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This television-related article describes an aspect of the series in a primarily in-universe style. Please help rewrite it to explain the fiction more clearly and provide non-fictional perspective. (October 2009) |
| Meredith Grey | |
|---|---|
| Grey's Anatomy character | |
 Ellen Pompeo as Dr. Meredith Grey |
|
| First appearance | "A Hard Day's Night" 1x01, March 27, 2005 |
| Created by | Shonda Rhimes |
| Portrayed by | Ellen Pompeo |
| Information | |
| Nickname(s) | Death |
| Aliases | Mer |
| Specialty | General Surgery |
| Occupation | Surgical Resident at Seattle Grace Mercer West Hospital |
| Title | M.D. |
| Spouse(s) | Derek Shepherd |
| Relationships | |
| Romances | Finn Dandridge (ex-boyfriend) George O'Malley (one-night stand) |
| Parents | Thatcher Grey (father) Ellis Grey (mother; deceased) Susan Grey (step-mother; deceased) |
| Siblings | Lexie Grey (paternal half-sister) Molly Grey Thompson (paternal half-sister) |
| Relatives | Laura Grey Thompson (half-niece) Eric Thompson (brother-in-law) |
Meredith Grey is a fictional surgeon and the series protagonist on the ABC television series Grey's Anatomy.[1] The character is portrayed by actress Ellen Pompeo, and was created by Shonda Rhimes. Ellen Pompeo was nominated for Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series - Drama at the 64th Golden Globe Awards. Grey is married to longtime boyfriend Derek Shepherd.
Contents |
Background
Meredith Grey is the only child born to Ellis Grey and Thatcher Grey. She spent the early part of her childhood in Seattle, Washington, where her mother was completing her surgical residency at Seattle Grace Hospital. Her parents' marriage was troubled, and her mother was involved in a years-long affair with her colleague, Dr. Richard Webber. Eventually, their marital problems proved too great and Thatcher left when Meredith was five years old. Soon after, Ellis accepted a fellowship opportunity at Boston General, and relocated to Massachusetts with Meredith and Thatcher lost all contact with his daughter.
Her college years were spent at Dartmouth College, where she graduated in spite of excessive partying and drinking. In the few years following her graduation, she had difficulty holding a job since she continued to party. Ellis wanted Meredith to find direction in her life, suggesting medical school even though she had told Meredith that she didn't have what it took to be a good surgeon. After an argument over Meredith's lack of ambition, Meredith spent two months traveling in Europe with close friend Sadie Harris, returning home when Ellis was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's Disease. The diagnosis provided the impetus behind Meredith's decision to go to medical school. After completing medical school, Meredith secured a position in the surgical residency program at Seattle Grace and relocated from Boston to live in the Queen Anne Hill home that had belonged to her mother and grandmother. Ellis had been moved into a nursing home, and Meredith was soon to become completely responsible for all of Ellis's affairs.[2]
Storylines
Season One
Meredith secures a position in the surgical residency program at Seattle Grace and relocates from Boston to live in the house that had belonged to her mother and grandmother. The night before her internship starts, she meets her husband-to-be Derek Shepherd in a bar and they have a one-night stand. However, the next morning Meredith discovers that he is an attending neurosurgeon at Seattle Grace.[3] Meredith initially refused Derek’s advances and wanted to keep their relationship professional. Eventually, she gave in and agreed to date him and they start a relationship. Their relationship was complicated from the beginning when Meredith’s supervising resident, Miranda Bailey, caught Derek and Meredith making out in his car. Bailey acts like she doesn't care about it, but she secretly gives Derek a lecture about dating an intern. After Meredith confronts her, Bailey demands her to end the relationship because it affects everyone.[4] After Bailey accepts the relationship, the Chief finds out. He tells Meredith that he knows and he tells her that she is making a very big mistake, and if her Mother were there she would've told her the same. On this Meredith replies that if her Mother told her that, she would've told her that she is wrong (not knowing that Richard is talking about Derek's wife).[5]
On her very first day she is recognized as Ellis Grey's daughter only by Dr. Richard Webber, who says to her that she very much resembles her Mother. Meredith hides from everyone that her Mother suffers from Alzheimer's disease. She convinces everyone that her Mother currently is traveling around the world, writing a medical book.[3] She befriends George O'Malley, Izzie Stevens, Cristina Yang and Alex Karev. Izzie and George move in with her soon after they meet, despite Meredith originally not wanting them to, she eventually agrees.[6] However, Cristina becomes her best friend, in the beginning she disliked Alex, he called her 'Nurse' and other nicknames, but they soon become friends, developing a brother-sister relationship. This is demonstrated on Thanksgiving, when the two confide in each other as to why they are avoiding the house and Izzie's Thanksgiving feast. George had a crush on Meredith from when he first met her, noticed by everyone else except her.
