Meredith Grey
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| Dr. Meredith Grey | |
|---|---|
| Grey's Anatomy character | |
 Ellen Pompeo as Dr. Meredith Grey |
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| First appearance | "A Hard Day's Night" |
| Created by | Shonda Rhimes |
| Portrayed by | Ellen Pompeo |
| Information | |
| Occupation | Surgical Resident at Seattle Grace Hospital |
| Title | M.D. |
| Family | Thatcher Grey (father) Dr. Ellis Grey (mother; deceased) Susan Grey (step-mother; deceased) Dr. Lexie Grey (half-sister) Molly Grey Thompson (half-sister) Laura Grey Thompson (half-niece) Eric Thompson (brother-in-law) |
Meredith Grey is a fictional character and the series protagonist on the ABC television series Grey's Anatomy. The character is portrayed by actress Ellen Pompeo, and was created by Shonda Rhimes, who says that Meredith is the character who best reflects her own personality.[citation needed] Ellen Pompeo was nominated for Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series - Drama at the 64th Golden Globe Awards.
Contents |
[edit] Storylines
[edit] Background
Meredith Grey is the only child born to Ellis and Thatcher Grey. She spent the early part of her childhood in Seattle, Washington, where her mother was completing her surgical residency at Seattle Grace Hospital. Her parents’ marriage was troubled, and her mother was involved in a years-long affair with her colleague, Dr. Richard Webber. Eventually, their marital troubles proved too great and Thatcher left when Meredith was five years old. Soon after, Ellis accepted a fellowship opportunity at Boston General, and relocated to Massachusetts with Meredith. Thatcher lost all contact with his daughter. The diagnoses of her mother with Alzheimers disease compelled Meredith to enroll at Dartmouth Medical School, graduating with her M.D.
[edit] Personality
Meredith Grey is a talented surgeon with compassion for her patients and dedication to her friends. Her friend and colleague Dr. George O'Malley once described her as being "very selfish, but kind." Meredith has often been depicted by various characters, and herself, as "dark and twisty", "broken", and "pitiful". In season two, Meredith revealed that she had pink hair in high school, wore a lot of black, and never would've been seen at prom. She also said that she was very immature, staying out late and partying hard. Her newfound responsibility for her mother forced her to act more mature and take control of her life. Although her past has made it hard to gain her trust and commitment in relationships, she has proved to be naturally smart, funny, helpful, caring, and a very good friend.
[edit] Season One
Meredith secures a position in the surgical residency program at Seattle Grace and relocates from Boston to live in the Queen Anne Hill home that had belonged to her mother and grandmother. Ellis has been moved into a nursing home, and Meredith becomes completely responsible for all of her affairs. The night before her internship starts, she meets Derek Shepherd in a bar and they have a one-night stand. However, Meredith discovers the next day that he is an attending neurosurgeon at Seattle Grace. Meredith initially refuses Derek’s advances and wants to keep their relationship professional. Meredith befriends fellow intern Dr. Cristina Yang and the two form a close bond. She also befriends Dr. George O'Malley, Dr. Isobel "Izzie" Stevens, and Dr. Alex Karev, all of whom live with her at some point in the show. Eventually, she gives in to Derek's advances and agrees to date him, however their relationship is tested by the arrival of Derek’s estranged wife, Addison Montgomery-Shepherd.
[edit] Season Two
Meredith is angry that Derek had failed to reveal his marital status, but she eventually confesses her love for him and begs him to choose her. While Derek struggles over his choice, he ultimately leaves Meredith to return to his wife. Meredith is devastated and is led to search out her father, though their reunion fails to give Meredith any closure regarding her childhood. Meredith has a series of one-night stands with various men, trying to replace Derek. Later on, she gets drunk and has sex with Dr. George O'Malley, only to cry in the middle of the encounter and drive a wedge in their friendship.
Meanwhile, Meredith and Derek begin a platonic friendship, and Meredith begins a relationship with her dog's veterinarian, Finn Dandridge. Derek's jealousy manifests as anger, and after a fight in which Derek criticizes Meredith’s promiscuity, their friendship appears to be over.
Meredith learns she has a half-sister, when Molly Grey is admitted to the hospital. She discovers her father remarried after his divorce to Ellis and had two more daughters. Unaware of Meredith's true identity, Molly reveals that Thatcher had been a devoted and loving father, and was incredibly proud of Molly and her sister Lexie, a medical student at Harvard.
In the last episode of the season, Derek and Meredith have sex after a heated argument. Before they can discuss the implications of their actions, Meredith is called away, and their relationship status remains uncertain.
[edit] Season Three
Once Derek divorces Addison, Meredith is forced to choose between Derek and Finn. She decides to date both of them, but after Derek confesses his love for her, she chooses him. Meredith struggles to tell Derek that she chose him, and once she does, he asks for some space. However, the two quickly reunite and begin their relationship officially.
Meredith’s half-sister Molly is readmitted to the hospital for a c-section. With Thatcher at the hospital, Meredith is forced to face her father, and asks for his side of the story. While tension remains between the two, their relationship softens a little when Meredith realizes she has inherited her problem with snoring from him.
