Meredith is gone and never comes back.
We paraphrase Laura Pausini jokingly but in reality – as we explained in the review of the midseason premiere, which has just arrived on Disney + – that of Ellen Pompeo in Grey’s Anatomy it’s goodbye and not goodbye. He will return in the finale (and possibly in the future as a guest star), and in the meantime remains as a voice-over narrator of the events of Gray Sloan Memorial Hospital. Meanwhile Krista Vernoff, showrunner of the series that took the reins starting in 2017, has announced that this currently airing season will be her last as well as the sixth of the spin-off Station 19. Not only that: Dr. Maggie Pierce, Meredith’s stepsister played by Kelly McCreary, will also leave us in a few episodes. All elements, together with some past choices, that make us scream out loud: Grey’s Anatomy didn’t deserve to end like this!. And actually it’s not over yet, given that a renewal seems very likely. Let’s see together the causes and consequences of debacle of the longest-running and most-watched medical drama on TV.
The end of generalist TV?
When broadcasting on generalist TV, despite the fact that times have changed and the DVR data of the recordings of the episodes and therefore of the deferred viewings count a lot, and now also the hours of viewing on the platforms, the networks must in any case take into account the ratings in direct and del buzz on social media that creates a certain show. That is how Grey’s Anatomy, more than an adult now, is still on the crest of the wave and in its wake has also brought the spin-off Station 19, which alone would struggle to stand up. If until a few years ago it could have seemed that the serieil medical drama longest-lived (has beaten ER – Doctors on the front line) and more watched than TV, could potentially continue forever despite the heavy farewells and cast changes over the seasons, today the situation appears very different, despite still maintaining its share of the public. This is because the last few seasons have proposed questionable storylines for many characters, often going so far as to break up couples when they no longer knew what to do for them. Two examples above all: April and Jackson, oi April as the fans call them, brought back together offstage after the farewell of the two interpreters, and Link and Amelia, in order to explore the bisexual side of the latter with Kai. Not only that: the Covid season (the seventeenth) was one of the worst managed of Grey’s Anatomy as well as medical drama in general, and it is paradoxical because it should have taught others how to manage a crisis even behind the scenes.
Among the many examples we could give: the storyline of Miranda’s mother (Chandra Wilson), never mentioned even by mistake in 17 years, and above all that of Meredith, for an entire season induced into a coma to save her from Covid, whom we see walking on a dreamlike beach meeting historical faces of the cast who have left us over the years, starting with his great love Derek (Patrick Dempsey), followed by his half-sister Lexie (Chyler Leigh) together with Mark (Eric Dane) and the shy but courageous George (TR Knight). All returns that may have made the hearts of some fans of the first hour leap, even if really too publicized from week to week without taking advantage of the surprise effect, but which remain “wasted” and which would have really made sense in a final season. Final season which, at the moment, we will not see so soon, because the double exit of Pompeo and Vernoff suggests that there are currently plans on the part of ABC for at least one further season both for the mother series and for the spin-off off.
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From stars to rags?
At the time of the eighth season of Grey’s Anatomy, there were rumors of a possible departure of Meredith, who had already risked her life many times, in favor of her stepsister, to divert viewers’ suspicions about the twist. After that episode, it was clear that Grey’s Anatomy would exist as long as Ellen Pompeo she would have remained at the reins of the show that bore the name of her character, despite being an ensemble series. Even this unwritten rule has been broken and no longer applies, now that her character has exited the scene, in a very subdued way, as a regular. A farewell (which is actually a goodbye, as we said) drawn too long, after already a couple of seasons in which the actress would have liked to leave but various factors did not allow her to, culminating in the finale of last season in which the Gray Sloan Memorial Hospital was left in total chaos. Only to then have to retrace his steps, once this new agreement with Pompeo was reached in the summer months.
The new deal forced Krista Vernoff and the writers to rethink her scripts season 19 throwing several months into the story and no longer focusing on saving the graduate program, which was the heart that started it all for MAGIC. MAGIC (acronym for Meredith, Alex, George, Izzie and Cristina) are definitely gone with the departure of the protagonist, and the farewell of April and Jackson (Jesse Williams) also took away the other historic members who arrived from Mercy West when the two hospitals merged. The end of an era for real, but it shouldn’t have come this way.
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Passing of the baton
Grey’s Anatomy, for all that it has brought to generalist TV also in terms of earnings, would have deserved a last season announced since the summer months, to give the authors time to build a final narrative arc for all the characters, and take advantage of it to make returning historical faces to pay their last respects to the series which, more often than not, made them famous. Some returns at this point have been “burned” and therefore would be redundant, such as those already mentioned during the Covid season. Or it is increasingly difficult for them to happen, like Sandra Oh and Katherine Heigl (Cristina and Izzie), by the will of the actresses themselves or by what happened behind the scenes at the time of their release. Krista Vernoff took the reins from Shonda Rhimes in the fourteenth season after the latter signed with Netflix (the last episode written by her was that of Derek’s death in 2015), to then also take those of Station 19 (designed by Stacy McKee) in the second season creating a real shared universe with more or less strong weekly references from one show to another, allowing the spin-off to survive. If the only other screenwriter she knows historically also abandons the ship, she has the series and its path, even with the questionable choices she may have made on a narrative level, what remains in a hypothetical and increasingly probable twentieth season (to make round count) really leaves us perplexed and worried.
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What future for the series?
In the future of the medical drama, it was decided not to make a further spin-off with Zola (the adopted daughter of Meredith and Derek, black and therefore perfectly integrated into the inclusive canons of today’s TV) as the protagonist together with the other children of the protagonists, or yet another revival of Private Practice. A potentially dangerous operation, which could not give life to more than a single mini-season, in order not to ruin what was done with the storylines of the characters, first that of Addison (Kate Walsh), one of the most iconic and beloved characters of this universe, recently returned as a guest star to try to revive the show with historical and much appreciated faces. Indeed, already in her recent sporadic returns, she could not stay in Seattle for too long with her husband and son, for whom she had fought, waiting for her in Los Angeles. Instead, the path that the network, Vernoff and producers took was that of one spin-off-reboot-non-rebootsimilar but not the same as what was done in the famous ninth season of Scrubs. New residents Benson “Blue” Kwan (Harry Shum Jr.), Simone Griffith (Alexis Floyd), Lucas Shepherd (Niko Terho), Jules Millin (Adelaide Kane), and Mika Yasuda (Midori Francis) – and it’s even more evident in the episodes post-farewell of Meredith – have the enormous responsibility of making us passionate about new stories that clearly follow some characters and dynamics, even if mixed in a different way, of the original MAGICs.
But the question is: after 19 seasons, is it safe to believe that the fans will become passionate and are not tired by now, thanks to the veterans behind the scenes who flee like hell? The latest announcement, that of Kelly McCreary/Maggie Pierce, the biological daughter of Richard (James Pickens Jr.), Meredith’s putative and working father, and Ellis, widens the void left by the protagonist. Maggie has actually always been a character little loved by the fans, who has always made her way with difficulty into the hearts of the spectators, but her sisterhood relationship with Meredith and Amelia (Caterina Scorsone) was one of the strengths in the last seasons of the show. Her story with Jackson was one of the most unlikely and least successful couples in the history of TV, then with Winston Ndugu (Anthony Hill) she had found a balance but their storyline together has been faltering for some time; or rather it is evident that the authors do not know how to continue, and we hope they do not destroy them as they did in the past with other couples. What to say at this point? No more “long live Grey’s Anatomy” but let’s hope that after all these jumps and hurdles along the way, it can have an, if not worthy, then at least acceptable ending. As fans of the first hour, we deserve it.
