This post contains spoilers for the Grey’s Anatomy Season 17 premiere.
Uh, did that really just happen? On Thursday night, Grey’s Anatomy returned for its Season 17 premiere, which promotional clips have promised will both address the COVID-19 pandemic and leave us gasping. Well, it worked—because at the end of the episode, we’re faced with none other than McDreamy himself, Patrick Dempsey.
The circumstances that bring about Derek Shepherd’s return are somewhat distressing: Cormac Hayes finds her Meredith collapsed in the Grey Sloan parking lot. We see Meredith in a dream on the beach, staring at the love of her life. We’ll have to wait until next week to find out more about her condition.
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Dempsey’s return is more than a little surprising. He left the show in 2015—only one year after having extended his Grey’s contract by two years. Explaining his write-off to Entertainment Weekly at the time, the actor said, “It just sort of evolved. It’s just kind of happened. It really was something that was kind of surprising that unfolded, and it just naturally came to be. Which was pretty good. I like the way it has all played out.”
It all happened quickly, he said, but he wasn’t surprised. “It was just a natural progression with the way the story was unfolding. It was like, Okay! This was obviously the right time.”
An InTouch article alleged that Dempsey was actually fired because he’d had an affair with an intern—appalling both Shonda Rhimes and Ellen Pompeo. Dempsey denied the claims, and oddly enough, InTouch removed the article.
There are also Pompeo’s infamous comments to The Hollywood Reporter in 2018 about Dempsey’s refusal to negotiate together for better pay.
“Patrick [Dempsey] leaving the show [in 2015] was a defining moment, deal-wise,” Pompeo said. “They could always use him as leverage against me—‘We don’t need you; we have Patrick’—which they did for years... There were many times where I reached out about joining together to negotiate, but he was never interested in that.”
“At one point, I asked for $5,000 more than him just on principle,” she said, “because the show is Grey’s Anatomy and I’m Meredith Grey. They wouldn’t give it to me. And I could have walked away, so why didn’t I? It’s my show; I’m the number one. I’m sure I felt what a lot of these other actresses feel: Why should I walk away from a great part because of a guy? You feel conflicted but then you figure, ‘I’m not going to let a guy drive me out of my own house.’”
When ratings spiked during McDreamy’s death episode, she added, “I had a nice chuckle about that.”
But perhaps there’s no bad blood after all?
Speaking with Deadline about how the idea came together, showrunner Krista Vernoff said that she’d been looking for ways to add “fan candy” to the show to infuse some joy—so why not enter Meredith’s dream and reunite her with a fan favorite?
“Patrick and I both have homes in Malibu, and we went for a hike one day,” Pompeo told Deadline. “... And the idea just struck me so I just said to him, would you ever consider coming and being a part of the storytelling this season? I know that Patrick has his foundation in Maine where he helps cancer patients and cancer survivors, and that’s a huge effort of his, and I know that it’s important to him, also, to give people hope, and give people joy, and we wanted to bring something to this moment.”
The two shot their scene together on the beach, distanced, after testing negative for COVID-19. And Dempsey, too, was thrilled with the story.
“It was really exciting, and fun, and it was great to see everybody,” he told Deadline. Kevin [McKidd, who directs Episode 3] was there as well, so there was a lot of familiar faces, a lot of new faces. The dynamic behind the camera had changed.”
The best part? Vernoff hinted that we haven’t seen the last of McDreamy, either. Derek Shepherd back on Grey’s and Meredith possibly on the brink of death? Pinch me, I’m in 2007 again!