At the end of the first season she and Derek decide to make their relationship more serious but this is interrupted by the arrival of Derek’s wife, Addison Montgomery, someone Meredith didn't even know existed.-[5]
Season Two
Derek struggles to choose between Meredith and his estranged wife, but ultimately leaves Meredith to return to Addison with the simple reasoning that 'she's my wife.' Meredith is devastated and is led to search out her father, though their reunion fails to give Meredith any closure regarding her childhood. Meredith has a series of one-night stands with various men, trying to replace Derek. She has sex with George, only to cry in the middle of the encounter which temporarily leads George moving out and an end to their friendship.Meredith and Derek begin a platonic friendship, and Meredith begins a relationship with her dog's veterinarian, Finn Dandridge. Derek's jealousy manifests itself as anger, and after a fight in which Derek criticizes Meredith’s promiscuity and calls her a whore, their friendship appears to be over.
Meredith learns she has a half-sister, when Molly Thompson is admitted to the hospital. She discovers her father remarried after his divorce to Ellis and had two more daughters. Unaware of Meredith's true identity, Molly reveals that Thatcher had been a devoted and loving father, and was incredibly proud of Molly and her sister Lexie, a medical student at Harvard. Derek and Meredith end up having sex at the faux Prom after a heated argument, despite the fact that Meredith came with Finn, and Derek came with Addison, and he realises that he must leave his wife. After being discovered by Callie Torres who prompts Meredith to find Izzie, who has just found out about Denny's death, Meredith and other interns attempt to comfort her. Following this, Meredith is faced physically by both Finn and Derek, leaving her with the choice between them.
Season Three
Once Derek divorces Addison, Meredith is forced to choose between Derek and Finn. She decides to date both of them, but after Derek says that he loves her enough to leave her (and suggests that Finn is the better man), she chooses him and ends her relationship with Finn. Meredith's half-sister Molly is readmitted to the hospital for a c-section. With Thatcher at the hospital, Meredith is forced to face her Father. While tensions remain between the two, their relationship softens a little when Meredith realizes she has inherited her problem with snoring from him.
Ellis experiences a completely lucid day, and expresses great disappointment at how 'ordinary' Meredith turned out to be. Ellis declines to undergo heart surgery to correct her arrhythmias, but her wishes are in conflict with Meredith's power of attorney. She stays with Richard and they talk of what would have happened if they had pursued a relationship. Before Meredith can attempt reconciliation, her mother’s lucidity fades once more while she cries into Richard's hands.
Following a disastrous accident involving a ferryboat, Meredith is knocked into the water at the scene by a patient, and rescued by Derek. Despite continuous CPR, she is unresponsive upon arriving at the hospital. She has a near-death experience, in which she encounters former patients such as Denny, her dog Doc, and her Mother, who died while doctors were working on Meredith. Meredith is eventually resuscitated and following this experience, she resolves to be more positive, allowing Alex to move into George's vacated room in her house, telling Izzie 'people are what matters.' Derek begins to question the fact that Meredith almost drowned, stating on numerous occasions that she is a strong swimmer. Thatcher and Susan reach out to Meredith after Ellis' death and cremation. However, shortly after Ellis' death, Meredith loses her stepmother as well when Susan dies following a rare complication of a usually routine procedure. In his grief, Thatcher slaps Meredith and forbids her to attend the funeral, blaming Susan's death on her trust in Meredith. Derek tries to reach out to Meredith during this time, but she avoids him.
