Grey’s Anatomy Diminishing Feminist Impact: A Discussion of How the Death of Derek Shepherd will Undermine Meredith’s Recent Character Growth

Despite a leak that revealed that Patrick Dempsey (Dr. Derek Shepherd) was leaving Grey’s Anatomy before his recently renewed two-year contract expired, millions of viewers were shocked yesterday as the iconic “McDreamy” was killed off in an episode the network advertised as “the most shocking yet.”  Of course, I’ve been studying television too long to have been shocked in the least.

Unlike the sudden departure of Josh Charles (Will Gardner) on The Good Wife last year, Grey’s Anatomy laid out all the tell-tale signs that a major cast member was about to depart its program.  When Will was written off of CBS’s hit show last year in similar circumstances (with over a year left on his contract as well), it was an extremely sudden plot move that almost no viewer could have predicted.  ABC’s medical drama, on the other hand, reunited its central couple – Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) and Derek Shepherd (Mer-Der) – in a set of rushed episodes spending a noticeable amount of screen time on their over-the-top happiness.  (Meredith, known for being “dark and twisty” rather than sappy and sentimental even waxed on about how “blessed” she felt).  These episodes featured a heavy dose of flashbacks chronicling the characters’ relationship from the start of the show (the classic sign of a forthcoming death).  And since complete happiness does not make for an interesting plot, the revelation that the long term couple was even contemplating expanding their family further suggested that a tragic event was soon to be coming their way.  This is melodrama after all.

Shonda Rhimes returned to her writing post on this program to craft this episode – her first since the season eight finale where other major cast members were written off the show – and in terms of a fitting exit for a character and actor who helped make the show, it is probably a success.  While parts of this episode were quite contrived (of course Derek would die a tragic death after single-handedly rescuing four people from a horrible car crash), they were in line with what viewers arguably want for an exiting central cast member.  (Who could ever forget Charlie’s heroic underwater death on Lost?)  The episode carefully used a few moments of misdirection to allow viewers who were slowly realizing as the episode stretched on that they were likely watching their last Grey’s episode featuring Derek to hope that maybe this was just a tease.  After years of ferry boat accidents, hospital shootings, bomb threats, and plan crashes, viewers have been trained to expect a happy resolution after a traumatic tease.  Not this time.    But these moments of misdirection were relatively successful.  Even I felt their pull.  When the little girl Derek saved from the car crash just happens to find him in the ER, urges him to stay alive in a poignant scene (quoting him through tears, saying it was “a great day to save lives”), and reveals to the doctors his first name and the fact that he was a surgeon, my inner fan thought:  “yes, now they’ll contact his hospital where competent doctors will fly to the scene to save his life.”  And then even after the episode had made it pretty clear that Derek’s chances of surviving his injury were non-existent, the show provided viewers with a 30-second fake out as Meredith imagined reuniting with Derek in a hospital as the police officers tried to inform her of the real circumstances she was about to face.

What made the episode touching was not these semi-manipulative moves, but the horrible irony of Derek’s passing:  a world-renown brain surgeon dies because he lands at a hospital unprepared to deal with traumatic injuries.  He dies because doctors make the wrong call and fail to order a CT scan that would have saved his life.  All of this is revealed to viewers through the show’s classic voiceover that usually only frames the start and end of episodes.  Throughout the last half of the episode viewers hear Derek’s internal thoughts – since he is conscious but not able to speak – as he recounts his injuries, comments on the medical staff’s decisions, and ultimately predicts his impending death.  There was something incredibly sad about the idea that someone would be fully aware of how to save themselves, but could be unable to do so. 

The scenes that follow are equally as sad as Meredith, with her two children in tow, has to make the decision to take Derek off of life support.  While this part of the episode was sullied for me by the interruption wherein Meredith has to give a stern pep talk to the doctor who didn’t fight hard enough to save Derek’s life – telling her to be better, that her husband was “her one,” the patient that would haunt her and ensure that she did better in the future – the final scene where she has to stand by not as a doctor, but as a wife, and watch as Derek slips away, was very moving.   During this scene The Fray’s “How to Save a Life,” played and viewers with any long-term affiliation with the show surely remembered that this song was used as the promotional lead in to the 2006 season of Grey’s Anatomy which featured a prominent Meredith-Derek cliffhanger resolution.    As the song played, scenes of Derek being taken off the life support were juxtaposed with more flashbacks of their life together.  For a moment, especially when Meredith told Derek it was okay to let go, I did momentarily think that this episode could bring tears to my eyes.  But they didn’t come.  (Perhaps I’m saving them until next week when the rest of the staff at Grey-Sloan Memorial Hospital learns of Derek’s sudden passing?)

So, why write about this character send off?  It’s just another big star, hyped up exit episode, right?  Well, yes… and no.  My problems with this episode have nothing to do with the episode itself but rather how this choice to write Derek off the show in such a tragic way is going to affect the recent characterization of Meredith.

