already made his last physical appearance in the November 14, 2019 episode “My Shot”, the 350th episode revolving around the trial for Meredith’s medical license.

Showrunner Krista Vernoff discussed the challenge in writing Alex off without Chambers physically being there, having left the show suddenly. Vernoff said, “It was a very careful threading of a needle, where we are giving a little bit of information and pain to Jo,” she said, adding, “Episode by episode, we’re illuminating the story of where Alex is.

And it takes us quite a few more episodes to get there and to give the audience clarity.” The episode resolves several storylines, including the disappearance of Alex Karev after 7 episodes, the disappearance of Izzie Stevens ( Katherine Heigl ) over 10 years ago and Miranda Bailey ( Chandra Wilson ) choosing to take in a homeless teenager.

Stevens was last seen in the episode, ” I Like You So Much Better When You’re Naked ” in 2010. She re-appears for the first time again through extensive use of archive footage as well as visual cameos portrayed by a stand-in actress, as details of her current situation are revealed, along with Chambers’ character.

Chambers returns for the episode in voice-over, as the episode takes a retrospective approach, as he narrates much of what has happened to him since. The storyline involving Izzie’s embryos is picked up again, having previously been addressed in the season 12 episode, ” I Choose You ” and originating in the season 5 episode, ” Elevator Love Letter “.

The episode’s original broadcast was watched by 6.30 million viewers and registered the show’s best ratings in 6 weeks, since the mid-season premiere. It received polarized reviews from fans and critics alike, who were divided on the show’s handling of Alex’s exit, but many largely felt it made sense given the circumstances of Chambers’ abrupt departure.

Was Meredith pregnant when Derek died?

As we all know, our beloved Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey) died during the April 23 episode of Grey’s Anatomy, But did you know that Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) was pregnant with Derek’s baby when her husband passed away? Watch the video above to meet baby Ellis, Mer-Der’s beautiful daughter! If you were shocked by this baby news, you weren’t the only one! After Derek’s funeral, Meredith left Seattle with Zola and Bailey and didn’t let anyone know where she was going.

  • Meredith’s friends spent months trying to locate her with no luck.
  • It wasn’t until Meredith gave birth to baby Ellis that Alex saw his friend again.
  • Soon after, Meredith returned home with her children to face her new life.
  • All I have to do,” she said on her first day back at work, “is begin.” The carousel never stops turning.

Meredith returns home with Zola, Bailey and Ellis. Shortly before Derek’s death, he tells his wife he wants another baby. What’s next for Meredith? Watch all-new episodes of Grey’s Anatomy THURSDAYS 8|7c. MORE GREY’S ANATOMY VIDEOS The Best of Meredith and Derek 23 Unforgettable Derek Shepherd Moments In Memoriam: Derek Shepherd

Does Alex Karev die?

Storylines – Alex’s mother had a mental illness, and his father was often absent, as well as often becoming violent towards him and his mother. Alex began wrestling in high school, and eventually physically confronted his father, after which, his father did not return.

  1. Alex has a younger brother, Aaron, and a younger sister, Amber; they were all placed in foster care for 5 years.
  2. Though Aaron and Amber only had a few foster families, Alex went through 17 foster families in 5 years before he was reunited with his siblings.
  3. It is revealed in later seasons that Aaron was diagnosed with schizophrenia and tried to kill Amber.

Alex was present when Aaron had to be committed to a psychiatric ward. Alex secured a position in the surgical residency program at Seattle Grace Hospital after graduating from the University of Iowa, He initially makes a poor impression meeting his fellow interns Meredith Grey ( Ellen Pompeo ), Cristina Yang ( Sandra Oh ), George O’Malley ( T.R.

Night ) and Izzie Stevens ( Katherine Heigl ) whom he later taunts when he discovers she used to be a lingerie model. After initial disagreements, Alex reveals to Izzie that his father was a heroin addict who used to beat his mother. He became a wrestler so he could defend his mother, and attended university on a wrestling scholarship.

He and Izzie begin a friendship. At the end of the first season, George contracts syphilis from Alex through nurse Olivia Harper, causing animosity between the two. Alex asks Izzie out on a date, but he is thrown by the news that he has failed his medical board exams.

  • Izzie is offended since he pays no attention to her during their date and so informs him that she no longer wants to go out with him.
  • He later freezes during an emergency operation, needing George to take over from him.
  • Alex’s relationship with Izzie is damaged when he experiences erectile dysfunction with her.

He goes on to sleep with Olivia again, and is caught by Izzie and they break up. After retaking his exams, Alex manages to pass, and reunites with Izzie after a bomb scare in the hospital, They break up again, however, when Izzie falls for cardiothoracic patient Denny Duquette,

Alex helps Izzie recover from Denny’s death and tries to rekindle their relationship but Izzie backs away, since she is still in the process of getting over her loss and they remain friends. Alex spends a period of time working under neonatal surgeon Dr. Addison Montgomery ( Kate Walsh ), and though he is later released to work for plastic surgeon Dr.

Mark Sloan ( Eric Dane ), he finds his interest returning to Addison’s specialty. Addison is attracted to Alex, and the two share a kiss and later sleep together. In the aftermath of a ferry accident, Alex rescues a pregnant woman ( Elizabeth Reaser ) who awakens with amnesia, and grows close to Alex as he helps her forge an identity for herself, picking out the name Ava.

  1. After she gives birth to her daughter, Ava’s memory eventually returns, although she tries to hide it from Alex, as she had recently left a bad marriage.
  2. He convinces her to tell him her true identity, and she reveals herself to be Rebecca Pope.
  3. Alex turns her down after realizing she’s married, feeling that he is not good enough for her.

Rebecca returns and she and Alex sleep together before she goes back to her husband. Alex has a brief relationship with intern Lexie Grey ( Chyler Leigh ), but chooses to be with Rebecca, when she returns and tells him she is pregnant. After Rebecca attempted suicide, Izzie convinces Alex to admit her for psychiatric help, due to Rebecca’s hallucinations of her pregnancy.

  1. Alex later breaks down in Izzie’s arms, and the two kiss.
  2. Later in their relationship, Izzie begins hallucinating about Denny, and uncovers the fact she has Stage 4 metastatic melanoma with an estimated chance of 5% survival.
  3. It is revealed that Izzie’s hallucinations of Denny are, in fact, caused by her tumor.

Alex is shocked by the news, but finds the strength to stay by her side. Izzie plans a wedding for Meredith and Derek, but when Derek finds Izzie has another inoperable tumor in her brain, they give the wedding to Izzie and Alex, who marry in front of all their friends,

  • Izzie debates whether or not she should undergo a risky surgery to remove her tumor and Alex supports her, but eventually insists that she should have the surgery.
  • Alex performs CPR on Izzie after she flatlines.
  • Izzie returns to work, but is soon fired for making a treatment error that endangered the life of a patient, leaving Alex a Dear John letter and no clue as to her whereabouts.

She later returns to the hospital, when she found out Alex wasn’t the cause of her getting fired and went to make amends with him. She tells him she no longer has cancer and Alex says he is happy for her but he deserved someone who would stay. Izzie then leaves Seattle to start fresh and sends Alex divorce papers a few episodes later.

  1. Alex re-kindles an old flame with Lexie.
  2. Alex seems to have recently found that his calling is actually Peds and not Plastics, as he had decided in the earlier seasons.
  3. Seeing Alex’s ability to handle child patients, Dr.
  4. Arizona Robbins shows an interest in mentoring him for that specialization.
  5. Alex’s brother Aaron comes to Seattle Grace for surgery, and lots of painful memories resurface because of this.

Meredith discovers Alex, along with Aaron and their sister Amber, had been in foster care for five years when their mother could not take care of them. Alex is shot in the hospital by a deceased patient’s husband, but survives with the help of Lexie and Mark.

While undergoing treatment, he asked for Izzie and told her never to leave again. Following the shooting, Lexie has a mental breakdown in front of Alex and he walks away. Dr. Bailey bars Alex from surgery until he has the bullet removed, which he later allows her to do. Alex realizes that his passion lies in pediatric surgery,

He is further shown to be excellent with children, comforting with a young patient while growing her a new trachea. He immediately gets on the wrong side of new Pediatric attending, Stark while Arizona is on leave. Alex is thrilled when Arizona returns from Africa and hopes she will come to work for the hospital again.

  • In the meantime, Alex falls for the new OBGYN attending, Lucy Fields, and they start a relationship after she kisses him.
  • Alex finds out about Meredith sabotaging her Alzheimer’s clinical trial and rats her out, an attempt to get Chief Resident.
  • The adoption counselor takes away Zola, the child Meredith wanted to adopt.

Realizing his mistake, Alex apologizes to Meredith, who forgives him shortly after. As the end of the fifth year of residency is near, the surgical residents, including Alex, prepare for their board exams for the different fellowships they plan on joining.

Though Alex is late for his exam, because he had to treat a patient, he ends up passing. Dr. Webber tells him that Johns Hopkins Hospital, which has the top program in the country, has been very impressed with him during his boards and has decided to create a position in pediatrics surgery for him and accepts the position.

After finding out his decision, his current boss, Dr. Arizona Robbins, yells at him and takes his place on a plane that later crashes. Following the rescue of his colleagues, Robbins’ health deteriorates and causes her leg to be amputated. He extends his stay at Seattle Grace until a replacement for Robbins is found, but when he learns that the replacement will send the exchange program to UCLA, he decides not to leave.

  • Arev buys Meredith’s old house from her, and Cristina becomes his roommate.
  • Arev forms a friendship with a new intern, Jo Wilson, that eventually develops into romantic feelings towards each other.
  • Alex admits his love for Jo, and the two kiss and become a couple.
  • Alex’s estranged father, Jimmy, who he hasn’t seen in 18 years, is admitted to the ER as a patient.

Unknowing that Alex is his son, Jimmy confides in Alex that he had another family that he hasn’t seen in years. This made Alex upset and he punches Jimmy at the bar. His father returns, experiencing symptoms of withdrawal and hallucinations of the past, where more is revealed about Alex’s childhood.

  • Jimmy tells Alex he knows that he is his son and Alex yells at him.
  • His dad later goes into cardiac arrest and is brought into surgery, his fate is unknown.
  • Alex kisses Jo at April’s wedding, wanting to start a family with her.
  • That night, his dad dies, due to a mistake by intern, Shane Ross, and Alex is upset.

He punches Ross and is later comforted by Meredith. Upon the completion of his fellowship in Pediatric Surgery, Alex is given an offer to work at Dr. Oliver Lebackes’ private practice office, claiming that he will have more flexible hours and “a big fat paycheck”.