Meredith goes on to freeze up during a critical exam that will determine her future in the internship program. The other interns plead her case to the Chief, who arranges for Meredith to make up the test privately. The events of her intern year come to a head as Meredith helps Cristina prepare for her wedding to Preston Burke. Derek confronts her over her level of commitment to their relationship saying that she is constantly 'leaving him,' and after Cristina's wedding falls apart, she announces to the guests that 'It's over... so over,' and it is left unknown whether she is referring solely to the wedding or also to her relationship with Derek. She leaves on Cristina's honeymoon with her, leaving her relationship with Derek unclear.
Season Four
After accompanying Cristina on her would-be honeymoon, Meredith returns to Seattle Grace and learns that her half-sister, Lexie Grey, is one of the new interns. She initially refuses Lexie’s attempts to get to know her, telling her that she is not interested because their Father chose Lexie over her. However, Meredith slowly softens towards her, going through the case notes from Susan’s death with her, and allowing her to stay at her home overnight to recoup, after Lexie lost a patient she had become close to.
Derek begins to push Meredith to make a greater commitment to their relationship than she feels able to, and the pair break up once more. However, the two have sex in an on-call room in the hospital, and they continue to have 'break-up sex' for several weeks, without actually committing to being in a relationship. Eventually Meredith decides that she wants to commit to Derek, but finds out that Derek kissed his scrub nurse, Rose and so ends their relationship once more. Derek begins dating Rose, while Meredith begins seeing a therapist, Dr Wyatt. She initiates a neurosurgical clinical trial on patients with malignant gliomas, enlisting Derek as a consulting neurosurgeon. Meredith admits to her therapist that her Mother attempted suicide in front of Meredith as a child, and is finally able to realize that Ellis did not truly want to die, but committed the act as a cry for help and attention. Meredith and Derek grow discouraged as their clinical trial fails again and again. Meredith learns that unless they save a patient by the end of the day, the Medical Board will shut down their trial. However, the final clinical trial patient survives and Meredith goes to Derek's land and outlines their would-be house in candles, mentioning their future children. Derek finds her there and kisses her passionately, but leaves in order to end his relationship with Rose, telling Meredith to wait for him there.
Season Five
After Derek breaks up with Rose, Rose becomes angry because Derek told her that he was over Meredith. She goes as far as to tell him that she was pregnant with his child and stabs his hand with a scalpel in the OR. She realizes that because of Derek she is no longer the nurse that every doctor wants in their OR anymore and leaves for a new position, which leaves Meredith and Derek free to go about their relationship. Meredith confides in Cristina her worries about Derek moving into her house, and Cristina becomes gradually more irritated with Meredith's incessant talk, eventually telling her to 'shut up' and saying that her relationship with Derek will never work. Meredith later asks Cristina if she really believes that her relationship with Derek is doomed and Cristina replies, 'I'm your person, I'm on your side.'
Meredith and Derek finally move in together and Derek attempts to force her roommates, Alex Karev and Izzie Stevens, to move out. Meredith stands up for her friends, explaining that they are all her family and that she needs them here. Derek agrees to let them stay. While looking for places to store his things, Derek discovers all of Ellis Grey's old diaries which Meredith begins to read in order to get to know her Mother better. She and Cristina bond over the medical nature of the diaries and learn a few tips from her Mother's residency.
An old friend of Meredith's, Sadie Harris, shows up in Seattle and begins to cause trouble. Derek questions Meredith's penchant for bringing in 'strays', something he reconciles with when she invites Lexie Grey to stay at their house. Cristina disapproves of Meredith's relationship with Sadie, feeling threatened by the 'Die and Death' experience Sadie keeps on bringing up. They ultimately get into a fight because Meredith, according to Cristina, did not stand up for her when the Chief was berating her about knowing about the underground learning club the interns started. Sadie eventually quits the hospital.
