Fear not, Gray’s Anatomy continues to be secure and in good situation after shedding a significant artery: its titular character, Dr. Meredith Gray.
Season 19 of the ShondaLand medical drama on ABC returned Thursday night time for a bittersweet but gracious send-off to Gray, who has been performed by Ellen Pompeo for practically 18 years.
In typical Gray’s Anatomy style, Pompeo’s remaining episode is a cocktail of drama, despair, love, heartbreak, and (finally) hope that ends in Gray and her children flying to Boston, the place they’ll now reside whereas she researches Alzheimer’s illness.
Notably — and fortunately — Gray wasn’t killed off, which leaves open the potential for a return, though dying has by no means stopped beloved characters from coming again to the present in dream sequences.
Nonetheless, Gray’s Anatomy with out Pompeo feels unimaginable, and several other forged members (in addition to followers) at the moment are tasked with embracing a brand new period on considered one of ABC’s longest-running and most reliable scripted exhibits.
“I’m probably not certain how the present goes to work out with out her, as a result of she’s been there because the very starting,” Mariana Maciel, a fan from Mexico, advised BuzzFeed Information forward of Thursday’s episode.
Happily, the present stays in good palms with Chandra Wilson (who performs Dr. Miranda Bailey) and James Pickens Jr. (Dr. Richard Webber) taking over the reins because the longest-running unique forged members.
“Her presence is not essentially gone. [Pompeo is] nonetheless very a lot part of the material of day by day Gray’s Anatomy life,” Wilson advised BuzzFeed Information. Nonetheless, she admitted, “It’s sort of bizarre. It is like we’re saying goodbye, however are we?”
To be clear, no, they — and followers — aren’t. Pompeo will proceed to carry out the voiceovers that play initially and finish of virtually each episode to supply that sense of normalcy, however she’ll now not act in each episode.
