Grey’s Anatomy is currently the longest-running show on ABC, with 16 seasons (available to binge on Netflix) and another in production. One boring summer night, almost two years ago, I clicked on the Grey’s title card while scrolling through Netflix with my family. It looked fairly promising:a broody-looking blonde woman, staring off into the distance while holding an umbrella (at least that was the old title card until they replaced it), and clicked. And found myself blushing as the camera focused on Meredith Grey, the main character, the morning after a one-night stand. With a man who later turned out to be her boss. And yes, my parents were watching it with me (note: if you want to watch this show, DO NOT watch it with your family. It’s just plain awkward). Watching Grey’s at night became our family time: when we could just turn our brains off, enjoy each others’ company, and immerse ourselves into the soap opera that was Meredith Grey’s love life, which was (spoiler alert) a hot mess.
Season 17 is currently being filmed, and taking this into account, I decided that I wanted to rewatch the entire show so that by the time it came out on Netflix, I would be completely caught up and ready to watch it. This was probably the best and worst decision of my life: it fascinated me to see how far the characters had developed, as well as how young the actors’ looked (except for Ellen Pompeo, I swear she’s an immortal), but for a long time, something about the show bothered me that I was just unable to describe. The more I rewatched, the less I found myself liking the show, but didn’t understand why. To me, the plot was just plain predictable (and yes, I know this is partially because I’d watched it before, but still). The beginning few seasons are a tired cliche: [main character] with seemingly no significant skills begins new [job, internship, etc.], and finds out she is a brilliant [career name], while meeting a group of quirky, also cliched character tropes along the way. What mostly irritated me was the two-dimensional cast of main characters who were surgical interns. Allow me to break it down (warning: spoilers ahead).
Meredith Grey, more like Mary Sue
(me when someone tells me that Meredith is a redeemable main character)
Meredith, the main character and narrator of the show. She’s smart, she’s innovative, and…oh yeah, she’s a total Mary Sue. The term “Mary Sue” was first used to describe “a character…who is so competent or perfect that this appears absurd even in the context of the fiction” (Wikipedia). Meredith’s “Mary Sue” is first seen in (surprise, surprise) the first episode (1×1). Meredith, despite a massive hangover, sleep deprivation, and lack of medical knowledge, is the one to correctly figure out that her first patient’s seizures were being caused by a brain bleed (because of course no other surgeon could figure that out, not even a fully trained neurosurgeon). This pattern of “only Meredith can figure out [some patient’s medical mystery]” is constantly repeated throughout the show, which is both annoying as f*ck, and just plain unreasonable, especially considering that she is supposed to be fresh out of med school when the show begins. Sure, she may have a leg-up due to her famous surgeon mother, Ellis Grey, but this still doesn’t explain how she knows EVERYTHING.
Not only is she a Hermione Granger, but she’s also selfish as hell. She constantly compares her issues to others, even once stating
Meredith has an issue I personally find hard to swallow: she is unable to recognize that her peers issues are valid, preferring to wallow in her own self-pity. Sure, I definitely love a good wallow in the depths of despair, but I also recognize when I have wronged someone else, and that they are also going through things in their lives.
Isobel Stevens, Optimist Prime
Isobel, or Izzie, former trailer trash turned surgeon. She’s blonde, perky, and a hopeless optimist. Her hair and makeup is always perfect, despite long shifts at the hospital, and she’s never without a smile. Out of all the original characters, I find that I care about Izzie the least: she is the least relatable character on the show (at least in the earlier seasons) because she’s so optimistic, and as a result, naive, which also makes her the most difficult to empathize with. Of course, she only becomes more relatable after a brush with death (she gets cancer, because…of course she does). But don’t worry folks, even though her case is soooooooo rare, there’s a -48.82983% chance of her surviving, she survives!
George O’Malley, the Spare
Yeah, you guessed it; he’s the side character who’s hopelessly in love with Mary (oh sorry, Meredith). George is that awkward guy; he doesn’t know how to talk to girls, and he’s a complete dork (I mean, look at his haircut). While it’s true that George has some excellent one-liners, there’s not enough substance for a viewer to actually care about him: his entire character exists just to forward Meredith’s arc. He’s the helpful guy; the guy who’s so busy running around helping all of his friends with their problems, that he doesn’t notice that he’s run into the path of an oncoming bus. Too soon? Yeah, too soon, I’m sorry. #GeorgeDeservedBetter
Cristina Yang, Every Asian Stereotype Ever
Think of some Asian kid during a socratic seminar who won’t stop talking. Yeah, you get the picture. Next!
Alex Karev, the Loveable Douche
Alex just needs a hug and a break from his love life, honestly. Another character who starts off poor, he quickly establishes himself as the douchebag intern. Alex is known as a “cowboy,” in the medical world: he thinks that he (fresh out of med school) knows more than a fully trained surgeon, and even the Seattle Grace Hospital nurses. Sure, Meredith is the exact same way, but only she can get away with it. Alex can easily be compared to a stereotypical high school football player: not the smartest but thinks he’s the shit, brash, obnoxious, not great at maneuvering social situations. Although he is seen as one of the main antagonists in the beginning of the show, he shows a lot of growth as both a surgeon and a person, and has become one of my favorite characters (but no one will ever beat Lexie Grey, and you can fight me on that).
While the show may initially have a hard time with writing character baselines, it meant a lot to me that the show writers were able to later expand on these characters in order to make them seem more human. I love this show, don’t get me wrong (this is NOT a hate post). But it’s important to remember while watching that there is more than one way to succeed: you can be smart like Cristina, but also sweet and sensitive like Izzie. You can be a dork like George while also possessing Alex’s confidence. Rewatching from the beginning has made me realize both how two-dimensional the characters were, but also how much they have progressed as people, and how we ought to do the same.