Grey’s Anatomy (2005‑ )

Revolt, dear fan.

Listen up, fandom children, because your least favourite agony aunt is gonna tell you a tale about why Grey’s Anatomy is an absolute fucking train-wreck and has been for years now.

If you’re just joining me - meaning you’ve started reading this and you have no idea who I am, and/or you’re never seen me post anything in the tags before - welcome. Consider yourself one of the lucky ones. Here’s the deal: I force-exiled myself from the Grey’s fandom just short of three years ago because - and spoiler alert if you’re new here and you’re still a GA-watching foetus who thinks this new drama is the ugliest its gotten - it’s toxic as shit, and I came to realise that we’re all worth more than that.

First off, let me just begin by saying: I told you so. Not to toot my own horn here or anything, but I warned you guys (you, the folks who’ve been around for at least a few years; you, the poor, unfortunate souls who couldn’t quite cut the tether connecting you to this shit-show and run for the hills when you still had a fair chance at being a casual, happy television viewers; you who either contributed to or aided in my suffering through seasons eight to eleven with me) that things weren’t gonna be pretty.

It all started back in ‘14. Cristina Yang (AKA, the greatest character to ever be conjured up by the aforementioned batshit ensemble of hack writers) bailed on us, shipping off to Switzerland and (somewhat) decently putting an end to her storyline. The foundations of the love story that was MerDer started to cave (like, really, this time) and because P-Demp wanted out without actually having to exit the show (at the time), they got served some weird “we’re spiritually already divorced” storyline that had me gauging my freaking eyes out. Everything else was kind of *insert shrug emoji here* - and I say this as someone who shipped the hell out of another ship and basically online protested it into existence.

See, the thing is, the show could handle itself without Cristina (and I’m not gonna talk about those we loved who left us because… no). What it couldn’t handle however was the lack of Derek, and MerDer. Now, you’re probably gonna whine about this or you’re already rolling your eyes thinking I’m some sort of diehard fangirl. Sure, I quit when he got killed off, and it’s one of the main reasons for my doing so, but it isn’t the only one. If anything, it’s what led me to realise that this show was gonna kick its own hind legs out from under itself and create a sinkhole the size of Seattle just so it could swallow itself up whole and then fill itself in again like a natural disaster.

MerDer was the foundation of the show. It wasn’t just her, and it wasn’t the other interns. Sure, MAGIC were dope, and iconic in their own way (to us, at least), but the latest point of the show was always Patrick Dempsey as a part of that couple. His character gave her character a storyline, and he was basically a full-fledged plot device for her to build herself around. Meredith wouldn’t have been the Meredith that kept the show on the air without Derek, and this became glaringly obvious when they ended. And, ironically, he ended up brain-dead just as the writers officially lost all sense of realism and decided that everything would be OK if it was a repeat or a simple rehash.

From this point on, from season twelve forward, shit started escalating… like, real quick and real bad. Storylines were repeating themselves via the medium of different characters, only they were twisted and passed off as original because the vast majority of the live audience isn’t attentive enough to remember. Continuity no longer existed in the realm, and someone in the writer’s room had clearly never seen a single episode of Private Practice when they turned Amelia into… ugh, I don’t want to think about it. (Brain tumour? Really? Excuse me while I chuckle.)

Suddenly, people were being written OOC, and only a smart, select portion of viewers were savvy enough to pick up on it. Jackson being a prick? Not out of character, but also largely played up for dramatic effect. (His personality seemed to change drastically sometime after his first child died - understandable.) And, on that note…

Dear Japril fans, you got played. I’d say unfairly so, but that statement wouldn’t be entirely true to my nature because I personally think (if you stuck around after the clusterfuck that was their divorce and bambino numéro deux) you were walking right into the bear trap, barefoot and in your birthday suit, ready to get wrecked. I don’t recall ever stating that they were endgame for a definite, and I can find multiple instances where I wrote that they were “probably” gonna make it (see my #japril tag) but I wouldn’t place any bets on it, and now I’m glad I jumped ship when I did.

At present, there are still 14892 of you suckers following me on this account, and I’m more than positive that a fair few of you are/were Japril shippers. (I do like when the follower count goes down though, because it means you’ve come to your senses… about me, at least.) That ship had dust for content when they first started so, on my and the others’ who basically kickstarted it on here’s behalf, you’re welcome. But I’m also sorry because, once upon a time, a ship emerged and a fandom built itself, and the show accepted us, and then they played us like banjos.

