Ellen Pompeo's final Greys Anatomy episode as Meredith

When the show returns in 2023, the Season 19B premiere will give us the exit of Ellen Pompeo as Meredith Grey. Get the details here.

PMC - TVLine, PMC - TVLine

Meredith Grey has left the building. And that's more than OK.

By building, I mean Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital, the fictional setting of ABC's stalwart medical drama "Grey's Anatomy." Ellen Pompeo has played the character since 2005, for 19 seasons and more than 400 episodes. She beganas an intern, became asurgical resident, then attending surgeon, and closed out her run on the series as chief of surgery.

Meredith in the understatement of the century has faced her fair share of trauma. She almost drowned. A patient beat her up. She put her hand in another patient's body that contained a bomb.She told a gunman to shoot her. She survived COVID.

Her goodbye was far less deadly and traumatic (andhonestly was a littleboring). But it was necessary for the show to continue and outlive her for potential seasons to come.

Meredith decided to move with herthree childrento Boston after her eldest,Zola (Aniela Gumbs), with late husband Derek (Patrick Dempsey), required aneducation fit for a genius.

That didn't mean it was sans drama;this is "Grey's," after all. After professing her love to surgeon Nick Marsh (Scott Speedman) in an earlier episode, he didn't reciprocate.

But when he grew frustrated that she was leaving, she told him: "I want you in my life if you want to be in my life. But if I have to choose, I'm going topick me, I pick my kids and I pick what's best for us. And I am not going to beg you to love me." (This was a cloying callback to Meredith's famous Season 2 speech to Derek, in which she begs him to "Pick me.Choose me. Love me.")

In romantic comedy fashion, Nick decides at thelast minute he wants to go to the airport, but calls her instead after realizing he won't make it in time. He says he loves her but she doesn't give him an answer (presumably because she'd have to say it in front of her kids).

This story likely isn't over yet; Meredith will continue to be the series' voiceover and is expected to make returnappearances, including the eventual series finale. Perhaps that's why the episode felt slightly flat; it wentwithout the fanfare of flashbacks usually associated with a long-running "Grey's" cast member's goodbye (a la Cristina Yang, played by Sandra Oh,or Alex Karev, played by Justin Chambers).

Meredith's final narration as a series regular included her quoting her last patient's posthumous book yes, her last patient diedand doubly servedas a life lesson. The gist: Life isn't about happy endings, but living.

'Grey's Anatomy': 5 times Grey Sloan Memorial broke your heart

Shonda Rhimes and the rest of the "Grey's Anatomy" writers do not care if they take away your favorite characters.

Staff video, USA TODAY

I used to think the show needed Meredith to survive. How could "Grey's Anatomy" live on without itsGrey?

But the last few seasons' storylines screamed stale. Sure, steamy sexual high jinksand groundbreaking surgeries continued, but all the pregnancies and marriages and career changes for the same group of charactersgrew boring. You could almost feel Pompeo crying out for the show to end or maybe that was just my projection.

But this season's first seven episodes proved the show could absolutely go on without her. And not simply go on, but thrive.

That's mostly thanks to new internsSimone Griffith (Alexis Floyd),Mika Yasuda (Midori Francis),Jules Millin (Adelaide Kane),Benson "Blue" Kwan (Harry Shum Jr.) andLucas Adams (Niko Terho), whoinjected new life into the series as the strongest (and largest) new group of interns the show has introduced. They are echoes of characters past one has a relative suffering from Alzheimer's, another is living in a trailer, several begin budding romances without all the baggage of many seasons past.

What many characters on the show have in common is where they lived. Interns, residents and attending surgeonsthroughout the years allcrashed at Meredith's house, so much sothat it became a joke. In one last piece of trauma for Meredith, the house caught fire after a lightning strike in the fall finale(no one was hurt).

But the tradition will live on. Three interns are all given keys to the fire-damaged house by the end of this episode.

"This place won't be the same without you," saidRichard (James Pickens Jr.), Meredith's mentor and surrogate father, during a surprise farewell party for her.

I think it will be the same, actually just maybe not the way anyone expected. Like the series theme song "Cosy in the Rocket" by Psapp says: "Nobody knows where they might end up."

Read the original post:
Meredith Grey leaving 'Grey's Anatomy' Season 19: Last episode recap - USA TODAY