  1. He later discovers that he isn’t happy working at the private practice and expresses a desire to return full-time to Grey Sloan.
  2. When Cristina leaves for Switzerland, she leaves Alex her share of the board, including her seat.
  3. Alex is fired by Dr.
  4. Lebackes, when Maggie Pierce accidentally reveals to him that Karev was thinking about leaving the job.

Webber recommended Bailey to fill Yang’s board seat after she left, so Bailey and Alex fight over the chair. They both make presentations to the board and eventually Bailey wins, with a unanimous vote in her favor. He is hired back as an attending pediatric surgeon and takes over full-time as Arizona pursues a fellowship with Dr.

Herman. Alex continues to date Jo and his friendship with Meredith grows stronger than ever, with him taking on the role of her new person. When Derek dies and Meredith runs away, Alex is upset by her leaving without telling him where she went and calls her every day. Eventually she calls him, tells him she is okay, and to stop calling.

When she goes into labor and gives birth to Ellis Shepherd, Alex goes to see her since he is her emergency contact. She asks to move back in with him in her old house. Alex sells Meredith back the house and he and Jo rent a loft. In the third episode of the twelfth season, Jo finds an invoice from the fertility clinic, housing Izzie and Alex’s frozen embryos.

  1. She then gets jealous of Alex wanting to have babies with Izzie.
  2. Alex and Jo continue to struggle with their relationship.
  3. When Karev proposes to her, Jo tells him she can’t marry him, so he breaks up with her.
  4. Later, Alex realizes that he misses Jo and gets her back.
  5. They seem to be doing well for some time, until Alex brings up marriage again and the two fight, as Jo still continues to argue that she cannot marry him.

Alex storms out, leaving their relationship uncertain. Meredith and Alex lie on the grass and talk about love. On Jo rejecting his proposal, Alex then wonders, if he’ll get only one soulmate/true love and refers to Izzie. Meredith then tells him Izzie wasn’t his true love and Alex told her Izzie was his Derek.

  • During Owen and Amelia’s wedding, Alex realizes that even though she won’t marry him, he loves Jo and goes back to her again.
  • However, when he arrives at their loft, he finds Jo highly intoxicated, wearing nothing but her bra and underwear, and surgical intern, Andrew Deluca, lying on top of her.
  • Alex assumes that Deluca was attempting to take advantage of Jo while she was inebriated and is filled with rage.

He beats Deluca to a pulp with his bare hands. Andrew is badly injured, Alex realizes what he’s done and quickly rushes Deluca to the hospital. There, the doctors call the police as they struggle to save Andrew and discover who did this to him. Alex lies to everyone and says that he found Andrew in this state and brought him to Grey Sloan.

However, Ben Warren is suspicious of Karev. Meredith also quickly realizes that Alex was in fact the one who beat Deluca. She covers for him and the two continue to lie to everyone in the hospital about Alex’s actions. Soon, Karev learns that Andrew wasn’t doing anything wrong and that he had beaten up a good guy.

Meredith decides that even though she loves Alex, she needs to turn him in. She goes to Bailey and tells her the truth. But, when the two rush to the police they find Alex being arrested for aggravated assault, as he had turned himself in. He is taken to jail and Meredith bails him out.

  • While they wait for a trial, Bailey suspends Alex as an attending and makes him work in the clinic.
  • Eventually, Jo finally tells Alex that the reason she couldn’t marry Alex is because she is already married.
  • Her husband is abusive and so she ran away and changed her name to Jo Wilson so that he wouldn’t find her.

Alex realizes that when Jo is called to the stand as a witness in the trial, this information about her past and lack of records under the name Jo Wilson may be revealed, and when the information goes public, her husband may find her. To keep her safe, he decides to take the plea deal without a trial, ensuring that he goes to jail for 2 years.

  1. However, when Alex tells Meredith this, she begs him not to and tells him that she can’t lose him because she’s already lost everyone else important in her life.
  2. Alex struggles to decide whether or not to take the plea deal.
  3. Meredith finds that the trial had been put off indefinitely.
  4. She assumes that he took the plea, and began calling and visiting various local jails to find him.

After a full day of searching without finding him, she goes home to sleep and discovers him sleeping in her bed. He explains he slept there all day. He explains that during his meeting with the D.A., Deluca came in and dropped all charges. After returning to work, Alex and Jo try to ignore each other and eventually build up a tolerance of sorts towards each other.

  • Deluca and Alex continue to be at odds.
  • At the end of the season, Alex hires an investigator to look for Jo’s abusive husband.
  • The investigator finds him and tells Alex that he will be at a conference.
  • Meredith tells him it’s a horrible idea and that he shouldn’t go, especially considering Jo doesn’t know about the situation.

Alex flies out to the conference with the intention of telling him to get out of her life, no matter the means. When he meets him, Alex decides against confronting him over Jo, avoiding exposing her current identity and location and potentially stopping himself from assaulting someone yet again.

At the start of season 14, Alex and Jo start to warm up to each other. Jo tells Deluca that she is still in love with Alex. Alex goes to Jo and tells her that he could never abuse her like her husband did because he dealt with the same trauma as a kid as his father was abusive. He then tells her that he found her husband.

Jo is taken aback by this, but when Alex tells her that he didn’t kill or injure him in any way, she is relieved and finally trusts him again. They then restart their relationship and Jo is now encouraged to file for divorce against her abusive husband.

In the seventh episode, there was a pregnant Izzie look alike and Alex is taken aback and stammers when he talks to her. In the twenty-second episode, he finds out about his mom because she was not depositing the checks he had been sending to her. When he went to Iowa to meet her mom, he finds out that she is completely fine and doing well in her life.

Initially, he is angry with her being well because it let him have a bad childhood, but after talking to Jo, he forgives her and invites her to Seattle Grace for his marriage. In the finale, he finally marries Jo. In the 15th season, he and Jo are about to move to Boston for Jo’s fellowship but then, she finally stays in Grey-Sloan Memorial Hospital.

Meanwhile, Dr. Bailey needed some time from her position as Chief so she announced Alex as interim Chief of Grey-Sloan Memorial hospital for 6 months. Jo tells him that her birth mother lives in Pittsburgh and flies there to meet her. After coming back, she doesn’t talk about it to Alex and even stops going to work, which makes Alex worry.

Later, he knew about her mental health and sends her to rehab for a month, where Jo gives him the opportunity to back off from the relationship because they were not legally married. Throughout, Alex helped Meredith to do fraud with an insurance company to save a girl’s life and for that, Alex is fired from his position as the head of pediatric surgery at the end of the season.

The following season, he marries Jo for a second time and helps save Meredith from losing her medical license. Midway through season 16, he disappeared to Iowa to see his mom, but it was revealed in the episode ” Leave a Light On “, Alex reconnected with Izzie, in the weeks leading up to Meredith’s trial seeking her medical license to be reinstated.

It was during that process that he chose to reach out to Izzie because he wanted to know if she was alive, okay, and willing to be there in person for Meredith’s trial. During the call, Alex heard two young voices in the background. It was then he discovered that Izzie had taken the embryos they had frozen during her cancer treatment and moved forward with IVF five to six years earlier and that they were his kids.

Who killed McDreamy?

Dr. Derek Shepherd – Randy Holmes/Walt Disney Television via Getty Fans may never recover from this one. Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey) — aka McDreamy, aka Meredith’s one true love — died in a car accident in season 11. “The decision to have the character die the way he did was not a difficult one in the sense of, what were the options,” show creator Shonda Rhimes said in 2015,

Who does Meredith end up with?

Storylines and characteristics – Meredith Grey is the daughter of world-renowned attending general surgeon, Ellis Grey, and grew up in her shadow. Ellis was a deeply flawed, emotionally unavailable, verbally abusive, and neglectful mother. Meredith is described as a “dark and twisty,” damaged woman who sees the world in varying shades of grey.

Because of this, she is an emotionally complex person. She is capable of empathizing with others when they’re at their lowest points and is a sensitive observer of the people around her. Meredith is a graduate of Dartmouth College, While in college, conflicts with her mother lead Meredith to question her decision to attend medical school.

That indecision leads her to make plans to sleep and party her way through Europe once she graduates. However, after a month abroad, Meredith is called back to care for her mother, who has developed early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, This news drives Meredith’s decision to obtain her M.D.

  1. The night before Meredith’s internship begins, she has a one-night stand with Derek Shepherd ( Patrick Dempsey ), a man she meets at Joe’s Bar.
  2. She discovers the next day that he is a recently hired attending ; the new head of neurosurgery at her new workplace, Seattle Grace Hospital.
  3. Meredith is assigned to work under resident Miranda Bailey ( Chandra Wilson ), and befriends her fellow interns, Cristina Yang ( Sandra Oh ), Izzie Stevens ( Katherine Heigl ), Alex Karev ( Justin Chambers ) and George O’Malley ( T.R.

Knight ). She is particularly close with Cristina Yang, who becomes her best friend and “person”. Though she initially thinks poorly of him, Alex Karev also evolves into Meredith’s “person” and the two assume a sibling-esque familial relationship. Meredith has a conflicted relationship with Richard Webber ( James Pickens Jr.), the Chief of Surgery at Seattle Grace.

  1. Richard was very close to Ellis and even had an affair with Ellis when Meredith was a child.
  2. Due to his relationship with Meredith’s mother, he tends to save, mentor and make exceptions for her.
  3. Meredith has a habit of “collecting strays”, and allows her friends and coworkers to live in the house her mother left her.

Those friends become her pseudo -family. Meredith is endlessly loyal to those she deems her family, and will bend the traditional rules of morality or professional protocol to keep them safe. Having grown up in a hospital, Meredith shows immense natural talent.

  • She possesses a steadfast, calm ease during medical procedures and emergencies, and is a natural observer of people.
  • She exhibits a knack for catching subtle hints and accurately determining difficult-to-catch diagnoses.
  • Her placid, non-judgmental bedside manner often causes people to open up and trust her.

Her surgical skills are solidly impressive and she shows a talent and patience for medical research trials and dealing with psychologically damaged patients. Meredith resists Derek’s advances throughout her internship, but is eventually charmed into starting a relationship with him despite misgivings about an intern dating an attending.

She is, therefore, shocked by the arrival of Addison Montgomery ( Kate Walsh ), Derek’s wife, unaware that he was married. Derek struggles to choose between the two, but ultimately returns to Addison, despite Meredith begging to be chosen instead. Meredith is devastated and turns to multiple, self-destructive means of coping.

Initially she falls on old habits of self-medicating with tequila and sex, and adopts a dog, named Doc. She also tries to resolve some issues by searching for her long-absent father, Thatcher. She learns that her father, who left when she was five and she has not seen since, remarried and had two more daughters.