Ellis Grey experiences a completely lucid day, and expresses great disappointment at how "ordinary" Meredith turned out to be. Ellis declines to undergo heart surgery to correct her arrhythmias, but her wishes are in conflict with Meredith's power of attorney. Later, Meredith returns to explain that she wants Ellis to undergo the surgery in the hope that a cure for Alzheimer's would be found in the near future, giving them a second chance to know each other. Unfortunately, Ellis' lucidity has faded and she is only able to recognize Meredith as someone who reminded her of her daughter.
Following a disastrous accident involving a ferryboat, Meredith is knocked into the water at the scene by a patient, and rescued by Derek. Despite continuous CPR, she is unresponsive upon arriving at the hospital. Her colleagues begin desperate measures to save her, but she remains hypothermic and asystolic for several hours until she is revived following a near-death experience in which she encounters former patients, her dog Doc, and her mother, who died while doctors were working on Meredith. The near-death experience provides some closure to Meredith's complicated relationship with her mother and refuels Meredith's will to live, but places strain on her relationship with Derek
Thatcher and Susan reach out to Meredith after Ellis' death and cremation. However, shortly after Ellis' death, Meredith loses her stepmother as well when Susan dies following a rare complication of a usually routine procedure. In his grief, Thatcher slaps Meredith and forbids her to attend the funeral, blaming Susan's death on her trust in Meredith.
Meredith goes on to freeze up during a critical exam that will determine her future in the internship program. The other interns plead her case to Chief Webber, who arranges for Meredith to make up the test privately.
The events of her intern year come to a head as Meredith helps Cristina prepare for her wedding. Derek confronts her over her level of commitment to their relationship, and after Burke and Cristina's wedding falls apart, she leaves to help a distraught Cristina, leaving her relationship and future with Derek uncertain.
[edit] Season Four
After accompanying Cristina on her would-be honeymoon, Meredith returns to Seattle Grace and learns that her half-sister, Lexie, is one of the new interns. She initially refuses Lexie’s attempts to get to know her, telling her that she is not interested because their father chose Lexie over her. However, Meredith slowly softens towards her, going through the case notes from Susan’s death with her, and allowing her to stay at her home overnight to recoup, after Lexie lost a patient she had become close to.
During episode "A Change Is Gonna Come", Meredith and Derek agree to break up, however end up having 'break up sex'. In the next episode, they both agree that the only part of their relationship that works is sex. In episode "The Heart of the Matter," Derek asks Meredith to go away with him for the weekend. Although she agrees, he later tells her that he doesn’t just want to spend a weekend with her, but a lifetime. Meredith tells him she is not ready for such a commitment yet, but asks him to give her time. She later tells Derek she doesn't want him to date other people, confessing that she doesn't want to lose him. In episode "Lay Your Hands On Me", Derek shows Meredith plans for a house he is planning to build for the two of them. When he pushes her for a reaction, Meredith tells Derek that "there are about a hundred steps between where we are now and building our dream house," and that they will take those steps together. However, she later finds out from George that Derek kissed a nurse, Rose, in the scrub room. When she asks him about what happened, they fight and break up.
Several weeks later, Meredith is still dealing with the break-up by secretly seeing a therapist, Dr. Wyatt. Meredith wants to get "whole and healed" for herself and for Derek, because she is constantly referred to as being "broken". While wanting to avoid Derek, and the thought of his budding relationship with Rose, she finds a way to save patients with malignant gliomas, causing her to enlist him as a consulting neurosurgeon for her clinical trial. She also wins the residents' competition, getting the coveted sparkle pager which enables her to get first dibs on any surgery she wants for the next three months.
In the final episode of the season, "Freedom", Meredith admits to her therapist that her mother attempted suicide in front of Meredith as a child, and asked her not to call for help. Meredith recalls that her mother had told her to be an extraordinary woman. Meredith's therapist says that Ellis did not want to die. Meredith does not understand this and is forced to figure it out for herself. Meanwhile, Derek and Meredith begin work on the last of their clinical trial patients. Meredith confronts Dr. Webber about Ellis' attempt at suicide and realizes what Dr. Wyatt meant. If Ellis had really wanted to die, she would have cut her carotid artery because she knew better. Ellis just wanted Richard back, but she was too stubborn to ask. Dr. Wyatt says that the difference between Meredith and her mother is that Meredith can learn from her mother's mistakes.
Although Meredith encourages the work on the clinical trial, Derek slowly loses faith. He throws away the bottle of champagne that he and Meredith would have clebrated with once they succeeded.
When Beth, the last clinical trial patient, lives, and her tumor does in fact shrink, Meredith frantically searches for Derek and the celebratory bottle of champagne, but cannot find it since it is in the trash. Derek later retrieves it from the garbage and searches for Meredith as well. Meredith goes to Derek's land and outlines their would-be house in candles. Derek finds her there and Meredith yells at him for keeping her waiting and rants about their future house and life together, saying that she will try to trust him. Derek kisses her passionately, but leaves in order to end his relationship with Rose. He tells Meredith to wait for him.
[edit] External links
- Bios of Grey's Anatomy characters at ABC.com
- Gray and an anatomy of her busy hospital - Hospital intern with a similar name (Meredith Gray); The Sydney Morning Herald
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