*If you do not know how “Grey’s” ended last night, and do not want to know yet, skip to the third paragraph.*
As I watched last night’s Grey’s Anatomy, I felt somewhat removed from what I was seeing. I knew it was happening, I cried when Meredith arrived, but I went about my evening. I watched Scandal, brushed my teeth, and read my book as usual. Yet, when I finally turned off the light and my head hit the pillow, my eyes filled with pinpricks of tears, and my throat tightened. The weight of it all finally hit me: McDreamy was no more. Derek is gone.
I tell you this in the beginning of this recap because it’s all over the internet, and it was heavily foreshadowed. Not that that makes it any easier to deal with, losing a major original character from a series. But I tell you this at the beginning, because this entire episode was a testament to Derek’s character, and also because I think that many of you might just be feeling as terrible as I do right now. So I’m ripping the bandaid off.
Meredith’s voiceover tells us about that damn carousel and we know by now that repeated motifs equate to bad shit happening. She looks out the windows of the MerDer mansion and police lights from the driveway dance upon her face. She remembers the first and last time Derek told her, “Stay here, don’t move, wait for me.” It’s like a dagger to the heart, thinking of all the time Meredith did wait for Derek, and how they finally built a life together.
We next see Derek, who is all smiles while riding the ferry. He tries to call Meredith, but she’s scooping up the kids and heading to work so she misses his call. He leaves a message, which we know we will eventually hear and it will tear our hearts in two. Then later, stuck in traffic, Derek decides to take a shortcut and chats with Amelia, Bailey and April who tease him that he’s going to miss his flight. His call drops just as a black sports car starts driving recklessly around him. Derek, who if you remember used to speed for the thrill of it after he got shot, lets the guy pass, mumbling about it the whole way. When the car attempts to pass the SUV in front of Derek, the cars collide, causing a huge accident. Both cars flip over, and Derek slams on his brakes, narrowly avoiding becoming part of the crash himself.
He can’t find his phone, but it wouldn’t matter as there’s no signal on this part of the road. He rushes to check on the first car, which contains a mother named Sara and her young daughter, Winnie. At first Winnie doesn’t respond to her mother and Derek because she thinks she’s dead, but Derek takes her wrist and promises she’s got a pulse which means she’s very much not dead. Both she and her Sara are injured but okay, so Derek promises to come back for them after he finds the other accident survivors.
Derek finds the next survivor, a teenage girl named Alana, lying in a ditch. She’s conscious but in shock, and not the driver. That would be Charlie, a teenage boy who Derek finds wandering the road with a head-wound the size of the Grand Canyon. And all this time, I thought doctors always carried big magical kits with them, but Derek has the tiniest first aid kit in the world.
He goes to Sara and Winnie’s car, and busts out the windows to pull them to safety. He sends Winnie away with their much better first aid kit to help Alana and Charlie, while he helps her mom. Sara’s hip is dislocated, and Derek does Callie proud by popping it back into place.
After the pop, Winnie notices that Charlie’s car is on fire so Derek rushes to pull the two teens and Winnie from harm’s way. Big explosion, but everyone is okay. Well, I mean they aren’t okay, but they aren’t exploded at least. The smoke from the explosion should send a signal to someone that there’s been an accident, so Derek feels pretty good about it. Next up, Alana starts monologing about how she’s not even supposed to be there. She’s a straight A student, and when the cute, kind of dumb quarterback asked her if she wanted a ride, she just couldn’t believe it. Charlie kissed her and it was magic, but now they are nearly dead on the side of the road. Derek and Winnie help the teen to the ground so Derek can address her stomach pains. When he lifts up her shirt, her intestines are just about to spill out. He tells her that she’s got a “little cut on your tummy” but she’s legit cut in half.
Derek remembers that Sara had dry cleaning in the car, so he wraps Alana up tight with it to keep her guts in her body. With everyone sort of bandaged up, Derek and Winnie look out at the chaos that could have killed them all. The sun is shining, the sky is blue and Derek tells her “It’s a beautiful day to save lives,” so cue the waterworks. They all hear sirens, which means the car smoke did its job. Everyone gets packed up inside ambulances, and driven off to safety. Derek, feeling pretty awesome, gets back in his car. He makes half a U-Turn before stopping to change the fish his phone out from between the seats, and when he looks up, a semi-truck crashes right into his driver’s side.
Derek and the rest of the accident patients are taken to some podunk hospital without a trauma center. Derek is conscious but unable to speak, and can hear the doctors making the wrong calls about his treatment. A young female doctor repeatedly suggests a CT scan, but it dismissed by an older male doc. Derek is like, fuck the patriarchy, listen to her!
When the doctors leave Derek alone for a moment, Winnie is shocked to see him lying there. She walks over to him and takes his hand. She assures him and herself that he’s not dead, because she can feel his pulse. When the male doctor comes back, he sends Winnie away, but she’s helped Derek stay focused. “I’m not dead. I’m not dead,” Derek repeats over and over again.
The female doctor talks to Winnie and finds out Derek’s name, and that he’s a surgeon. She rushes in to let the other docs know they are working with one of their own. They rush to move him into surgery, without checking his head and Derek knows that he’s a goner at that moment. He knows that even if they save his life, his brain bleed will render him unable to function. Listening to Derek internally protest, as he watches his life slip away with each of their bad decisions. In the OR, they open his chest but they can’t figure out why they can’t stop a bleed. It’s from his head laceration, that no one bothered to check. They call in the neurosurgeon, but the fucker is at dinner and arrives an hour and a half later. The docs watch helplessly as Derek’s odds dwindle away. When the neuro guy finally arrives, he’s an arrogant prick blaming the other docs. The female doc talks back to him and he tosses her out before performing brain surgery that won’t matter at this point.