Meredith and Cristina don't talk to each other for almost a week after their fight. Even when Derek's Mother, Carolyn Shepherd comes to visit Cristina doesn't try to help her. Finally when a death row patient comes in they get into an even bigger argument. The patient told Meredith he wanted to die in the hospital, so she told him not to hit his head because Dr. Shepherd had removed a piece of his skull exposing his brain and it would cause his brain to swell and he would die if they didn't get him into surgery. However, after suffering in his room all day due to the pain caused by purposely hitting his head, he changed his mind at the last minute and begged Cristina and Meredith to save his life. Cristina assumes that Meredith tried to kill him so they get to the point where they can't even look at each other. Meredith decides to attend his execution. When she left the execution Derek was outside waiting for her and she said it was horrible and starts sobbing. He drove to Cristina's apartment and told her he couldn't fix her, only she could, so Cristina went outside and she and Meredith talked in Derek's car, where they mended their friendship.
The 5th season, for the most part, focused very little on the Meredith-Derek relationship - at least in comparison to seasons past. Many believe this was done to give the 'healthy, normal' appearance to the couple. Only in later episodes did their relationship come to the forefront of the storyline once more, in the form of Derek's planned proposal.
When Derek's Mother visits the hospital, Meredith tried very hard to impress her - believing Carolyn would want her son's new girlfriend to be perky, happy, and sweetly optimistic. With no Cristina to help her - as they are still fighting at this point - Meredith turns to Izzie for 'image advice', resulting in a high ponytail and a grimace-like smile. By the end of the day, however, Meredith's experience with the death row patient and her feelings of compassion towards him despite his past and flaws bring her to realize that she cannot keep up the pretence. She therefore tells Derek's mother apologetically that she is not a very optimistic person, that she's dark and twisted, and a messed-up woman who feels bad for serial killers. Derek's mother, though a little shaken, replies that it was very nice to meet her. When Derek finds her later, his mother tells him that she's gotten to know Meredith, and that she is a perfect compliment for him - the exact sort of woman he needs. She takes off her own engagement ring, that Derek's father (who had been murdered while Derek was a child, thus causing his less-than-tolerant attitude towards the death row patient) had given her, and tells him to give it to Meredith.
Derek spends much of the next few days trying to get a good strategy for proposing to Meredith together. He can't decide how or when to do it. Everyone in the hospital, except Meredith, soon learns that he will be proposing to Meredith and sees the ring. Derek's patient, a pregnant woman, suggests that romantic proposals can be so even in the most simplistic ways - telling the story of how her husband proposed in a supermarket aisle, and showing him that the place, though seemingly unromantic, was beautiful for them, because they had met there. This serves as probable foreshadowing for Meredith and Derek's likely place of proposal, though it has not yet been revealed, as the elevator - as most Grey's fans know, the elevator has served throughout the past five seasons and the location of numerous steamy Meredith/Derek scenes.
Derek was close to proposing to Meredith on one notable occasion. Following asking for advice from everyone, he did something he considered extremely "un-Meredith," yet classically romantic: he covered their bedroom with vases of red roses and candles, even creating a heart of rose pedals on the bed. While he waits for Meredith to return, however, he receives a phone call from Addison, his ex-wife: her brother has parasites in his brain, and she needs his help to save him. She's en route with Archer to Seattle from L.A. Not wanting to have this crisis ruin the moment, and needing to get back to Seattle Grace to meet the chopper, Derek quickly undoes the romantic scene and heads back to the hospital. When Meredith returned home later that evening, the room is bare once more. However, as she pulls down her sheets, she finds a single red rose petal under Derek's pillow, confusing her.