The two do not become close, but Grey becomes fond of her stepmother. Meredith spirals further when Ellis is admitted to the hospital, revealing Ellis’ diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer’s and her verbally abusive tendencies. Meredith’s self-destructive behavior reaches its most dangerous when she saves a patient with a bomb in their chest by impulsively inserting her hand to hold it until the bomb squad can remove it.

Meredith has a series of one-night stands, including one with George, who has long been in love with her. When she cries in the middle of their encounter, their friendship temporarily ends. Meredith swears off her behavior, agrees to be friends only with Derek, and embarks on a relationship with veterinarian Finn Dandridge ( Chris O’Donnell ).

Derek regrets his decision to return to his wife, and Meredith must decide whether to continue a relationship with Finn, or allow Derek a second chance. She eventually realizes that Derek is the one, and the two get back together. When Ellis experiences a rare, completely lucid day and expresses her immense disappointment at how ordinary Meredith has turned out to be, Meredith becomes depressed and possibly suicidal.

During a ferryboat accident, Meredith is knocked into the water and chooses to give up and drown, rather than fight and swim. She flatlines at the hospital, and awakens in an “afterlife”, where she interacts with deceased former acquaintances. Ellis dies in the interim, and Meredith meets with her mother, who tells her that she is anything but ordinary.

  • She undergoes another round of resuscitation at the insistence of Cristina.
  • Derek distances himself from Meredith as the result of her self-recklessness, prompting her to seek therapy to address her problems.
  • Meredith sees a therapist, Dr.
  • Wyatt ( Amy Madigan ), to seek happiness and begins to successfully tackle her issues.

Meanwhile, Meredith nearly fails her intern exam after a drunken Thatcher publicly blames Meredith for the death of his wife, Susan, a distraught Grey sits through her entire test without writing a single answer. Webber gives her a second chance to do the exam, saving her from destroying her career.

  1. After Meredith is promoted to a resident, her younger half-sister, Lexie Grey ( Chyler Leigh ), begins working at Seattle Grace as an intern.
  2. Meredith initially rejects Lexie’s attempts to form a relationship, but slowly softens towards her.
  3. The sisters are very different people with different childhoods.

Lexie had a more idealistic family life and often has difficulty understanding her much darker sister, who does not have the same positive associations with family as Lexie. Meredith later initiates a neurosurgical clinical trial, enlisting Derek as a consulting neurosurgeon.

The trial fails repeatedly, but the final patient they treat survives, prompting them to reunite and move in together. Their relationship is healthier than before but still experiences snags as the two attempt to understand each other and navigate through what they now look at as a permanent, long-term relationship.

Meredith relies heavily on Cristina for emotional support and guidance. Eventually, Derek and Meredith decide to marry, but on their wedding day, the pair give their “perfect” wedding ceremony to Izzie and Alex, to marry each other during the planned ceremony instead.

Meredith and Derek instead marry by writing their wedding vows on a post-it note, Meredith then spends a month out of commission after donating part of her liver to Thatcher. Meredith experiences another immense trauma after the hospital is put under a lockdown from an active mass-shooter seeking revenge against Derek.

Meredith offers her own life in exchange for his and miscarries her baby during the crisis. She goes through this traumatic experience with Cristina, who operates on Derek while threatened at gunpoint. Meredith hides her loss and the trauma psychiatrist refuses to clear neither Cristina nor Meredith for their return to surgery.

  1. Meredith is able to work through her issues and become cleared, but Cristina remains deeply traumatized.
  2. Meredith covers for and supports her friend through her dark time but is ultimately unable to fully help her return to surgery.
  3. Meredith decides to actively try to become pregnant but learns that she has a ” hostile uterus “, which leads her to consider her other possible genetic flaws.

Derek, who is constantly worried about the possibility that she will develop Alzheimer’s, initiates a clinical trial hoping to cure the disease. Meredith opts to work on the trial and appears to be leaning towards a neuro specialty. When Webber’s wife, Adele, is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, she receives a spot on the trial.

Meredith tampers with the drugs so that Adele does not receive the placebo, She and Derek decide to adopt Zola, an orphaned baby from Malawi, and make their marriage legal. When the truth about the tampering comes out, however, a furious Derek tells her he cannot raise a child with her because of her moral ambiguity.

Meredith is fired and tries to conceal both this and her marital separation from the adoption counselor in order to keep Zola. Although Dr. Webber steps down as chief of surgery and takes the blame for the trial tampering to protect Meredith, Zola is taken away.

  • She and Derek reconcile.
  • Meredith chooses a general surgery specialty over neuro, and they successfully fight to get Zola back.
  • As her last year of residency is coming to a close, the residents travel around the country, searching for the best jobs in their specialties,
  • In order to finish their residency, the residents must take the medical boards,

Meredith takes the exam while sick with the flu. She decides to take a job offer at The Brigham and Women’s Hospital as the next step in her career. During a medical flight to undertake a prestigious surgery involving conjoined twins, Meredith, Derek, Cristina, and Lexie, among others, are involved in an aviation accident,

The plane crash kills Lexie and her boyfriend Mark Sloan ( Eric Dane ), and the survivors are trapped in the wooded wilderness for days waiting for help. Following their rescue, Meredith becomes an attending general surgeon at Seattle Grace, now Seattle Grace-Mercy West. While Cristina flees Seattle for her fellowship, Meredith, afraid of flying and change, declines her job offer, and clings to what remains in Seattle.

Cristina and Meredith begin calling the hospital “Seattle Grace Mercy Death” in light of the immense amount of trauma, death, and pain they have experienced there. Meredith’s newfound attitude and sarcasm leads to her being dubbed ” Medusa ” by the hospital’s new batch of interns.

In the aftermath of the plane accident, the hospital is sued and eventually found guilty of negligence. Each victim including Derek, Cristina, Arizona Robbins ( Jessica Capshaw ) and herself must receive $15 million of compensation, which leads the hospital to a near bankruptcy as the insurance company refuses to pay due to a loophole.

The doctors along with Callie Torres ( Sara Ramirez ) buy the hospital with the help of the Harper Avery Foundation to prevent it from closing and become new members of the directing board. In memory of Mark Sloan and Lexie Grey, Jackson Avery and the board rename the hospital “Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital.” Meanwhile, Meredith asks Dr.

  1. Bailey to perform gene mapping on her to finally know whether she has Alzheimer’s genes like her mother.
  2. She tests positive for more than one of the genetic markers for the disease.
  3. Meredith moves to the completed dream home and sells her house to Alex, who purchases it as the only true home he’s ever known.

He continues Meredith’s tradition of keeping the house open to any “strays” needing a home. Meredith discovers also she is pregnant with Derek’s child once again; however the pregnancy carries on. When Meredith’s water breaks (not long before she suffers a near miscarriage by falling down the stairs), the baby has face presentation and is consequently delivered via emergency C-section,

While stitching Meredith up, the obstetrician who operated on her is called away to another patient and intern Shane Ross completes the stitching. When blood begins to appear from everywhere due to her fall, Meredith diagnoses herself in as being in disseminated intravascular coagulation, Dr. Bailey performs a spleen removal, which saves her life.

In return, Derek and Meredith name their son Bailey. As a spouse, surgeon, and mother, Meredith has cited a number times that she did not want to be like either of her parents: her father had followed her mother around pathetically before leaving to be happy, while her mother valued her career over her family.

Meredith is frequently conflicted trying to balance between the two, and fears her family are hindering her medical aspirations, as much as she fears becoming like her mother whenever she’s tempted to choose surgery over family. Meredith and Cristina have a huge rift when Cristina confirms Meredith’s fears by stating that Meredith’s skills have fallen behind Cristina’s due to her familial obligations taking her away from O.R time.

Meredith and Derek come to an agreement that he, already established in his career and reputation, would take a step back to take care of the children and allow her to shine. Meredith attempts to regain some ground by starting a promising research trial 3-D printing portal veins.

  1. The conflict between Cristina and Meredith widens when Cristina commandeers Meredith’s resources for her own trial, ultimately garnering a Harper Avery nomination for Cristina.
  2. Cristina and Meredith repair their relationship when Meredith confesses that Cristina was correct, her skills have surpassed Meredith’s.

Cristina moves to Switzerland, taking up a job offer from Preston Burke ( Isaiah Washington ), her former attending, mentor and fiancé, who was looking for a replacement at a research hospital he was running, thus leaving Alex in charge of being Meredith’s “person” in her place, an honor he gladly accepts.

As Meredith adjusts to life without Cristina, she finds out she has a maternal half-sister named Maggie Pierce ( Kelly McCreary ), who was given away for adoption by her mother right after she gave birth and who is now working in Grey Sloan Memorial as the new Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery. Meredith is in denial and rejects Maggie, thinking she would have remembered if her mother was pregnant.

Meredith tries to piece together her relationship with her mother and half-sister by going through old videos of her mother. She eventually recovers her repressed memories of the pregnancy when she views her mother’s diary. With the support of Webber, who is Maggie’s biological father, Meredith has a change of heart, choosing to accept Maggie and begin building a relationship.

  1. Meanwhile, Meredith and Derek’s marriage becomes strained as Derek accepts an offer from the U.S.
  2. President to participate in the Brain Mapping Initiative.
  3. He receives an offer to head the project itself in Washington D.C.
  4. Meaning that he would have to be based there permanently.
  5. Meredith puts her foot down as she does not want to uproot their young family to move across the country for his career at the sacrifice of her own.

They begin a series of on-and-off arguments and “cold wars” over their careers. Meredith ultimately encourages Derek to go to Washington, and Derek promptly leaves. Meredith then proceeds to lean on her friends for support as she begins living life as a single parent while simultaneously maintaining a streak of successful surgeries with no patient-losses.

  1. During a phone call with Derek, Meredith and Derek agree to work things out after she tells him that she did not want them to become “one of those couples”, and he reciprocates, saying that he missed her.
  2. She privately admits to Alex that she has realized that she could live independently of Derek but chooses not to.

Just as Meredith and Derek begin to rekindle their relationship, Derek is suddenly killed in a car accident while en route to the airport to catch a flight for one final meeting in D.C. He was taken to an understaffed hospital, which reluctantly took him in despite not being a trauma center.

The doctors failed to recognize his head injury in time. Derek is declared brain dead, and Meredith must go to the medical center to consent to remove him from life support. She tells Penny, the intern who was assigned to Derek, that every doctor has “that one” patient who dies on their watch and haunts them forever and “that one will make you work harder, and they make you better.” After Derek’s death, Meredith returns to Grey Sloan Memorial to inform the others of his passing.