Back at the MerDer mansion, the cops knock on the door. Meredith imagines that Derek is in the hospital, injured but ok, and pictures crawling into bed with him. However, it’s just a fantasy and the cops tell her that she needs to come with them to the hospital. At first she resists, because she has to gather the kids, but it’s really just a gut reaction of denial. She takes Zola and little Bailey with her, and as she walks through the hospital, she remembers how helpless she felt as a little girl, watching her mother nearly bleed to death. In the elevator, she prepares for the worst day of her life.
In Derek’s room, Meredith looks on icily as the neurosurgeon stammers his way through an apology. Meredith takes the charts and immediately sees that they fucked up by not getting him a CT scan. The poor female doctor, stands there and takes responsibility, even though she was the one who pushed for it. This is something she doesn’t tell Meredith.
DickDoc, whose fault it really is that Derek didn’t get a CT, sits down with Meredith to give her the speech, one she’s given countless times. She doesn’t want to hear it, she knows how this works. Derek is only being kept alive with machines. Knowing how this works rationally, and what it actually feels like, are working at odds inside Meredith. She knows Derek will never recover, so long term care is off the table. She has to make the decision, one that no spouse ever wants to make, to take Derek off of life support and let him slip away. The vibrant man she loves, with his bright eyes and amazing hair, his hearty laugh and brilliant mind. It’s almost too much to bear.
She steps outside to take a breath, and finds the female doctor crying. The doc apologizes for not being good enough to save Derek, and Meredith can’t quite believe she has to offer some comfort to this woman. But, Meredith is always a doctor, so she tells the other woman that this will force her to be a better doctor. She’ll see Derek’s face in every patient, and it will force her to become stronger and better. “It only takes that one,” Meredith tells her, before running off to puke and then to take her husband off of life support.
Meredith sits with Derek, as an acoustic version of “Chasing Cars”, the quintessential Grey’s song. (It’s been in the show’s second season finale and in the musical episode.) Meredith remembers the first time she laid eyes on him, how they didn’t even know each other’s names after spending the night together. Their beautiful, crazy, wonderful, life together.
As all life support is shut down, Meredith sits with Derek, and quietly tells him it’s okay to go. He exhales one last time as the tube is removed from his throat, and Derek is gone. He’s really gone.
“All that I am
All that I ever was
Is here in your perfect eyes, they’re all I can see”
Death of a character can feel like a true loss. We’ve known Derek for 11 years. We’ve watched him grow from a aimless, brilliant young surgeon to a man with a family and a deep abiding love for his wife. He and Meredith were the OTP for many, many fans. My heart hurts for those fans today because I’ve been in there shoes. We all have.It’s hard to imagine Grey’s Anatomy without him, even if he was absent for most of this season. The thing about Derek is, yes he was a hero, but he’s not the hero of Grey’s Anatomy. Meredith is. She is the sun, and this loss, will change her forever. Her love for Derek was a powerful, tangible thing. Meredith will never be the same, and neither will the show. I know that I teased Derek from time to time, but I will miss him. He was much more than a handsome head of hair. He was Derek Shepherd, and now he’s gone.
“I don’t quite know
How to say
How I feel”
Next week, the rest of the docs learn of Derek’s death in a two hour episode.
Here are our favorite #greysgays tweets from “How to Save a Life.” Your tweets really got me through this episode.
Even though I knew in my heart what was coming last night, I still wasn’t prepared. #greysgays
– FaberrittanaGirl (@KissMe_Hardy) April 24, 2015
That female surgeon, whatever her name is, needs to come to work at GreySloanMemorial. #GreysAnatomy #greysgays
– Frau Bottleberry (@bottleberry) April 24, 2015
I mean it’s Derek. Never thought it will end up like this … #GreysAnatomy #greysgays
– Audrey (@pamplemoussee76) April 24, 2015
Hey Shonda, thanks for actually showing up to your flagship show, don’t kill anyone on your way out…too late. #GreysGays
– Lady Liberty (@CindyLMarshall) April 24, 2015
This is the shittiest fictional hospital in the history of fictional hospitals. #GreysAnatomy #GreysGays
– Carolyn (@adrblepancreas) April 24, 2015
There are no shortcuts to the airport, Derek. #GreysGays
– Lucy Burton (@swirlOsquirrel) April 24, 2015
Life lessons: never go to Seattle Grace, never offer Liv a drink then say you’re out of wine, never piss off Shonda #GreysAnatomy #GreysGays
– Elizabeth D-V (@324_B21) April 24, 2015
Sandra Oh, I realize you have a busy schedule, but Meredith could really use her person right now. #greysgays
– Lauren (@chickwithsquee) April 24, 2015
Derek survived a bomb, plane crash, and getting shot. He dies from a car crash! #GreysAnatomy #GreysGays
– Samantha J. Green (@SamanthaJGreen) April 24, 2015
This ain’t right, I don’t even like Derek like this and it’s got me all fucked up. #GreysAnatomy #greysgays
– Annie (@isnahah) April 24, 2015
“A little cut on your tummy” *holds intestines* #GreysGays
– Michelle Rose (@mrose220) April 24, 2015
This girl is a Cristina in the making #greysgays #GreysAnatomy
– Samantha J. Green (@SamanthaJGreen) April 24, 2015
