‘Grey’s Anatomy’ season 19 was a struggle to watch

This essay contains spoilers for the “Grey’s Anatomy” season 19 finale.

Before the end of season 19 of “Grey’s Anatomyaired on Thursday night, I thought it might be the last. Don’t worry. It was not the end of the series. “Grey’s” returns this fall for its 20th season. He just wasn’t sure he was tuning in again.

I’ve been watching “Grey’s” since I was 12, which means I’ve seen a lot of season finales. I’ve been with the characters since Addison’s arrival at the end of season 1 and all of the season finale cliffhangers that followed, including the infamous prom, deadly plane crash, storms, car crashes, and many weddings (along with almost weddings).

“Grey’s” has been my show year after year, and I have seen it with my people. In high school, I watched on the couch with my mom. In college, I called her as soon as the episode ended. After college, I watched TGIT (“Scandal,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” and “How to Get Away with Murder”) every week with two of my best friends. Then, in the fall of 2018, when my mom was dying of cancerI drove to her house to watch with her every Thursday night. The last time I remember her getting out of bed was when she sat next to me on the couch to watch the 2018 midseason finale. It aired exactly one month before she died.

For nearly two decades, “Grey’s” has been an important part of my life, a touchstone through the best and worst stages of my growth. His voiceovers, dialogue, and vernacular have also shaped how I view the world. That’s why, as friends and family have given up on the show over the years, I’ve stuck with my audience.

I always hoped I’d be the last fan to look, and that faith seemed to pay off in season 17 when Derek, George, Lexie, and Mark turned up for cameos. Once again, I watched live every Thursday because I didn’t want the internet to mess anything up, and each episode was once again a touchstone, proof that time really was ticking during the pandemic lockdown.

Season 17, like the show at its peak, brought me 42 minutes of joy every week. It also raised the bar for what “Grey’s” could still be, even after all this time, and I think that’s why last season and this season have been so disappointing.

For the first time, I have contemplated not looking.

At the end of the season 18 finale, after the internship program closes, the episode ends with Meredith’s voiceover: “The end of an era is easier said than done.”

That fight defined Season 19, which attempted to revive “Grey’s Anatomy” with the arrival of a new class of interns: Benson “Blue” Kwan (Harry Shum Jr.), Jules Millin (Adelaide Kane), Simone Griffith (Alexis Floyd) , Lucas Adams (Niko Terho) and Mika Yasuda (Midori Francis). (Movie and television writers, including those who worked on “Grey’s Anatomy”, are currently on strike about wages and working conditions.)

While this new crop of interns is nice to watch and has chemistry reminiscent of the original intern class, they suffer from the bloated cast and long history of the show. At first, I enjoyed how the show uses the interns to pay homage to their past: living in Meredith’s house, throwing a party, and dancing in the living room. There’s even a love triangle between two interns (Simone and Lucas) and an ex (Trey) who shows up unannounced.

But, halfway through the season, I was wondering if I would have the energy to see a new class of interns repeat stories and emotional arcs that I had already seen. This sentiment was intensified when Pompeo left the show as a series regular in a episode that was rushed, unceremonious and disappointing.

Without Meredith as the show’s host, this season’s struggles became even more apparent, and these challenges were perfectly exemplified in the season finale.

The inside stories were too predictable. Did anyone really think that Simone was going to marry Trey? Was anyone surprised when Simone showed up at the hospital in her wedding dress and ended up in the emergency room with Lucas?

Also, while the group has chemistry when they act together, every character except Mika seems to fall flat when forced to perform a scene alone. This is less a character issue and more a problem of having too many stories.

While the season 19 finale focuses on the two main storylines of Simone’s wedding and the Catherine Fox (formerly Harper Avery) awards, there are plenty of subplots. Teddy has a toothache, Winston and Amelia are fighting, Nick must see Meredith again, Link is jealous of Jo flirting with a patient, Meredith has a groundbreaking new theory, Richard is tempted to drink (and possibly will), Jules’s 81st birthday—a former roommate is intubated against her DNR’s wishes, Helm returns as resident co-director (with eight weeks off), and Miranda flies with the others on a turbulent flight (both real as emotional).