Following the funeral service, Meredith impulsively packs up her belongings and leaves with the children to an undisclosed location. Months pass by while her friends and family are unaware of her whereabouts. Eventually, parallels show similarities in Meredith’s and Ellis’ lives: both have lost the love of their life, both run away from Seattle following their loss, and both eventually give birth to a daughter.

Meredith names her newborn daughter Ellis after her mother. Having listed Alex as her emergency contact, he meets her at the hospital after delivering baby Ellis. With the support of Alex, Meredith returns to Seattle with the children and is later appointed Chief of General Surgery by Bailey. She sells the “dream house” and moves back to her mother’s house, having purchased it back from Alex, and now lives there with Maggie and Amelia Shepherd, her sister-in-law.

The three are pushed to learn how to more effectively communicate, support one another, and functionally live as sisters. Having settled back into life in Seattle, Meredith hosts a dinner party and at the party, Callie brings her new girlfriend, who is revealed to be Penny, the intern who worked on Derek at the hospital the night he died.

  1. Later at the event, Meredith finds out Penny will be joining her at Grey Sloan Memorial.
  2. Meredith is forced to work with Penny, and over time, decides to effectively train her to be a better surgeon.
  3. Meredith eventually forgives Penny, who becomes her favorite resident.
  4. Alex and Meredith continue their close, sibling-like relationship of being each other’s “person”, despite Jo’s displeasure and inability to understand their closeness.

He supports her when she is violently attacked by a disoriented patient, and she supports him through his legal difficulties. Alex initiates a weekly family waffle breakfast on Sundays, where he makes waffles for everyone in the house. Meredith recovers enough to start seeing Nathan Riggs ( Martin Henderson ), Owen Hunt’s former best friend, although their relationship is complicated by the fact that Maggie confesses to Meredith that she has feelings for Riggs.

Additionally, Meredith is not ready to declare their relationship formally or publicly. Eventually, she accepts her relationship with Riggs, but it’s complicated again by the unexpected return of Owen’s sister, Megan Hunt, Riggs’ fiancée. Meredith finds herself in another love triangle when Megan rejects Riggs because he is still in love with Meredith, but Meredith pushes them to be together.

After her relationship with Riggs ends, Meredith is nominated for a Harper Avery Award for her groundbreaking abdominal transplant surgery on Megan. After failing to attend the awards ceremony to stay for a medical trauma, post-surgery, Meredith learns with all her closest friends in the OR and gallery that she has won the Harper Avery Award.

  • After her win, Meredith throws herself into her work and is chosen to continue her project by the hospital’s research contest.
  • However, when she has difficulty getting access to a patented polymer from Europe, she is dragged back into her mother’s past, as it is Ellis’ former best friend, Marie, who is unwilling to help Meredith out.

Eventually, Meredith discovers the full truth about Marie and Ellis’ falling out and is able to repair some of the damage. During Jo and Alex’s wedding, Meredith is kissed by a drunken Andrew DeLuca ( Giacomo Gianniotti ), and the two brush it off. However, while Meredith starts dating again with the help of her matchmaker patient, CeCe, she is pursued by Andrew, who has realized his feelings for her.

Meredith also gets interest from Atticus Lincoln ( Chris Carmack ), a new orthopedic surgeon, and briefly finds herself in a love triangle. During her romantic dilemma, her estranged father, Thatcher, passes away, though they are able to make peace before his death. Eventually, Meredith chooses Andrew, and the two begin a relationship.

Meredith breaks the hospital record for the longest single surgery and then begins research on an ingestible diagnostic device. While treating Gabby Rivera, a young girl with cancer whose family has been split up at the border, Meredith commits insurance fraud to help Gabby’s father pay for the surgery.

  • When the hospital starts investigating the case, Andrew takes the fall so that Meredith won’t be sent to prison and separated from her kids.
  • Meredith visits Andrew in jail, telling him that she loves him and will get him out.
  • Meredith turns herself in and is sentenced to community service, while her medical license, though not revoked, is put in jeopardy.

She misses a court date and neglects to perform some of the hours, leading to a temporary stay in jail. After a hearing is conducted, Meredith is able to keep her license and is rehired at Grey-Sloan. On Meredith’s first day back, she meets Cormac Hayes ( Richard Flood ), the new Chief of Pediatrics, who she later learns has been sent to her by Cristina.

Hayes and Meredith grow closer and bond over their shared loss of a spouse. Andrew begins showing signs of mania, possibly brought on by bipolar disorder, and breaks up with Meredith when she expresses concern. Shortly after her breakup with Andrew, Meredith learns that Alex has moved to Kansas to be with Izzie and will not be returning to Seattle.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Meredith is stressed while coping the high rate of deaths. Meredith ultimately contracts COVID-19, and while she fights for her life, she goes in and out of consciousness. During her fever dreams, which take place on a beach, she encounters several loved ones in the afterlife, including Derek, George, Andrew, Mark, and Lexie.

Though she is in and out of consciousness, she can hear people talk to her in the real world. Meredith eventually recovers and gets strong enough to begin operating again. At the same time, she also takes over Richard’s position as Residency Program Director. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, Meredith has fully recovered.

She then meets Dr. David Hamilton ( Peter Gallagher ), a neurosurgeon who is also an old friend of her mother’s. He offers her the opportunity to help find a cure to Parkinson’s disease. Despite some uncertainty, she agrees to his offer on the condition that she can do it both in Seattle and Minnesota, where the trial is located.

  1. It is also revealed that she and Hayes briefly dated but decided to hold off on their relationship when his eldest son started having panic attacks because of their relationship.
  2. During her time in Minnesota, Meredith runs into her former patient, a transplant surgeon named Dr.
  3. Nick Marsh ( Scott Speedman ).

They both bond over being miracles and start dating. Meredith begins splitting her time between Minnesota and Seattle, putting a strain on her relationship with Bailey that worsens when Dr. Hamilton offers Meredith a full-time position at the Mayo Clinic that Meredith seriously considers.

In which season does Meredith get pregnant?

Grey’s Anatomy Tv Show Season 9 episode 7 when Derek finds out Meredith is pregnant with Bailey.

Does Meredith have a baby?

Only one of her children was born at Grey-Sloan. – Meredith had Bailey at Grey-Sloan. ABC Meredith has three children: Zola, Derek Bailey, and Ellis. Zola was adopted by Meredith and Derek after coming to Seattle Grace (later known as Grey-Sloan) for surgery when she was 6-months-old. Meredith gave birth to Bailey during a superstorm at Grey-Sloan, but her youngest child, Ellis, was born elsewhere when she was in Boston after Derek’s death,

Does Doctor Webber die?

14. Dr. Heather Brooks’ death was shocking. – She got electrocuted. ABC Heather was an annoying, chatty intern. But she was the kind of annoying that also made viewers secretly fond of her. Her death shocked fans because, at first, the season-nine finale set viewers up to believe that Dr. Richard Webber was the one who had died of electrocution.

Does Owen Hunt die?

How Kevin McKidd’s Owen Hunt Survived the ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Grim Reaper SPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not watched “No Time to Die,” the Feb.24 episode of “Grey’s Anatomy.” When viewers last saw Owen Hunt () in December’s “Grey’s Anatomy” midseason finale cliffhanger, he literally fell off a cliff, seemingly to his death.

  1. In that episode, “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,” Owen, his wife Teddy (Kim Raver) and Hayes (Richard Flood) had gone to retrieve a donor heart for Owen’s nephew, Farouk (Bardia Seiri), who would die without it — which would destroy Megan (Abigail Spencer), Owen’s sister.
  2. The trio of doctors had gone in order to ensure that nothing would go wrong with the transfer.

But this is “Grey’s Anatomy,” so suffice it to say, something did: Their driver had a massive stroke, causing the car to veer off the road, and perch precipitously at the edge of a cliff. At Owen’s insistence, Teddy was able to get out of the car safely with the heart, and Hayes followed her, leaving Owen to — as previously stated — go over the cliff in the car.

Yet in “No Time to Die” we saw that it was not in fact Owen’s time to die. Instead, he suffered a serious leg fracture, one that required surgery, and may have resulted in paralysis (but seemingly has not). It had been awhile, McKidd pointed out in an interview Thursday, since Owen had been “in real physical harm and jeopardy.” Not since the show’s, he said, when a gunman loose in the hospital shot Owen and nearly killed him, were it not for Meredith (Ellen Pompeo).

“He’s kind of dodged a lot of these bullets, if you will, over the seasons,” McKidd said with a laugh. “And so it was kind of Owen’s turn, I think.” Kevin McKidd as Owen Hunt Courtesy of ABC/Mike Rosenthal McKidd said he knew when he learned of the story that no, he wasn’t being killed off without having been told — but yes, it’s always nerve-racking when your character seemingly falls to his death: “Obviously, I was kind of nervous.

You know, ‘Maybe I need to find another job!'” The “Grey’s Anatomy” fandom is an intense one, and there are those who love Owen and others who wouldn’t mind if he did die. McKidd takes it all in stride, saying, “If somebody hates your character, I don’t think it stops them being a fan.” And McKidd finds flaws in Owen too.

“He’s a very imperfect guy,” he said. “He makes mistakes. He’s hot-headed. He’s impulsive — very impulsive sometimes. And I think that can rub people the wrong way. But I also think he has a great heart.” One of the impulsive things Owen has done in Season 18 of “Grey’s Anatomy” is illegally assist the death of Noah (Johnny Rey Diaz), a veteran sickened by burn pits in the wars in the Middle East.

  • When Owen thought he was about to die, he implored Hayes to do the same with the other veterans suffering from debilitating illnesses who’ve been unable to get help, or even acknowledgment, from the VA.
  • Owen’s confession caused a crisis of conscience in Hayes of the “first, do no harm” kind, and he decided to quit Grey Sloan and return home to Ireland.

(Whether Flood is officially leaving the show has yet to be announced, and representatives from ABC would not comment on the matter.) Hayes quitting is one thing; Teddy is no fool, and knows something Owen said prompted Hayes to take that drastic action, as she said to him in the episode’s final moments.

  1. Teddy and Owen have to really work through it,” McKidd said about the upcoming episodes of the show.
  2. And it gets pretty intense, and causes some real strife and anguish between them.” McKidd joined the cast of “Grey’s Anatomy” in Season 5 in 2008, meaning he’s played Owen for an astounding 14 seasons.

He’s also become one of the show’s regular directors, and was calling from the set where he’s currently directing Episode 15 (one of three he’ll direct this season). He’d never directed anything before, he said, but in the show’s seventh season, he approached “Grey’s Anatomy” creator Shonda Rhimes to ask whether he could shadow directors in the hope of doing it himself one day.

