On any given social media post from an official Grey’s Anatomy channel, underneath the onslaught of uninspired “this show needs to end already” comments, you will also find several that indicate in one form or another that someone stopped watching after Derek Shepherd died. Well, dear reader, you’ve missed out on a great deal if you did in fact give up on Grey’s after Patrick Dempsey bid it adieu back in 2015.
Putting aside the obvious misogyny surrounding the glorious oversight that is the idea that there was no series left without Dempsey or McDreamy, both central character Meredith Grey and her portrayer, Ellen Pompeo, grew in profound ways in the post-Derek years of Grey’s Anatomy. Meredith would not have been the decorated and prestigious surgeon she became had Derek lived — but that’s not to say the series didn’t toy with us by introducing several prospective new love interests for Dr. Grey as the seasons went on.
There was the first man she was with after Derek died, Dr. Will Thorpe (Scott Elrod), who was a perfect gentleman, but that didn’t stop Meredith from throwing him out of her bedroom in a panic about waking up next to someone else for the first time. There was also Nathan Riggs (Martin Henderson) and Andrew DeLuca (Giacomo Gianniotti), both of which went fairly smoother, but neither proved to be a newfound endgame for Meredith. And that was partly the point: for a character whose professional and personal life was dominated by the grand romance that she and Derek shared for the better part of a decade, Meredith’s storytelling shifted largely into a woman learning to come into her own after a short life plagued with so much difficulty and loss.
Meredith Grey Didn't Need a Man to Help Her Live or Achieve
This is not to say that Meredith didn’t deserve another crack at love—it just didn’t need to be the central element of her storyline anymore. And it wasn’t: Meredith managed to maintain her own personhood in her initial post-Derek relationships in a way that wasn’t necessarily present in the first eleven seasons of Grey’s Anatomy. But when Scott Speedman made his first appearance as transplant surgeon (and patient, as it turned out) Nick Marsh in Season 14, fans immediately took notice of the actors’ romantic chemistry. (Indeed, a simple Google search for Nick Marsh brings up hundreds of GIFs from that first episode in 2018.)
The first difference between Nick and previous love interests introduced for Meredith was that we saw him once four years ago and didn’t know if he would ever appear again—absence makes the heart grow fonder, and all that jazz. It would in fact be four more seasons before Speedman would reappear suddenly in Season 18, and not only was the ensuing relationship in the calm and grownup manner that Meredith required in her current stage of life, but it just felt… easy, in a way that her previous relationships weren’t.
If you’ve made it this far into Grey’s Anatomy’s run, you’ve likely grown up with Meredith. You might not necessarily have experienced everything that she has (God willing), but you’ve likely experienced different kinds of loss and difficulty in your own life that has bonded you to her—a bond that the people who make insensitive comments on social media about how Grey’s refuses to end probably haven’t made. To watch her go through yet another turbulent romance was not what Meredith nor her fans needed to see.
Nick and Meredith Complement Each Other
Of course, Nick and Meredith have had their fair share of interpersonal drama. It wouldn’t be Grey’s Anatomy without that. But in addition to the chemistry they share and his devotion to her, Nick’s overall presence on the series fills a void that has been pretty much empty since Patrick Dempsey’s departure. Whether it’s his insistence on thanking deceased transplant subjects for their contributions and helping the families through that grief, or his reminders to Meredith and beyond that we are in charge of rewriting our stories, Speedman and Nick conjure a vibe that is reminiscent of the Thursday nights of days past when a certain primetime hunk liked to declare, “It’s a great day to save lives.”
In light of Pompeo’s news that Season 19 would be her last, it would be easy to predict that Nick could in fact be the second great love of her life. But this is Grey’s Anatomy, not a Disney movie, so it's possible the writers already have something up their sleeve for Meredith’s impending departure next February. But one way or another, the post-Derek years of the series sought to prove that not only could Meredith Grey keep on living in spite of everything that had happened to her, but that she could dream and accomplish more than she might’ve ever thought she would. That’s who Dr. Grey is. She didn’t require a second great love to make that happen — but it’s always nice to have a companion cheering you on.
The second half of Grey’s Anatomy Season 19 will premiere February 23 on ABC.