That Sloan Grey Hospital is a vicious place. Or rather, make that Shondaland, where no almost no original male characters still live.
McDreamy got pulverized by a truck that him sideways. McSteamy died in a plane crash. Remember George? He jumped in front of a bus. Isaiah Washington’s Dr. Burke just left, no explanation, even though it was because he was a terrible person in real life.
Now Justin Chambers’ Alex Karev got a ridiculous ending after 15 years. Karev disappeared from the show in November, presumably because Chambers’ contract ran out and he wouldn’t take a pay cut. So the writers had to come up with a reason Alex left his friends and his wife, Jo.
In last night’s episode, Chambers did some narration but did not appear on screen. That alone must have been some negotiation. In the story cooked up by Shonda Rhimes’s writers’ room, Alex has gone to Kansas to be with the twin 5 year old sons no one knew about. And he had them with Izzie, once played by Katherine Heigl, who was written off the show 10 years ago because she was too popular and too demanding. Heigl was also not seen on last night’s show.
So that leaves just three of the original characters from the spring of 2005 when I watched “Grey’s Anatomy” in my hotel room in Santa Maria, California on Sunday nights before Michael Jackson’s trial resumed. Ellen Pompeo had to stay, she plays Meredith Grey in the title. The other two who remained were Dr. Richard, the head of the hospital, and Bailey, the practical know it all, played by James Pickens, Jr. and Chandra Wilson, respectively. These two must open every script wondering if they’re going to survive the season.
In the final episode, Pompeo will stand before the burning rubble of the fictional hospital, accounting for most of the salary allotment in the budget, waiting for her spin off– “Grey’s Assisted Living” — to begin.
And yes, say it now if you get it, “It’s a Shonda.”