“She was so supportive of me doing that,” McKidd said. He’s now lost count of how many he’s directed, but the number is in the mid-thirties. “I’ve really learned how to do this on the job, not in a classroom setting, but on the factory floor, if you will,” McKidd said. “Grey’s Anatomy” has, But it’s starting to feel like the end, McKidd said: “It feels like we’re kind of in the last chapter of the show — that may be one more season or more seasons: I don’t know.” McKidd plans on sticking with it until the end.

“Sitting here right now, yes, I do,” he said. “I still think there’s some really great stories to tell for the character. And I’m really proud of the show still — to be part of the show, to play my role in the show. I still feel engaged. I love the people here, and I think the writers do amazing work.” After all, how often does an actor get to play a role for this many years? “It’s really fascinating to have this almost chronological record of your own life, because inexorably the character and your own personality kind of merge at a certain point,” McKidd said.

“I’m so invested in this character. But it’s a completely different experience playing a character over years and years and years than just doing one movie, obviously. Because there is no beginning, middle and end: It’s just the life of a character that you’re living. “So from this point, until wherever it ends, I just want to savor it,” he continued.

“Really savor every minute. Because it probably won’t happen again. It’s a once-in-a-career type thing.” : How Kevin McKidd’s Owen Hunt Survived the ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Grim Reaper

Does bailey die?

So,, Does Dr. Bailey Die on Grey’s Anatomy or What? Last week’s episode of had us reeling with questions, the most important being: “?!” This week’s episode gave us fans an answer, so if you haven’t watched yet, stop now or forever hold your peace. We are greeted by a flashback of Bailey’s childhood, with her mother calling her name and the head of surgery giving a voice-over, basically saying if her job kills her, she will be happy.

  • Once the flashback ends, we are treated to a snapshot of Miranda, Ben, and their son, Tuck, on their drive to school.
  • Everything seems happy until Tuck exits the vehicle and Bailey goes back to being mad at Ben for his new,
  • Who can blame her? He was a little selfish while making that decision.) Throughout this whole scenario, we see Bailey pop some Tums and seem a little bit off overall, a foreshadowing of what’s to come.

Bailey enters a hospital (not Grey Sloan) after giving her husband the cold shoulder, where she abruptly tells the receptionist in the iconic preview scene, “My name is Miranda Bailey; I’m chief of surgery, and I believe I am having a heart attack.” While we are panicking over whether or not Bailey is about to die, we are also thrown into a world of frustration when Dr.

Maxwell enters and quickly decides that Bailey is just a paranoid woman. Dr. Maxwell claims that Bailey is simply stressed and her OCD is acting up, and when she asks for a second opinion, he sends a (male, of course) psychologist. She continues to argue that she is being overlooked, asking these men why they dismiss women every time they claim to have physical symptoms, but she is ignored and refused a stress test.

By this point we are breathing into a paper bag and simultaneously screaming at Dr Maxwell. Bailey isn’t a quitter, though, so she calls Maggie to handle the situation. When Maggie arrives, she is surprised to see the chief (who knew just from Bailey calling out sick where she was), but neither of them find Bailey in her bed.

Instead, she is giving compressions to the patient having a heart attack next to her, but this act is what sends Bailey into a full-fledged heart attack herself. This whole time Bailey is having flashbacks to her mother and stressful job, which seems to be her trying to sort out some guilt for her career choice.

Maggie is understandably livid that none of the doctors believed Bailey about her heart attack, and after Dr. Maxwell fails at fixing Bailey’s heart, Maggie takes over. She does a procedure that Dr. Maxwell (who should honestly have his license revoked, in my opinion) doesn’t even know about and calls Ben so that Bailey has support.

  • Something goes wrong midway through the process of getting Bailey’s heart back, and because it’s Grey’s, we are then taken to the waiting room, where Ben and the chief are waiting.
  • The chief has a talk with Ben while there, explaining that Ben is asking Bailey to wait like this every time he leaves to fight a fire.

Ben seems to really take this into account and has a possibly life-changing moment. Miraculously, Bailey survives! Ben is mad that she didn’t call and just said it was “heartburn,” and he even says he won’t be fighting fires. But almost dying has changed Bailey, and she decides that Ben should fight fires! The episode ends with Bailey calling her mother — who throughout the flashbacks was constantly worried about her daughter’s safety — telling her she had a heart attack but is going to be OK.

Did Cristina go to Derek’s funeral?

‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Star Confirms Cristina Did Attend Derek’s Funeral.

Does Meredith have the Alzheimer’s?

Meredith’s history with Alzheimer’s spanned Grey’s Anatomy as a whole, but the possibility she might have wanted to study it was hinted at by S18. Warning! SPOILERS about Grey’s Anatomy season 19 ahead. Grey’s Anatomy season 19 introduced Meredith’s move to Boston as unexpected, but the possibility that she would have ended up studying Alzheimer’s was already entertained in Grey’s Anatomy season 18.

While Zola’s anxiety prompted her and Meredith’s trips around the country to look for the best school that would cater to Zola, Jackson’s offer to stay in Boston and research a cure for Alzheimer’s for the Avery Foundation was presented as a bolt out of the blue, and the best possible opportunity for Meredith to actually leave Seattle and start a new career phase.

However, Meredith’s potential desire to study Alzheimer’s was partially broached already by Grey’s Anatomy season 18. Meredith’s desire for her career to take another direction was a big theme, as Ellis’ visiting Meredith in Grey’s Anatomy season 18 in her dreams proved.

  • Despite Meredith’s decision to accept Hamilton’s offer and lead the Parkinson’s trial, Meredith continued to feel Ellis’ judgment of her choices.
  • While that and the constant comparison with Ellis from anyone she met deeply impacted Meredith, her predisposition to having Alzheimer’s in the future also guaranteed Meredith a history with the illness.

This ended up affecting both how Meredith approached the opportunity to research Alzheimer’s and Zola’s fear of Meredith getting it, establishing the increasing magnitude of Alzheimer’s in Meredith and her family’s life.

Does Meredith have Derek’s baby girl?

Meredith Has Derek’s Baby Girl Meredith gives birth to Derek’s daughter. Alex, who is Meredith’s emergency contact, rushes to her side when he’s called. Meredith tells him her newborn baby girl’s name is Ellis. Baby Mer-Der is beautiful. Watch this scene from Grey’s Anatomy Season 11, Episode 22: She’s Leaving Home. TV-14 | 04.30.15 | 02:37

Does Dr Shepherd die?

Grey’s Anatomy: Why Patrick Dempsey’s Derek Was Killed Off In Season 11 – IMDb has seen many character exits, but one of the most emotional departures was that of (). But when does die in, and why did it happen? follows Meredith Grey (), who viewers have followed from her days as an intern to becoming Head of General Surgery.

Audiences also witnessed many problems in her personal life, including her relationship with Derek Shepherd, with whom she eventually built a family. Patrick Dempsey’s Derek was in since the pilot, which is why Derek’s death in season 11 was such a shock. and Derek’s relationship wasn’t easy to follow, but by Patrick Dempsey’s exit from they were married with two kids and another due.

Then the unthinkable happened — Derek Shepherd died in season 11. Derek was offered a job in DC, and relocated part-time against a backdrop of marital tension,. : Grey’s Anatomy: Why Patrick Dempsey’s Derek Was Killed Off In Season 11 – IMDb

Does Mark Sloan die?

Why Mark Sloan’s Sendoff In Grey’s Anatomy Had Such A Big Impact – IMDb died at the beginning season 9 from his injuries sustained in the plane crash at the end of season 8, but his sendoff had a big impact on viewers and those within the Grey’s universe.

  1. Mark became a fan-favorite early on in the series when he first appeared in season 2, episode 18 with one of the most memorable entrances of any character.
  2. His death was a huge blow to, but the way he died and the sendoff he received helped viewers and characters alike deal with the great loss.
  3. ‘s Mark Sloan was killed off in season 9, episode 2, over six years after his first episode.

In Mark’s time on, he experienced a great amount of growth and was able to die peacefully. Across its 19 seasons, many characters have left the show or been killed off, but not. : Why Mark Sloan’s Sendoff In Grey’s Anatomy Had Such A Big Impact – IMDb

What happened to Izzie Stevens?

How was Izzie Stevens written off Grey’s Anatomy ? – How was Izzie Stevens written off Grey’s Anatomy ? Heigl’s character made a sudden exit in the middle of Season 6. On the show, Izzie Stevens left the hospital to get a new job after she was fired by Chief Webber from her residency position when she made a treatment error that put a patient in danger.

In Season 5, Izzie Steven was diagnosed with Stage 4 metastatic melanoma in her brain which spread to her liver, skin and brain. After a life-saving operation by the late Dr. Derek Shepherd (RIP McDreamy), she emerged from the surgery successfully, but had short-term memory problems (which thankfully subside).

Stevens returned to work as a resident only to make a crucial mistake that cost her job. Grey’s Anatomy showrunner Krista Vernoff explained that they had a different ending in mind to wrap up Stevens’ story. “There was a resolution to Izzie’s story. We had planned to have her come back for an episode to really properly tie up Izzie and Alex,” she told the in November 2020.

  1. And I wrote that episode, and it was beautiful.
  2. The day before it was supposed to start prepping or shooting, I can’t remember, we got a call that Katie wasn’t coming.
  3. Just wasn’t coming.
  4. Wasn’t going to do it.
  5. It became my job to stay up all night for multiple nights and reimagine a script that didn’t include Izzie.” Vernoff added that the fans blamed the show for Izzie’s ending without knowing what actually happened.

“And for years and years and years and years and years, the fans scream at us, ‘How could you?’ Well, that’s the behind-the-scenes story. That’s what happened. I’m not saying that to bash Katie. I don’t know what was happening in her life,” she said. However, after Vernoff’s interview was published with the L.A.

  • Times, sources close to Heigl told that Vernoff was “mistaken” when it came to the actress’ exit from the series.
  • Atherine was back in L.A.
  • After parental leave (when she adopted her daughter) waiting to be called to set,” an insider told the publication.
  • It wasn’t until Season 16 that fans finally received a concrete ending for Izzie.

When Justin Chambers left the show in January 2020, his character Alex Karev said that he left to live with Izzie and their two twins. Their kids were conceived with frozen embryos after her character’s departure in Season 6. He explained that he lives with her and their kids on a farm, Izzie works as an oncologist and he’s applying for a job at the hospital nearby.

What season does Cristina leave?

Everything Sandra Oh Has Said About ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ and Her Life After the Show – Closing the chapter. Since shocking fans with her exit in 2014, Sandra Oh has toyed with the idea of making a triumphant return to Grey’s Anatomy — but she’s happily moved out of her comfort zone.