So many storylines make it hard for me to care too much about anyone, so I didn’t feel the same urgency to watch the show when season 19 rolled around. The interns felt fresh but unoriginal, and the veteran characters continually focused on one show. that he was trying to redefine himself in the middle of the main character’s departure, a departure made even more complicated and awkward because Pompeo was still doing the show’s voiceovers.

For these reasons, instead of watching every Thursday as I always have, I found myself watching multiple episodes weeks after its release. So this week I did the same thing, trying to catch up to see the ending before I saw spoilers online.

Despite the lackluster parts of this season, there were still hits. I found season 19 most enjoyable when it veered away from those internal scenes that paid homage to its past. Mika’s character was noted for her hilarious undertones, as well as her season-long significant fight for a living wage. I also enjoyed when “Grey’s” challenged recent trends on the show. Specifically, “Grey’s” has repeatedly focused on social issues with didactic storylines in a single episode or sometimes, but rarely, in a multi-episode arc.

Going into this season, Pompeo also criticized this trend. in an episode of her podcasthe said he wanted the show to be “less preachy” and address important social issues throughout the season.

This season, “Grey’s” did a much better job of that, focusing on the impact of quashing Roe v. Wade on Women’s Health Care and Medical Professionals. The best episodes of the season were when Kate Walsh reprized the role of her from Addison her to help Miranda open a women’s health clinic, provide access to abortions, and deal with the horrible and dangerous bullying they both face. Despite a world that feels on fire, Addison’s strength and Miranda’s power kept this story realistic, relevant, and non-didactic.

My favorite moment from the finale is when Meredith announces that Miranda won the Catherine Fox Award for these efforts, making her the first to receive a non-surgical achievement. This moment, however, was also my biggest disappointment of season 19 because the scene ended before Miranda could give her acceptance speech, a 19-year-old moment I desperately wanted to see.

Another moment that made me swoon as “Grey’s” from the past is when Nick and Meredith finally talk in the hallway. It was the first time they were alone since Nick told Meredith that he loved her over the phone in her last episode as a series regular, and she pretended not to hear him.

“I never should have let you walk away and say I want to live a lifetime with love and mess and pain and you,” Nick says as he stands in the hallway outside his hotel room. Tell me about passing out when Meredith responds, “Well, okay then.”

I love that the show saves this moment for the season finale by not delivering it when Pompeo leaves the show. He feels authentic and reinforces that Meredith’s story isn’t about “any kind of forever.” This is a lesson that I’m fine with “Grey” being repeated ad nauseam because Meredith is so much more than just the person she’s dating or married to, especially McDreamy.

I also loved that his potentially groundbreaking Alzheimer’s research could undermine everything Derek accomplished during his career. This brought me back to their massive season-long fight before her death when Meredith refused to let her career take a backseat. I especially love that this investigation and its implications leave the door open for Pompeo to return in the future.

This also seems to be a trend. “Grey’s” leaves a lot of doors open, especially for characters like Meredith and her sister Maggie (who also departed this season) to return occasionally.

When the finale aired, I wasn’t sure I was still watching to see who walks through those open doors or what happens to the characters left on a cliff: Teddy lying pulseless on the OR floor and interns Lucas and Simone standing next to each other. them. to a pool of blood after performing unauthorized surgery in a scene that gave me major Izzie Stevens-cutting-Denny Duquette-LVAD vibes.

Unlike endings in the past, I don’t wonder how I’ll survive an entire summer without knowing what will happen. But I’ve decided to tune in and find out what direction the new showrunner Meg Marinis will take the series.

After nearly two decades and everything “Grey’s” has been through with me, I think the show and I deserve a chance to see what happens next.