While Addison is at the hospital, though not threatened by her presence, Meredith becomes acutely aware of the life Derek had had before Seattle - the person he was when he lived in New York with his ex-wife and his friends. She realizes that she doesn't know him as well as she thought, and the realization makes her upset. She seems to be quite insulted when Addison's friend, Naomi Bennett, starts singing a love song Derek wrote and sang for Addison at their wedding. She confides these feelings to Cristina - but Cristina (who has been feeling similarly about Owen) is unsympathetic and says bluntly that they don't know them at all. Derek, however, tells his friend that he's simply not that person anymore, and he doesn't want to be again. Derek saves Addison's brother, but a slight mistake he makes during the surgery on the pregnant woman leads to a series of rare and dangerous complications. Meredith tries to talk him down, telling him Jen is gone and that the baby has a chance to survive. Derek will not relent, and Addison orders Alex to get the Chief. The Chief forces Derek to stop, and the woman dies in surgery, though Addison is able to save her premature baby - delivering him from his mother's body. When Derek, very shaken and horribly guilty, leaves the O.R. to tell Jen's husband that she is gone, the grieving man shouts at him, calling him a murderer and screaming for his wife.
Facing a lawsuit for malpractice, Derek meets with a lawyer who points out to him that he has lost more patients than he has saved - a lot more. Meredith finds Derek, refusing to scrub into any surgeries, contemplating the two piles of files in his office. She tries to reason with him, telling him that most of the people whose cases he takes on have fatal conditions from the start, and that he is one of the best in the world at what he does. Derek cannot be reasoned with, and he refuses to come back to work. He walks out of the hospital and returns to his trailer in the woods, where he takes to drinking and brooding over his lost patients. Meredith doesn't know what to do. She feels he wants to be left alone, but finally goes out to see him after the Chief convinces her it's what he needs, telling her that Derek intends on proposing - and that he has had the ring with him in the hospital. Meredith is startled, but not frightened of marriage and heads out to reason with him.
When she arrives at the trailer, she confronts him about what he is doing. He snaps at her that she never wanted him there in the first place, that she has lied to him - saying she was 'whole and healed', when really she was just as damaged and emotionally unsteady as ever. She responds that that's not true and he knows it, that he's drunk, and that she knows about the ring. Infuriated that the Chief has spilled the beans, Derek pulls out the ring and hits it away into the woods with the baseball bat he had been using to hit beer cans. Meredith is disgusted and hurt, and leaves him, as he orders her to do, with his grief in the woods.
A week later Meredith laments the encounter, saying she doesn't know if they are together or not - not that she doesn't want to be, but that she's not sure if he was trying to break up with her. She tells the Chief she will not return to the woods again. The Chief tells Derek that he should call Meredith, which he does.
Meredith, meanwhile, has learned that Izzie has Stage 4 skin cancer that has spread to her liver and brain. Meredith drives out to see Derek, but when he tells her he loves her, she says she knows, but tells him that she could not keep loving him if he quits being a surgeon, because he is one very few doctors who could save Izzie and she is not sure she could respect someone who walked away from a gift like that. She gives him Izzie's scans and a small, sad smile, then gets back in her car and drives away - giving him the choice to return to her and his career. At last, he picks up the scans and examines them by the light from the trailer.
Meredith gets a call from Callie at 3am informing her that Owen Hunt has strangled Cristina. Cristina insists she's fine, even though her neck is severely bruised. Derek shows up at Meredith's the next morning and wordlessly presents her with the ring. She rejects him by saying 'No, not like this. Today's about Izzie. You have a gift and you can do this.' And she hands him back the ring.