  1. Oh’s portrayal of Dr.
  2. Cristina Yang on the ABC medical drama instantly gained her critical acclaim, winning the 2005 Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Series and the 2006 Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series.
  3. She remained in the role for 10 seasons, confirming her departure in August 2013.

“Creatively, I really feel like I gave it my all, and I feel ready to let her go,” she told The Hollywood Reporter at the time. “It’s such an interesting thing to play a character for so long and to actually get the sense that she wants to be let go as well.

Wants to be let go, and I am ready to let her go.” Cristina was written out after the show’s 10th season, leaving Meredith Grey ( Ellen Pompeo ) and more beloved characters behind for a new job in Switzerland. After learning that Oh would be saying goodbye, creator and showrunner Shonda Rhimes wanted to give her character the perfect ending,

“One of the best days of my life as a writer happened the day Sandra Oh walked in my door to audition and forever changed the course of Grey’s Anatomy with her brilliant, nuanced portrayal of Cristina Yang,” Rhimes told THR in August 2013. “Over the past 10 seasons, I have been made better by Sandra’s trust, faith and friendship, and I can’t quantify how grateful I am for her collaboration on a character we both love so deeply.

When Sandra walks out of my door, Grey’s Anatomy will once again be forever changed.” As a whole, Grey’s Anatomy is far from over. The series was renewed for an 18th season in May 2021 after several fan-favorite alums — including Patrick Dempsey and Chyler Leigh — made cameos during season 17. Though she’s grateful for all the memories she made with her former costars over the years, Oh doesn’t see herself putting on her doctor’s coat again.

“It’s very rare, I would say, to be able to see in such a way the impact of a character,” she told The Los Angeles Times ‘ “Asian Enough” podcast in May 2021. “In some ways, you do your work as a bubble and you let it go. I left that show, my God, seven years ago, almost.

  1. So in my mind, it’s gone.
  2. But for a lot of people, it’s still very much alive.
  3. And while I understand and I love it, I have moved on.” Following her nine-year run on Grey’s Anatomy, the actress dabbled in live theater and nabbed a supporting role in 2014’s Tammy,
  4. She returned to television for season 3 of American Crime in 2017 and has starred on Killing Eve since its 2018 premiere.

The role earned her the 2018 SAG Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series and the 2019 Golden Globe for Best Actress – Television Series Drama. “I think it’s very different than Cristina. There’s certain aspects, for sure, like both of those characters are determined,” she told Entertainment Weekly in March 2018 of her work on the two series. Credit: Dan Steinberg/Invision/AP/Shutterstock

Does Derek cheat on Meredith?

Owen Hunt On Emma Marling – Although fans would hate to see some of their favorite characters be unhappy, that does not mean that they completely agree with their actions. There were plenty of fans who didn’t agree with the way Owen and Emma’s relationship ended as Owen cheated on her after having a one-night stand with Cristina.

  • From the fans’ perspective, this didn’t make a lot of sense.
  • Cristina and Owen had already agreed that they didn’t belong together anymore since they wanted completely different things in life so no one could understand why the writers were revisiting this storyline.
  • What was even more frustrating was that Owen and Emma seemed quite happy together.

It just felt like they were trying to find a way of getting rid of Emma quickly. At, who grossly lacked any social etiquette. It was no surprise, then, that he ended up cheating on Izzie Stevens with the nurse Olivia after he let the pressures of the relationship get to him. Although Izzie and Alex weren’t formally together at the time, they were building to something good. Nathan Riggs appeared only for rather a short time at Grey Sloan Memorial. He was an ex-colleague of Owen Hunt’s at the military, and the fiancé of Owen’s sister, Megan. Megan and Nathan were both revealed to have cheated on each other. But Megan’s side of the story was never really shown explicitly, while Nathan was berated time and again by Owen for having cheated on his sister. Kate Walsh joined the medical drama as Derek’s wife, bringing up the third angle of the love triangle that Meredith and Derek found themselves in. But even as the thorn in Meredith’s flesh, Addison soon went on to be a beloved character and fans couldn’t get enough of her. If there were any fans who had actually thought that Addison and Derek could salvage their marriage, they soon lost all hope once Derek cheated on Addison. It shouldn’t have come as a great surprise to people since it was quite evident that Derek was still in love with Meredith.

However, instead of telling Addison that their relationship just wasn’t working for him anymore, he ended up sleeping with Meredith in the on-call room. While many MerDer fans were ecstatic to see that their favorite couple were on the verge of reuniting, they didn’t like the thought of Addison getting hurt.

Considering that Derek knew how it felt to be cheated on, many did think that this wouldn’t be a path he would go down. It was just a bit hypocritical considering everything they had been through. Owen proclaimed his love for Cristina more than once and he did indeed love her, choosing her over Teddy – who he had always had feelings for. But when Cristina decided not to have children and then had an abortion, the latter decided to hurt her by cheating. One major case of infidelity happened before the series had started, but continues to have a big impact, even today. Meredith’s mom Ellis, had had a long-drawn-out affair with Richard Webber, even though she was married to Thatcher Grey. Ellis and Richard were in love, but their relationship destroyed Meredith’s childhood and her relationship with her biological father, Thatcher. If Ellis cheated on Thatcher then naturally Richard cheated on Adele too. While the two did seem happy together, it wasn’t long before the viewers could see how much Richard’s infidelity had hurt Adele since she later accused Bailey of having an affair with her husband because he was spending a lot of nights at the hospital. Callie and Arizona were a lovely couple and fans rooted for them through all the ups and downs. From Callie’s accident while she was pregnant to Arizona having her leg amputated after the devastating plane crash, these two had indeed been through a lot.

  • But what didn’t make sense was Arizona cheating on Callie with the craniofacial surgeon Lauren Boswell.
  • While Arizona did struggle in the aftermath of the plane crash, some fans couldn’t understand what made her cheat.
  • It really devastated fans that this well-loved couple split up and couldn’t make it work in the end.

Maybe the for the two so fans could see where they ended up? Another cheating scandal that occurred in Grey-Sloan has to be Teddy cheating on Owen with Tom Koracick. The usually cool-headed, rational Teddy suddenly decided to throw all caution to the wind when she began a physical relationship with Tom, whom she was casually hooking up with before Owen proposed to her.

Teddy’s uncharacteristic behavior did have fans in an uproar – especially since she didn’t have any intention of rekindling her relationship with Tom and still wanted to marry Owen. While fans understood that Teddy was confused, they just thought it was a little unfair that she wasn’t being honest and giving Tom false hope.

Everyone involved in this situation deserved better. With news that, many fans had begun to speculate how the writers would close his story. However, out of all the outcomes and theories they came up with, no one would have predicted what the writers came up with.

  • It turns out that Alex had left and was moving to Kansas to be with Izzie and his children.
  • While many Alex and Izzie fans rejoiced at the news, there was a large backlash from the other part of the community as they thought it was out of character and not fitting.
  • This was mainly due to the fact that Alex was married to Jo and they had been building a future together.

Even through their issues, Alex and Jo never gave up on their relationship because they really did bring out the best in one another. Therefore, for him to just leave Jo and outright avoid her made no sense and ultimately undermined Alex’s character development.

Arguably has been Derek’s moment with his research fellow, Renee. In seasons 10 and 11, Meredith’s dream relationship with Derek went through a rough patch as the latter left for DC. Meredith feared the worst and she was almost right, for Derek did end up kissing Renee – although it’s possible this kiss opened his eyes and drove away any confusion he might have had regarding him and Meredith.

He did come running back to Seattle, but for MerDer shippers, his little moment with his Research Fellow was devastating. Of course, Derek did fall for Meredith while he was still married to Addison, but to see him on the verge of cheating on Meredith herself never went down well with fans.

George was goofy, adorable, and good through and through, so his sudden decision to cheat on Callie and sleep with Izzie seemed bizarre. True, he and Callie weren’t exactly the perfect couple, but that didn’t seem to justify the story arc where he acted on his impulses with Izzie – especially since they hadn’t really expressed an attraction to one another.

The fact that Callie was also quite likable made this storyline all the more frustrating. NEXT: : Grey’s Anatomy: 13 Worst Times A Character Cheated, Ranked

What happened to Meredith GREY?

Grey’s Anatomy Shares First Look at Ellen Pompeo’s Goodbye It’s the end of an era at Grey Sloan Memorial After nearly 18 years, Ellen Pompeo —who has played Meredith Grey since the series premiere of Grey’s Anatomy in March 2005—said her goodbye to the medical drama.

So, how did one of the most storied tenures in modern television history come to an end? On her final day at Grey Sloan Memorial, Meredith gets a visit from her boyfriend Nick ( Scott Speedman ), who is left reeling after Meredith’s prior announcement that she would be moving to Boston to research Alzheimer’s disease at the Catherine Fox Foundation.

Nick tells Meredith, “I moved here to be with you.” However, Meredith stoically reminds him that she’s similarly confused about where they stand. “I said ‘I love you,'” she tells Nick. “You didn’t say it back.” Without any resolution, Nick storms out of Meredith’s office and slams the door.

Later, the two are forced into action together after Tessa ( Patricia Richardson ) is rushed into the OR and Meredith scrubs into surgery one last time. Unfortunately, Meredith, Nick and the surgical team aren’t able to save Tessa, who dies on the operating table. After the surgery, Meredith opens up to Nick about the heaviness of what she’s feeling.

“I’m a grown woman with a big life, a big career and three kids, and this move is what my daughter needs,” she tells Nick. “I want you in my life if you want to be in my life. But if I have to choose, I’m going to pick me. I pick my kids and I pick what’s best for us.

I’m not going to beg you to love me.” Outside, after her final surgery, Meredith shares a moment with Grey Sloan intern Simone Griffith ( Alexis Floyd ). Simone informs Meredith that Tessa, who had written a book every year for the last 40 years of her life, had written one more. “She saved it on a thumb drive and she brought it here to the hospital,” Simone reveals.

“Which means after she felt her pain, the first thing she did is go to her computer and save her book.” So, why is she telling Meredith? “She wanted me to give it to her publisher in Boston,” Simone says to her. “I know you’re going there today.” ABC While Meredith is honored with a celebratory toast back at the hospital, Nick is pouring out his feelings to former Grey Sloan surgical resident Taryn Helm ( Jaicy Elliot ), who now tends bar across the street.

  • I don’t work there anymore, so I’m just going to tell you the truth instead of pretending to respect your awful decision making,” Taryn tells Nick.
  • She’s Meredith Grey.
  • She’s impossible and she’s perfect and she’s brilliant and she cares.
  • She can be mean sometimes, but only when she needs to be.
  • She can be selfish sometimes because she has earned that right.” Slowly, but surely, Taryn’s pep talk begins to work.

