ABC recently finished their two day conference at the Television Critics Association’s summer press tour with major celebs and executive producers including ‘Scandal’s Kerry Washington and ‘How to Get Away With Murder’s Viola Davis.
During the big conference, producers discussed the future of their TV shows and highlighted decisions they made during past seasons. One of the biggest revelations came from ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ creator Shonda Rhimes.
Shonda Rhimes revealed why she decided to kill off McDreamy from the show.
“The decision to have the character die the way that he did, was not a difficult one in the sense of what were the options? Either Derek was going to walk out on Meredith and leave her high and dry and what was that going to mean?” Rhimes said. “That was going to suggest that their love was not true — that the thing we said for 11 years was a lie and McDreamy wasn’t McDreamy and that was untenable. Meredith and Derek’s love had to remain Meredith and Derek’s love. As painful as it was for me as a storyteller because I never thought that would happen, the only way to preserve that is Derek had to die for that love to remain honest. I couldn’t have that he turned out to be a bad guy who walked out on his wife and kid … for me, the only way was to make Derek and Meredith’s magic to remain true and forever frozen in time.” [Source]
Patrick Dempsey had a year remaining on his contract. Therefore, writing him out of Grey’s Anatomy was a major shock. The character was involved in what would be a fatal car crash and later died at a hospital other than Grey Sloan Memorial partially because of an unqualified staff. The episode was the first episode written by showrunner Shonda Rhimes since the season eight finale in which series regulars Chyler Leigh and Kim Raver were written out.
Grey’s Anatomy is currently filming in Los Angeles, California. To learn how to audition for a role on the popular series, check out our guide here.
