‘Grey’s Anatomy’ offers up a surprise in season premiere
Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) is daydreaming again. Or is she?
“Grey’s Anatomy” fans, take a seat. And maybe put on some “Chasing Cars.”
Patrick Dempsey, who played Dr. Derek “McDreamy” Shepherd on ABC’s medical mainstay “Grey’s Anatomy“for more than 10 seasons, appeared at the end of the Season 17 premiere Thursday night.
Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo), his widow, envisioned herself on an empty beach at the top of the two-hour premiere. It seemed like she was daydreaming herself away from the state of Grey-Sloan Memorial. The show’s hospital turned into a COVID-19 center, as the show intends to cover the pandemic throughout the season.
But it was not a daydream after all. At the close of the premiere Meredith collapses in the parking lot. It’s unclear why, exactly, but all signs point to her
having COVID-19.
She returns to the beach daydream – which may not be a daydream after all – only to hear Derek calling her name. Then she sees him.
We thought it might be some kind of found footage situation or a hologram, but no, Dempsey is reprising his role.
Pompeo said in 2018 that she and Dempsey hadn’t spoken since his exit from the show in 2015.
But: “I have no hard feelings toward him. He’s a wonderful actor, and we made the best TV you can make together,” Pompeo said on Red Table Talk in December 2018.
Pompeo has been candid about the toxic culture on set in the early years of the show. “The first 10 years we had serious culture issues, very bad behavior, really toxic work environment,” Pompeo said in June 2019.
Pompeo and Dempsey, along with showrunner Krista Vernoff, told Deadline about how the reunion came to be. The former onscreen lovebirds – who apparently began talking again, after Dempsey reached out asking what the pair could do to help frontline responders – went for a hike in Malibu, California, where they both have homes. “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?” Pompeo told Deadline.
The moment shocked fans, of course, because the character died in Season 11.
“oh so we’re doing GHOSTS again ?!?!?!” @4evrmalone asked on Twitter. An Instagram post featuring Pompeo and Dempsey is full of love.
Instagram user @chanelcabak wrote: “BEST ENDING OF AN EPISODE EVER.”
Meredith has survived a plane crash, a bomb going off, drowning, an assault from a patient – the list goes on. If anyone could survive COVID-19, she could.
The premiere focused on catching us up on the doctors’ pre-COVID-19 lives. Reflections of real life included a dwindling supply of PPE and constantly having to inform patients’ loved ones that someone died of COVID-19.
“We’re not responsible for politicizing COVID,” Pompeo said on a panel this year. “That’s not on us.”
Executive producer Krista Vernoff agreed: “Our job is to make it human, not political.”