“For some stupid reason, she’s in love with men so she never fell in love with me,” she jokes to Nick. “But she fell in love with you. And you’re here? How stupid are you?” Well, not stupid enough to let Meredith go. Nick runs back to the hospital. However, once he arrives, the party is over and he’s told Meredith is on her way to the airport.

  1. With a renewed sense of purpose, Nick jumps in his car and tries to catch her before her flight.
  2. It wouldn’t be Meredith Grey’s final episode without one more grand, romantic leap of faith.
  3. ABC However, Nick gets stuck in traffic and he knows he won’t make it on time—so he makes a phone call.
  4. I love you,” he tells Meredith, who is sitting on the plane.

“I fell in love with you the first day I met you. I fell in love with you the second day I met you. And I have loved you for every minute of every day that I have known you.” Meredith doesn’t know what to say, so she doesn’t say much of anything at all.

  • I can’t quite hear you,” she lies.
  • We’re about to take off, so I’ll call you when we get settled.” Instead of thinking about Nick, Meredith focuses on herself and leaves the “pick me, choose me, love me” days in the past.
  • As the plane travels to Meredith’s new life in Boston, she recites a passage from Tessa’s book aloud to her kids.

“As long as the sun rises on your life,” she reads, “there will be new dragons to slay. So, the end of my story is not any kind of ever after. Because I’m still alive. I’m still here. And the sun still rises on my life.” However, as for Meredith’s journey on Grey’s Anatomy, the end has officially come.

How does Derek die in Season 11 episode 21?

Good things come and go fast on this show. Throughout season 11, Meredith and Derek face a rough patch in their marriage when Derek decides to take a job in Washington DC. After one of his fellows kisses him, Derek takes a plane back to Seattle after realizing how much he loves and misses Meredith.

  • Their happy time together is fleeting.
  • While on his way to make one last trip to Washington, Derek witnesses a car accident and rescues the victims, only to be involved in a car accident shortly after.
  • The paramedics take him to a less-equipped hospital, and by the time the doctors figure out that he needs a CT scan, he is brain dead.

Sleeping at Last’s melancholy cover of “Chasing Cars” plays as Meredith takes Derek off of life-support, and it will destroy you.

How did Mark Sloan die?

Why Mark Sloan’s Sendoff In Grey’s Anatomy Had Such A Big Impact – IMDb died at the beginning season 9 from his injuries sustained in the plane crash at the end of season 8, but his sendoff had a big impact on viewers and those within the Grey’s universe.

Mark became a fan-favorite early on in the series when he first appeared in season 2, episode 18 with one of the most memorable entrances of any character. His death was a huge blow to, but the way he died and the sendoff he received helped viewers and characters alike deal with the great loss. ‘s Mark Sloan was killed off in season 9, episode 2, over six years after his first episode.

In Mark’s time on, he experienced a great amount of growth and was able to die peacefully. Across its 19 seasons, many characters have left the show or been killed off, but not. : Why Mark Sloan’s Sendoff In Grey’s Anatomy Had Such A Big Impact – IMDb

Is Derek alive in season 17?

‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Shocker: Krista Vernoff, Ellen Pompeo & Patrick Dempsey On Season 17 Premiere’s Dream Reunion & More SPOILER ALERT: This story includes details about tonight’s Season 17 premiere of ‘s, EXCLUSIVE : ABC’s promo for the Season 17 premiere of Grey’s Anatomy teased a “shocking, jaw-dropping ending.” That was an understatement. ABC The sweet Meredith-Derek reunion was the joyous coda to an emotional two-hour season premiere of Grey’s Anatomy’s 17th season, dedicated to frontline healthcare workers, which marked the conclusion of a Station 19 crossover. It was marked by tragedy, as Meredith struggled to cope with the mounting COVID deaths at the hospital; anger, as medical personnel were left to fight the disease without enough PPE; hope, as the teenage girl whom DeLuca had unsuccessfully tried to save from human trafficking was reunited with her family; heartbreak, as Owen refused to reconcile with Teddy despite her pleas for forgiveness; and happiness, as Link and Derek’s sister Amelia took their newborn baby boy home.

  • In an exclusive interview with Deadline, which had known about the big twist, Dempsey, Vernoff and Pompeo reveal how the idea for McDreamy’s return came about, how long he will stick around, how the scene was filmed, and the great lengths to which the show went in order to keep the cameo a secret so fans can fully enjoy it.
  • Vernoff and Pompeo also address Meredith’s fate following her medical emergency and in the context of Pompeo’s contract coming up at the end of the season, how the real-life coronavirus pandemic changed Grey’s Anatomy on and off the screen, whether will there be COVID casualties among the staff of Grey Sloan, are there plans for a time jump, and is there hope for Teddy and Owen.
  • Dempsey, who has a cancer foundation, had his own questions for Vernoff and Pompeo about whether advancements in COVID treatments and the issue of wearing masks are reflected on the show.

DEADLINE: Before we talk about Patrick’s return, let’s address the incident that brought on the cameo, Meredith’s collapse, because we usually associate those kind of visions with somebody on the brink of death. Is Meredith OK? Is this just her being overworked, or is it COVID or something else very serious? VERNOFF: Well, you have to tune in next week. ABC VERNOFF: From a writer’s perspective, it happened because it was my job to find a way — once we determined that we were doing the pandemic — to also bring joy, and escape, and fan candy, and all the things that at Grey’s Anatomy we give people. We give them romance, and we give them humor, and we give them joy, and a lot of that is lacking for the medical community in this pandemic.

And so, I was walking on the beach one day, and I was like, what if there’s a Meredith dream motif? There have been studies about how intense our dream life has been. In the pandemic, people are having really intense dreams because of the lockdown. We’re not getting enough stimulation, and so, it’s happening in our dreams.

So, it started as that. It started as, how do we give people some escape. I had this imagining of a beach motif throughout the season, and I called Ellen, and I said, what if we bring back, I don’t know, some dead character that you could dream of on the beach, that would be so fun for the fans. ABC/Krista Vernoff POMPEO: Patrick and I both have homes in Malibu, and we went for a hike one day. I had known that Krista wanted to do a beach thing, and I was at the beach. Patrick and I weren’t hiking on the beach, but we were hiking in Malibu, which, you can see the beach.

And the idea just struck me so I just said to him, would you ever consider coming and being a part of the storytelling this season? I know that Patrick has his foundation in Maine where he helps cancer patients and cancer survivors, and that’s a huge effort of his, and I know that it’s important to him, also, to give people hope, and give people joy, and we wanted to bring something to this moment.

There’s just so much darkness, and we knew that coming together would be a little ray of light. And so, I think we had the same idea, at the core, to want to help people and bring a smile to people’s faces. So, he loved the idea, and we were just so excited, and we had a ball filming it. ABC DEMPSEY: I had a lot of calls from a lot of local government officials in Maine saying, we really need to get the message out there, to get people to socially distance, to wear a mask. I came across a photo that I was going to post that had Ellen and I, and I think that produced a call where I reached out to Ellen, and this was right around, the conversation was starting for Season 17.

And Ellen’s like, let’s get together, I want to go over a couple things, I want to catch up. We hadn’t spoken or been together for a while. It was a great opportunity to catch up and say, OK, what can we do for all the frontline responders? I’ve been tracking what Grey’s had been doing with giving masks, and making sure that people had the right equipment, and it came from that place — OK, what can we do to make people feel better, to give some comfort in this time of uncertainty, and that’s how it began.

And it was really a wonderful experience to go back, to work with Debbie, I think the whole atmosphere has changed, certainly working at the beach, and seeing everybody again was really a very healing process, and really rewarding, and a lot of fun. And hopefully, that feeling translates, and the fans enjoy it. ABC DEMPSEY: I t was really enjoyable. It was really exciting, and fun, and it was great to see everybody. Kevin was there as well, so there was a lot of familiar faces, a lot of new faces. The dynamic behind the camera had changed. There’s much more diversity within the crew.

  1. DEADLINE: Ellen, Patrick, did you filmed the beach scene together?
  2. POMPEO: Yes.
  3. DEADLINE: How was it looking at each other, on set, in character, after so many years?

ABC DEMPSEY: Well, I have less eyesight than I used to, so ( laughter ). It was great. It was really fun, very special. it felt really comfortable, incredibly safe. The whole process, I have to say, from getting tested before even showing up to the set, the whole process in which we shot, I felt safe the whole time. ABC And it was very healing to come back, and know that we’re doing something good, putting out a positive story, a healing story, going to make people smile, and I think, for me, I’m really grateful for the opportunity to be able to be at this place in the show where we can do this.

We constantly get to rewrite, I don’t want to say the ending, but we get to keep the rewrites going, which, I guess, you writers love, right? They love to start over, to scrap it and rewrite it, and make it better, and that’s what’s fun about this process this far along, is getting the opportunity to work with Patrick again, and just coming up with ideas, how do we keep surprising the fans, and how do we keep the quality of the show up, is what makes it continue to be fun.

DEADLINE: How long is Patrick going to stick around for? VERNOFF: It’s more than the one scene you saw, Nellie, and it was just joyful. I really want to echo that. Patrick and Ellen and I were all there at the beginning of this; I wasn’t there for the pilot, but I was there for the first seven seasons, and that was 17 years ago.

  1. That was, like, a lifetime ago; my kids weren’t alive.
  2. It was so wild to walk out on that beach, and just be together again as these different people that we are now.
  3. But I can’t overstate how joyful and healing an experience this was.
  4. DEMPSEY: Yeah, for me as well.
  5. It was really special.
  6. It’s really hard to believe, 17 years, that’s remarkable.

I mean, a lot of us didn’t have children at that point, right? So, our kids have grown up, they’re now in school. It’s crazy how much time has passed, but it really was so comforting, and lovely, and inspiring to go back, and to work together, to see everybody. ABC/Krista Vernoff DEMPSEY: Yeah, it was fun, because I really love the message of what the dynamic is in this story. With everything that we’re dealing with right now, and certainly we have been distracted with the election, but we’re going to get back into the reality of COVID and being in a pandemic, and all the lives that have been lost.

  1. Where are these souls going? And I think that’s what attracted me to this storyline, I think it can be really helpful and healing to so many people.
  2. POMPEO: I also think that, in a strange way, the behind the scenes of the show is certainly paralleling what we need, with the stories that we put out.
  3. What do we love about the show? We love that the show brings people together.