Last year I praised Grey’s for its final episode featuring Cristina Yang (Sandra Oh).  Like many critics, I read this episode as solidifying the idea that the true love story of the show had been the friendship between the two female best friends – Cristina and Meredith – who had been each other’s “person” throughout ten seasons, many plot twists, and plenty of men who existed as their backdrop.  (In a recap of yesterday’s episode one writer referred to Derek as Meredith’s “true person” and I rolled my eyes.)  Cristina’s closing advice to Meredith was to not stand in Derek’s shadow and give up her life and career to follow in his ambition.  This scene set up for a terrific 11^th season where I expected the show to tackle this important issue:  how women often have to put their own career aspirations aside in order to support their husbands’ (especially when in the same field).  Consequently, I was disappointed when this season started and – at first – it didn’t reveal a realistic plot wherein the couple separated, divorced, or struggled to maintain a long distance relationship.  The season started, instead, with Derek choosing his family over his prestigious appointment by the White House and resenting Meredith for it.  But then the narrative shifted again and Derek did, indeed, take the job and the couple attempted to have a long distance relationship.  After four months of fuming, I was happy.  Here was the realism I wanted.

I liked what this plot move did for Meredith.  It showed her increasing bond with Alex and her efforts to begin building a relationship with her half-sister.  It showed her loneliness and insecurity and fear of losing her marriage, while also showing her ability to exist and thrive without him in Seattle at her side.  In fact, during his four month absence, she went on an unprecedented “streak” that gained her the attention of all the residents as she approached the 90-patient mark without a single death.  When Derek returned and it looked like things were going to return back to normal for the central couple, I wasn’t necessarily devastated – as these are the ebbs and flow of serial television – and I was at least comforted with one exchange they had during their reunion.  Derek told Meredith that he couldn’t live without her, buy in return she said the following: “I can live without you; I just don’t want to.”  For me that was a moment of dialog that seemed to align perfectly with the third-wave feminist movement and the notion of feminism as the independent, personalized choices that strong women make that fit their own particular life circumstances. 

So that’s where we were.  And then Derek died.  Now I’m left asking what’s next.  It will be impossible for the show to portray Meredith as anything less than a grieving wife for quite some time and that will undoubtedly unravel any feminist-tinged characterization I saw in the works this season.  It doesn’t preclude some terrific moments to come for the character as she struggles to be a single mother and a doctor now completely free of the shadow of her hot shot husband.  And it opens up the possibility that (eventually) the show will write in a prospective love interest giving Meredith her first new romantic relationship in almost nearly a decade, which will be good for the show as a melodrama.    The show doesn’t have to die with Derek, but I do worry about the feminist utility that it used to have.

Recently I’ve been struggling with what I want from network primetime dramas.  As a media critic I am well aware that we often have to watch our favorite television shows and films as if we suffered from dissociative identity disorder.  Like many, I have learned to toggle between consuming popular culture with the critical eye of an academic to turning off my scholarly switch so that I can simply be awash in it.  I realize, as problematic as it is, that I simultaneously want a television show to dazzle me with over-the-top narrative feats and stylistics and deliver me the realistic social commentary I feel we need.  It’s impossible to do all of this all of the time. 

At a conference last month I spoke about how I struggled with the ways in which melodramatic narratives seem to systematically undermine feminist characters and plots.  At the end of my talk I humorously noted that perhaps I wasn’t really calling for perfect feminist characters (as if such a thing existed) because that probably would result in very boring television.  So as I write this essay, I am again pondering what my exact call to action might be.  Do I really wish that Grey’s would have just written Derek off in a low-key divorce storyline that wouldn’t have made for good TV?  Maybe not.   And if not, what does that mean I do want?  If I’m not calling for shows to attempt to broadcast unwavering feminist messages, then can I be satisfied when they present flawed (sometimes-) feminist characters and the occasional (mostly-) feminist storyline?  Is it perhaps better to subtly embed social commentary that aligns with the women’s movement into mainstream texts so that it is more easily palatable?  Or does it get diluted by the surrounding narrative content when we do this?  

We watch contemporary television programs today across a variety of screens and these programs are literally “screening” feminism in every sense of the verb.  Some shows conceal the work that still needs to be done in terms of feminism – projecting utopic depictions of worlds where women have gained as much prestigious and success as men, worlds where sexual double standards and pay gaps are rarely addressed.  Through sexualized storylines the feminist qualities of star characters are often hidden, eclipsed, and veiled due to the often heteronormative, patriarchal romance prerequisite plots of primetime melodrama.  But, aligned with the other definition of “to screen,” contemporary television programs also broadcast feminism load and clear, airing plots that explore women’s issues, showing characters who (although not always consistently) embody what it means to be a feminist in the 21^st century.  Perhaps I can want nothing more of television than for it to do at least both types of this screening.  Or, maybe, all I really want is for viewers to know that this dueling screening of feminism is happening as they watch their favorite shows on their television sets, laptops, and smartphones so that they can be aware of how they might be affected by the conflicting messages we receive.