Grey’s Anatomy Jumps the Shark

    This content uses referral links. Read our disclosure policy for more info.


I’ve been watching Grey’s Anatomy off and on for years now. I was mostly not watching it until I read that they had killed of their leading man last year.  That’s when I went back to catch up on the episodes I missed via Netflix. By the end of season 11, I thought that the series had come full circle and it would have been a great place to give it a proper and dignified ending.

For those who don’t know, way back in 2005, in the first episode, our heroine, Meredith Grey, is an immature, insecure medical intern, trying to learn and practice surgery in the shadow of her celebrated, award-winning (and Alzheimer stricken)  mother, Ellis Grey. In her “dark and twisty” way Meredith tries to cope with the world around her with a lot of alcohol and a lot of sex with strangers – which is how she ends up meeting the love of her life, Derek Shepherd. 

Through the ensuing years we see Meredith come to terms with her messed up childhood which included a weak and alienated father with his new family, and a mother who makes Joan Crawford look like mother-of the year, and a chief of surgery who turns out to be the lover that jilted Ellis Grey and lead her to attempt suicide in front of a little Meredith.  Meredith and Derek traverse the many obstacles in their way including his first wife, her “hostile” uterus, their busy careers, a shooting, and a plane crash, By the middle of season 11 they are living the dream in a beautiful home with happy children and a strong marriage, newly resolute to always put their marriage and family first.

Then he dies in a horrible (and stupid) car accident. She grieves, gives birth posthumously to a daughter, whom she names after her mother, and comes through to the other side as a competent and loving mother, resuming her surgical career.

A difficult, but perfect place to end the series.

But Season 12 of the franchise premiered last night, promising that everything would be different and encouraging the fans to hang in there because this is still the “Grey’s we love.”

Well… not so much.

In fact, I think last night episode jumped the shark big time. Seriously. 

For starters, Meredith is once again single, living in mother’s house of horrors with all the memories of her bloody suicide attempt and horrible neglectful childhood, and she’s drinking again. Lots. With her half-sister and sister-in-law joining her, despite three small children living in the house. She has apparently gotten rid of the beautiful house her husband built for her, (which boggles my mind – why wouldn’t she choose to live in a house built with love) and is crammed into her mother’s “ordinary” old place.  The toys and mess in the hallway are symbolic of the mess she has allowed her life to become again, in contrast to the well kept house we saw even after she returned from her year of grieving.  Meredith has gone full circle, and is pretty much, right back where she started.

The premiere episode was what we have come to expect from the ABC network and it’s heavy promotion of all-gay, all-the-time. Last night we saw two teenage girls who would rather die than be split apart. Grey watchers are pretty used to the lesbian theme – that’s been ongoing  for quite a few years now.  But last night it took a horrifying twist.

The mother of one of the girls was portrayed as an unloving evil shrew who cared nothing for her daughter’s well being and happiness. That’s another theme that Grey’s fans are kind of used to, but last night it became OK for the doctors in the show to  –

• tell the mother off for being a homophobe.
• physically assault the mother  and then laugh about it behind closed doors, and probably most concerning  – 
• call Child Protective Services in because they don’t agree with the parents’ decisions regarding their child. 

I could kind of overlook, Dr. Callie Torres, one of the shows hot lesbians, telling the mom off for not supporting her daughter’s lesbianism – it is a drama after all and some conflict has to openly exist.  But when you have doctors physically hitting patients and then laughing about it, I think it reflects badly on the medical profession and it reaffirms for many people that yea, those medical professionals really are looking down on us!  They are laughing at how we look, act and think!

Way to go ABC!

But calling CPS in a hospital, in light of the recent cases of medical kidnapping was very creepy, and the fact that it’s layered in a “support-gay-rights agenda” wrapper, makes it more insidious. Is ABC really advocating that medical professionals call CPS to take away the children of parents who don’t agree with the current public opinion on social issues?  Seriously?

Grey’s was a love story, and now it could have become a story about survival, but with the heroine digressing in her personal growth and the social agenda of ABC being pushed to the front again, I think I’m over it.

Rest in peace Derek Shepherd.  I don’t think I’ll be watching this train wreck without you any more.