We love that the show hopefully opens people’s minds, it opens people’s hearts, and I think that, in the running of the show and the making of the show, if we follow those same principles, if we follow the principles of love first, of acceptance, of open mind, open heart, forgiveness, all of it is, that’s the message of Grey’s,

And for us to be able to mirror that behind the scenes, and truly walk our walk and talk our talk with each other, those who created the show, I think, is a really amazing full-circle sort of story for a TV show that’s gone on this long. DEADLINE: How hard was it to keep Patrick’s return a secret? VERNOFF: I have to say that it was an epic feat, the keeping of this secret.

I didn’t send cuts to the studio and network that included that last scene. I didn’t have writers’ assistants in the writers’ room for the last couple of months. There were writers who didn’t know we were doing this on that staff. Most of the actors didn’t know we were doing this.

The crew didn’t know we were doing this when they showed up on the day. I put the name “Ellis Grey” in the script that we read at the table, and I had Meredith say “Mom” at the table, so we got there on the day, and no one had been told what was happening. So, also watching the crew react, and Linda Klein, who’s been there from the beginning, we got Norman back, who was our amazing hair guy from the beginning,

I was like a crazy person with this secret. And Ellen and I were texting at all hours of the night, like, who knows, I think this person. POMPEO: Absolutely. DEADLINE: Will we see Ellis on the show this season? VERNOFF: I don’t know. I don’t know. You have to tune in and see who comes to the beach. ABC POMPEO: I think we have a responsibility to really show what these healthcare workers have been going through. It’s so easy for a big part of the population to just be irritated with wearing a mask, and they’re sort of disconnected from what real doctors and nurses and anyone who works in a hospital are actually dealing with.

I don’t want to speak for Krista, but I think for me, certainly, I saw this as an opportunity to tell the story of how hard this is for our healthcare workers; it’s devastating for them. I think Krista will tell you that they’ve sat down with so many doctors and nurses, and they hear the stories, and they’re writing right from these stories that they’re hearing.

And this has been devastating, and changed the medical community forever. So we have to show, that’s our responsibility, to show what a struggle this is for healthcare workers, and continues to be as we see numbers spiking again. We have to try to spread some empathy, and show people that this is very real, and it’s really hard, and the next time you want to complain about wearing a mask, think about what these people have to do.

They have to wear a mask, they have to wear full PPE, full cappers. They literally have to do 50 things just to be able to perform their job. DEADLINE: Krista? VERNOFF: I have to say that I feel like Ellen did an extraordinary job in that premiere, paying respect to healthcare workers with her performance.

The thing that she did is exactly what I’ve been talking about so much, which is that these doctors and nurses who come to the writers’ room every year. They are joyful and excited, and they’re always there to tell us these exciting stories. And this year, it felt like, it was the first time they were talking to anybody.

It was the first break they were taking. It was the first time anyone was asking them what they were living through, and to a person, it felt like they were on the verge of breaking. They were different people, and I felt like Ellen so beautifully embodied it throughout this episode, the change, what this pandemic is doing to people who were trained to help and heal, but not trained to walk through war, and not trained to lose dozens of patients, sometimes in a day.

It’s breaking them, and I feel like we’re already showing the strain and the impact, and yes, there will be more of that, and somehow, we’re also bringing joy. We’ve been carefully threading this needle, of paying honor and homage, and telling the truth of this story, while finding ways to also bring joy to the audience, and I’m really excited about Season 17.

  • DEADLINE: You’re not going to hint whether anyone on the show is in jeopardy, are you? VERNOFF: Well, for sure, Nellie, for sure people are in jeopardy.
  • Meredith collapses at the end of the premiere.
  • People are in jeopardy, and multiple people are in jeopardy throughout the season, in myriad ways, because that’s the moment we’re living through.

DEADLINE: Ellen, should we read more into Meredith’s collapse in light of you figuring out your future on the show? You have said that you’re not sure what you’re going to do beyond this season. ABC POMPEO: You can’t read into anything. Really, that’s dangerous territory. I think that, collectively, we, or creatively, it’s the same this year as it always is. Is there a reason to continue? What stories do we have to tell? What characters do we have to bring back that gives us story to tell? I said in another interview last week, we’re always in this incredibly sweet spot with this show, for whatever reason.

  • We always have incredible circumstances that allow us to continue creatively, whether it’s ideas, or circumstances that happen.
  • Our goal is just to make good TV.
  • I think we’re all aware of the icon status of the show, we’re so aware of that, and I think that that’s why Patrick was so humble and so grateful to be able to come back, because we are very grateful that we have this huge platform.

And I don’t think any of us take the platform that we have lightly. And so, at this point, I think, we don’t know what we’re going to do. We know that we’re grateful, and we know that we want to show our gratitude, and grateful to each other making the show, that we’re able to keep continuing to grow, and to tell stories that we think are important, and getting this moment.

Listen, who gets career runs like this? Patrick Dempsey’s been working since he’s I know he’s been working off-camera even earlier, but I mean, when was your first role, Patrick, when you were 16 or 17? DEMPSEY: Sixteen, 17, so 30 years. POMPEO: Who gets a run like that? So, I just think that we’re incredibly grateful to be able to still be here, and be telling these stories that we feel are important, and we’ll see.

Creatively, this is our heavy-lifting, to keep raising the bar for ourselves, but we’ve got something great, which is we’ve got gratitude, and we’re all smart, creative people. So, if there’s a way to figure it out, we certainly will. DEMPSEY : The range of emotions, where you’re getting a chance to cry, but you’re also getting a chance to laugh, I think that’s a huge success in the storytelling.

  1. The whole ride has been remarkable on so many levels, being a part of this show for so many years, and it’s profoundly changed my life in so many ways.
  2. I’m very grateful for that, and hopefully to use that platform in a positive way, where you’re doing something good.
  3. And I’m grateful to be a part of this show at this particular moment in time.

DEADLINE: The premiere is set in April 2020. Krista, will the show fast forward to now? VERNOFF: We’re not fast forwarding. We’re playing it through. So, by the time it’s airing, most of what we’re doing is almost a year ago, in the timeline. And there’s more joy.

DEMPSEY: Do you get into how the disease is treated over time as well? Do you get into how the science — and I think this is an important thing for us to remember and to really believe in the science, in the breakthroughs that they’re making on a daily basis. How do you track that, and has that been part of your conversation? ABC VERNOFF: It is.

It’s a constant part of the conversation, and we have three doctors on staff now who come into the writers’ room most of the time, and we have a lot of conversations of even the evolution, what you see in terms of the protective gear that they’re wearing in the premiere versus the evolution of the protective gear, when are they treating with ventilators and when are they not.

  1. There were drug studies and drug trials, and we’re doing our best to be honest about that progress, and also the evolution in the hospitals.
  2. Grey Sloan in the premiere has a special COVID ward, and these intake tents, and then, throughout the course of the season, other spaces evolve to hold COVID patients, and we’re hearing news about other hospitals.

Washington was hit really hard early on. So, we’re trying to play through all of that. DEMPSEY: Sorry, follow-up question, if I may. Do you get into the politics of the mask, and how that affects in a negative or a positive way? Do you go down that road at all? VERNOFF: We try to stay away from overt politics, and the politicizing of the mask is a real thing that happened.

So, we’re not talking about politicians. We just don’t do that at Grey’s Anatomy, partly because we want the show to be for everybody, and we don’t want it to become so polarizing, where it feels like we’re preaching from some particular pulpit. We’re just sticking with the science, and the reaction of doctors to the idea that people are not understanding and/or not believing that masks are imperative to protect other people and themselves.

So, we’re playing it through character, is the answer, like what an outrage it is for these doctors, who spend their lives and their all-day, every-day, trying to save people, to see human beings out there choosing not to protect their fellow human beings, because they’re not believing in science, and they’re not believing scientists.

  1. DEADLINE: How is filming going? Grey’s was one of the first shows to shut down production early in the pandemic to protect the cast and crew.
  2. How is it now, with the new COVID wave? I write stories about shutdowns virtually every day.
  3. VERNOFF: I mean, knocking wood, so far.
  4. POMPEO: Good so far, yeah.
  5. We’re good.

Of course, anything can happen at any moment, but I think that collectively, everybody’s really careful. And again, we’re trying to be mindful of one another, and we’re trying to be mindful of how we live our lives when we’re not at work, because that’s the smart thing to do, and we have to come to work and keep everybody safe.

Nobody wants to get shut down. ABC VERNOFF: We’re really careful in our creating of the show, also, to help the actors feel safe. We shut down before other shows, we also came back to production before a lot of other shows, thanks to truly the leadership of Debbie Allen. There was some leadership from me, but for sure, it was guided by Debbie Allen going, if we don’t come back, we’re never going to come back, come on, Krista, we’re coming back.

Set a date, set a date, set a date, where’s the scripts? Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go. She kept saying, if you put a date on the calendar, we’re going to work toward it, and we’re going to figure out how to do it safely, and we really did figure out how to do it safely.

  1. We were lucky that we’re set in a hospital, so that our actors, when they’re working together tightly, can be in masks.
  2. But it was also my job, and the job of the writers, to come up with plans and motifs that allowed the audience to see the actors’ faces, and the actors to feel safe in that.
  3. So, you didn’t just see a beach motif, which is a continuing motif through the season, and it was designed, that particular motif, so that Ellen could come to work without a mask and feel safe, because she’s outside; the epidemiologists have been clear about how much safer outside is.

But you also saw, for the first time in 17 seasons, Meredith’s house back yard. We built a backyard set on the exterior of the lot, outside the writers’ bungalow, so that those actors could give us some no-mask time, and feel safe in the beginning. And more and more, we’re understanding how to keep everyone safe indoors, so we’re getting a little bit more without masks indoors, but at the beginning, we had to really be creative, in terms of how are we doing this, how are we keeping ourselves safe, how are we helping them feel safe, and how are we giving the fans a show that’s joyful in addition to true.

DEADLINE: And one final question: is there any hope for Teddy and Owen? VERNOFF: Teddy is doing good. They’ve got a long haul, Nellie. If there’s hope for them, it’s in the ethers, but you know, I didn’t have a lot of hope that Patrick Dempsey was going to be back on Grey’s Anatomy last year, and look where we are.

So Here is a promo for next week’s episode: This is really, truly happening. — Greys Anatomy (@GreysABC) : ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Shocker: Krista Vernoff, Ellen Pompeo & Patrick Dempsey On Season 17 Premiere’s Dream Reunion & More

Does Derek die in episode 24?

This episode hurts on so many levels. In the season six finale, Gary Clark goes on a shooting spree at the hospital after his wife dies under Derek’s care. Meredith, who’s pregnant, witnesses Gary shooting Derek. Gary shows up again while Cristina operates on Derek, so she and Jackson pull the plug to make him think that Derek is dead.