Grey’s Anatomy 19×07, the review of the midseason premiere: goodbye Meredith

Our commentary on episode 19×07 of Grey’s Anatomy, the midseason premiere in which Ellen Pompeo and her Meredith Gray greet Gray Sloan Memorial Hospital. From March 22 on Disney+.

It’s not a goodbye but a goodbye to Ellen Pompeo and of his Meredith Gray in the midseason premiere di Grey’s Anatomy 19×07March 22 on Disney+. A bittersweet and not very striking taste for an understated episode which however lays the foundations for a sort of spin-off / reboot / non-reboot, as did the season premiere of this season which presented the new residents. The episode picks up right where the crossover left off a few months ago, with Meredith’s historic Seattle home, burning in flames. Let’s see together how Krista Vernoff, authors and performers greeted the undisputed protagonist of this ensemble medical drama which remains the most watched currently in the US and also the longest-lived historically after ER.
Side note: the episode is semi-crossover with the equivalent of Station 19 (6×07), so we advise you to see that first as always.

It’s not goodbye…

First of all, it should be noted that Ellen Pompeo/Meredith Gray’s farewell is not exactly a farewell, as advertised both in the US and in Italy, but a goodbye. In fact, we already know that the actress and her character will return in the season finale, tentatively scheduled for May overseas, and that in the meantime she has remained as the now traditional narrator of the beginning and end of the episode. Plus we may – and probably will – see her again in the future as an occasional guest star. This episode 19×07, however, titled symbolically I’ll follow the sun (I will follow the sun) is however his last as a regular since the debut of the medical drama back in 2005. An important turning point for the serie and for its plot, which since the title has always relied on the Gray family who will now do without their historical interpreter, on whose fulcrum the whole story revolved. The title of the episode is not accidental, as we said, but it is a reference and in a certain sense wants to close the circle of the joke that Cristina, the persona about Meredith, he told her when he left Gray Sloan Memorial Hospital at the end of the tenth season referring to Derek: “He is a dreamer, but he is not the sun. You are the sun“, to underline the feminism of the serial well before Scandal e The rules of the perfect crime.

Grey’s Anatomy 19×01, the review: The Shondaland series is renewed with new arrivals in the footsteps of the old ones

… but goodbye

The episode is full of symbolism, without any editing with the main moments of the character leaving the show, as had been done for other goodbyes. Perhaps not a random choice, to make the separation with the public softer, and this ploy will be used in the season finale. The most striking symbol is that of the house which, over the course of the seasons, first hosted the MAGICs (acronym for the residents from whom the story began, Meredith, Alex, George, Izzie, Cristina), then Meredith and Derek with their children and finally Meredith with her acquired “sisters”, Maggie (Kelly McCreary) and Amelia (Caterina Scorsone), after being widowed. The house is now burning but at the same time is “rescued” by the spin-off’s fire crew Station 19, to then be given by the three sisters symbolically to the new residents (Benson, Simone, Lucas, Jules, Mika) that we are getting to know. A real passing of the baton in a sort of spin-off / reboot / non-reboot, just like in the premiere of the nineteenth season. Now it will be up to them to try to continue the heavy legacy they find on their shoulders and only in the following episodes will we understand if they will succeed. The final scene of this episode is however symbolic with the “new” MAGIC making their way into the house to be restored and rearranged.

Grey’s Anatomy 19×06 e Station 19 6×06, la recensione del crossover e midseason finale

Bittersweet flavour

Not just because it’s goodbye and not goodbye, not just because we’ve been carrying it around for too long, but the episode really lacks pathos. There obviously could not have been any great returns, given that we have already seen them in the past seasons linked to Covid, but the small party organized in a hurry by Miranda (Chandra Wilson) and Richard (James Pickens Jr.) with their hasty speeches , it just has a bitter taste in the mouth. The same goes for the farewell with the two acquired sisters, Maggie and Amelia, who are also responsible for maintaining the shack in the next episodes (although in reality we already know that another of them will leave Gray Sloan, but we’ll talk about that again ). The interesting aspect instead, chosen by the showrunner Krista Vernoff herself who wrote the episode, directed by Debbie Allen (interpreter of Catherine), is to make Meredith come full circle with an intervention that is not successful, despite the everyone’s commitment.

The bittersweet taste of defeat is that of life, to leave some realism in the show linked to its medical nature. But it is also that of goodbye, which unites her with the character of Scott Speedman, Dr. Marsh, with whom they chase each other throughout the episode. In the end we witness a phone call that opens up the possibility that he will follow her to Boston, without her being asked, in another historical citation at that time. “Pick Me. Choose Me. Love Me” who had made the hearts of the spectators beat on the Derek / Meredith couple but in hindsight had denoted little self-esteem and feminism for the character, who is in fact the Sun as we have reiterated. Meredith tells Nick: “If I’d have to choose, I will choose me”. The only real aspect of a worthy closure for the storyline of the character, who faces the last day in the hospital with their children, with Zola (which is why she moves to Boston) who wants to see the operations done by her and her aunt Maggie, combining family and work which are now the two souls of the character.