Don’t get me wrong, I have no idea how this shit’s gonna play out now - namely because I don’t watch the show and I refuse to even acknowledge, like, 90% of what happens around it. But if the endgame here is that April leaves, dies or turns into pixie dust and ends up in another freakin’ dimension, then that’ll just be some serious bull-fuckery.

I never knew if they’d be endgame, and I still wouldn’t want to take a guess on it because the writers are tools and don’t know a good thing when they have it - see mention above of divorce (!), but you can sure as shit bet that the fandom is pissed. And I completely understand why. I gave up on them, but I commend those of you who didn’t. You deserved better than this. You deserved, at the very least, a storyline that didn’t result in Jackson shacking up with his wet fish step-sister and April being - what? - a mess.

As a self-professed founding auntie of the Japril fandom, I hereby grant you permission to absolutely lose your shit and furiously trash-talk the forces that sit behind shiny, polished desks and decide how things are going to end. Wave that flag and burn the Grey’s bra, bitch. (Also, this is why the online literature community gave us fan fiction.)

(Calzona is a whole other thing because Sara left and it just became so.)

Moving on to… firing Sarah and Jessica? I was never the biggest fan of either one of them, if I’m honest. I really liked April and I could just about stand Arizona. They’re acting was meh, sometimes eh, rarely woah - as is the case with like 85% of the actors who’ve ever been hired on this show. But I could root for them, and they were likeable performers, and I wholeheartedly agree with the people blaming Ellen for their dismissal. Why? Because it’s just a little bit too convenient that the main star of the show - though the word ‘star’ can’t really apply to her when a sack of old potatoes could act circles around her greedy ass - earns a hugely unnecessary raise at the same time they so happen to get the boot.

Call me crazy but I happen to believe that this wasn’t just a coincidence. Only, the real kicker is that the so-called star, so-called ‘heart’ of the show, doesn’t actually want to be there. Okay, yeah, she’ll show up for work… because she’s being paid buckets of money to. And, sure, she’ll promote the show… because she’s being paid buckets of money to.

There are great actresses, Academy/Emmy/Tony-award winning actresses (and actors) gracing our television screen these days, and their salaries aren’t anywhere nearly this exhaustive. Ranking Ellen Pompeo as the top earning TV actress, with this much money, is a fucking joke. Why? Not because she can’t act, because she can (adequately). No, it’s because she’s a extortionist.

“The show will end when Ellen is done with it.” - That’s nice and all, but the problem is that she’s money hungry, and power hungry, and the execs that be are too pussy-whipped to say no to her.

Why won’t she just quit the show so they can call it a day and let everyone get on with their lives? Because she wants money. And why does she want money? Because she says she isn’t ‘allowed’ to work on any other projects because of her roles on GA. Why isn’t she ‘allowed’ to work on anything else? She is; but her acting is mediocre at best, and she knows that Shonda owes her this. Not to take a hard swing at her career here, but she’s not exactly talented. Anyone could play her role. She just (rightfully) knows that Grey’s is her best (if not only option) these days. She’s an ageing actress whose cracks are beginning to show, and this show is a blessing for a woman of her age in the industry. She has stability with Grey’s. She’s dependant on it even if she doesn’t want it to be. And it’s reliant on her.

“The show will end when…”, no. A show shouldn’t end when your principle actress (in an ensemble show?) decides that she’s finally had enough, earned enough. A show shouldn’t end because the show-runners and executives have basically given their actor a timer and asked her them to set it; only the damn thing never gets set because the actor is in need of job security and refuses to let a once-good thing die in peace. A show’s lifespan shouldn’t depend on an actor’s commitment to the title role; rather the opposite: a story is told, plots are unfolded, characters exist before they cease to, and it ends. But, no. No, because here the actors holds all the cards.

Hell, we wouldn’t have any other Shondaland productions if nice, wholesome, Ellen Pompeo hadn’t been chosen to play Meredith Grey now, would we? Because Meredith was likeable once, and because Ellen was a decent enough of an actress in a time when television wasn’t at its peak, that Shonda built everything around Grey’s, and this means that she owes it, and thus her legacy, to her original ‘star’.

It’s bullshit, I’m not here for it, and I hope you aren’t either.

Revolt, dear fan. You deserve that much.

We have to dance it out! That’s how we finish. Good night y'all! Sandra Oh and Ellen Pompeo

Two of Grey’s lovely couples