Richard makes Meredith wait for the elevator and when the doors open, she sees why: a clean-shaven Derek is inside and the elevator is decorated with scans of all the surgeries they did together. He recounts the stages of their relationships as they played out during each case. Lastly, he shows her the post-op scan of Izzie's brain. 'You got me into the OR,' he tells her. 'You put the rest of us to work because you've seen worse. You know we'll survive. You say you're dark and twisty, but that's not a weakness, it's a strength. It makes you who you are. I love you Meredith Grey, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you.' 'And I want to spend the rest of my life with you,' she replies, and they kiss. Meredith goes to Cristina's apartment and tell her that shes engaged and Cristina replies "I broke up with Owen." Meredith crawls into bed beside her.[7] Meredith enlists Izzie's help to plan the wedding in order to keep her mind off of her cancer. On the day that Meredith and Derek are supposed to get married, Derek discovers a second tumor in Izzie's brain. The couple decides to give the ceremony to Izzie and Alex due to her deteriorating condition. In the season finale, Meredith and Derek get married by writing their wedding vows on a post-it note. The two brainstorm about their vows. They came up with the following: 1. To love each other even when we hate each other, 2. To never walk away, 3. To take care of the other when they are old, senile, and smelly - 'this is forever.'
The two sign the post-it, and Meredith declares this is their wedding, unusual as it is. In this same episode, Meredith is occupied with saving a John Doe who has been grievously injured after being hit by a bus. As he is about to be sent into surgery, Meredith realizes that John Doe is George, and he is rushed to the OR, but his heart rhythm stops before the surgery starts.
Season Six
The season opens up where the last one left off, with both Izzie and George flatlining. Izzie eventually wakes up again, but George becomes braindead, and people struggle with the subject of what to do with his still healthy organs. When Mark and Lexie hear that George is the disfigured John Doe, they run to the OR where he is, and Lexie thinks that it's not George, due to his height. Everyone asks Meredith why she thinks it's George, and she tells them about how he wrote "007" in her hand, and squeezed her hand. Bailey then walks up and writes something in her hand and asks her to identify, but she can't, so they think that Meredith has made a huge mistake. Although Callie concludes that it is in fact George due to a freckle shaped like Texas on his right hand. During the rest of the season premiere, all the residents deal with George's passing differently, one of them being how all of the residents, (Meredith, Izzie, Alex, and Cristina), all burst out laughing at the ridiculous thought of their friend actually being dead. Meredith also covers up her grief by going on a rampage with Derek, having sex all over their house constantly. Later, after about 40 days of not seeing George, Meredith finally breaks down in tears after a janitor cleans out George's locker, saying "they need the space". Derek then comforts her as she cries in his arms.
Later in the season, during a merger that is beginning between Seattle Grace and Mercy West Hospital, Meredith and Lexie's father, Thatcher, has liver failure and needs a donation. Lexie is not a match, but she looks up records and discovers that Meredith is, and Lexie begs her to donate part of her liver for Thatcher. Meredith reluctantly agrees to, but Thatcher refuses her help knowing that he doesn't deserve it after his years of not being there for her. Meredith convinces him otherwise by letting him know that she is doing this for Lexie, and not him. After the surgery, Meredith has to recover for weeks, and eventually gets sent home and has to stay there for a while. (In reality, is mostly likely written in to hide Ellen Pompeo's pregnancy, and it sets it up for a maternity leave.)
Upon her return, Meredith discovers that because of the recent merger with Mercy West, surgeries are at a premium so she logs time in the skills lab. During this time, the Chief also makes it a point of making himself her 'mentor', however this could be partly due to the fact that while at Joe's Meredith saw him have a drink after being twenty years sober and he is bartering her silence for one-on-one coaching. Eventually things come to a head when she is called to the bar by Joe to come and look after the Chief on New Year's Eve, who has become very sloppy drunk
References
- ^ Character-bios.
- ^ http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0021666/bio
- ^ a b Grey's Anatomy, 1.01 A Hard Day's Night
- ^ Grey's Anatomy, 1.05 Shake Your Groove Thing
- ^ a b Grey's Anatomy, 1.09 Who's Zoomin' Who?
- ^ Grey's Anatomy, 1.02 The First Cut Is the Deepest
- ^ http://abc.go.com/primetime/greysanatomy/index?pn=recap#t=131878&d=182217
External links
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