Please note: This article contains spoilers.
Every Thursday, I kneel at the altar of Shonda Rhimes, careful not to spill my moscato on the carpet. I wring my hands, wondering what injustices she will bring onto me and the loyal members of the church of Shondaland for the week. Whose blood will be spilled? Whose sins will be whispered about in the halls? Eight to ten PM is sacred time. Frankly, I would watch How to Get Away with Murder too, but my body just cannot handle that much anxiety. Scandal and Grey’s give me enough reason to wonder how on earth there was created someone as genius as Shonda Rhimes. Sometimes I want to kill her. And the rest of the time I want to be her. She has created characters that you grow to love so deeply, that when they die, a little piece of you dies as well. (RIP DEREK.)
These characters endure tragedy after heartbreak after more tragedy, with joy only occasionally sprinkled into the mix. We can align and parallel ourselves to some of the experiences these characters go through, while with other afflictions we find ourselves baking a pan of brownies to bring to their doorstep with our sympathies. Then you remember that these characters don’t actually exist in real life so you eat the pan of brownies all by yourself on the kitchen floor wondering how Shonda could have possibly tore your heart out of your body once again. Only someone with as much mad genius as Shonda would manage to bring back THE ONE CHARACTER THAT FULLY SYMBOLIZES THE DEATH OF MEREDITH’S HUSBAND, DEREK.
Meredith, above almost all characters, goes through rough patch after rough patch and still somehow pieces herself back together. She is a model of strength and determination, as well as an avid ambassador for tequila being the needle to sew her life back together on occasion. In the past three seasons alone, she has seen some of life’s largest obstacles and overcome each of them. But if you go back to season one and list all of the reasons she should have fallen apart but instead decided to put herself back together, you will assuredly revel in her aura.
Meredith begins the show as a lowly intern, trying to scrape her way up from the bottom of the barrel. We all know surgical interns get no sleep or food or basic rights, really. While managing a 96 hour work week at a new job, Meredith is put in charge of her mother’s estate when she is deemed no longer competent as a result of early on-set Alzheimers. Meredith does this almost alone. She has no family (yet). She has no friends. She manages to hold strong independently, minus that time she sort of freaked out on the nurse after a long day and the times she danced on the table after too much tequila. She started alone, and she started strong.
Fast forward several seasons. Meredith has gained friends, most notably in the form of my personal spirit animal, Christina Yang. Meredith embodies a true friend to Christina, a true person. Women have the tendency to compete, rather than compel each other. We stand against each other instead of together. Meredith and Christina do it from time to time, but at the end of the day, when it truly counts, they are there. Completely, truly, and without fail. Through Christina’s ectopic pregnancy and abortions, Meredith stands by her side, unwavering. She does not neglect the power rooted in a true female friendship and recognizes it as something that can only make her stronger and support her more fully. As far as family goes, Meredith embraces the fact that the image of a “normal” family does not exist. When her two half-sisters enter, Lexie and Maggie, Meredith is at two completely different stages in her life. No relationship with a sibling is ever perfect, let alone a relationship with two half-sisters who have had a better home life than she was ever given. Meredith occasionally falls into jealousy, but again ends up supporting relationships that would have been all too easy to ignore or let go of.
[Photo courtesy of The Spread Issues.]
It’s no secret that on Grey’s there’s a lot of tragedy. The characters endure and endure, but none quite so extensively as Meredith. As Christina says in season nine, “Meredith Grey has survived a bomb, a drowning, a gunman, and a plane crash and she’s still here.” Those are really just the tip of the iceberg, only the physical components of what Meredith has had to go through. Her mental tragedies, in my personal opinion, far overshadow the physical. She survived the love of her life being married to another woman (enter Addison Shepherd). Then she survived working under that woman. And then she had to work with the woman he dated. (Remember Nurse Rose? Yeah, I hated her too.) And now she has to work with the woman who basically killed Derek after that woman shows up at Meredith’s house on a day that we had all applauded her handling her grief like a goddess. Her lifetime person, Christina, left for a foreign country. She finds out she is pregnant with a daughter after her husband dies. Her half-sister, Lexie, dies just after they begin to form a stable relationship. She supports her husband as he mourns his best friend (RIP MARK) in the wake of the accident that took the life of her half-sister. Meredith’s father blamed her for her step-mother’s death in an alcoholic rage. She watched her husband be shot, the trauma of which caused her a miscarriage in the same day. Not to mention her husband dying, seasons later, at the hands of doctors who were ill equipped.
All of these things and Meredith is still standing. Not only is she standing, she is thriving. She defies all odds with grace. She is the epitome of strong. And in addition? She encompasses and swallows all of the misconceptions we have for the women surrounding us. The misconception that women cannot be powerful in their career? Meredith defies. The notion that women cannot be powerful in their careers without sacrificing a family? Defies. Meredith does it all. Completes medical school, marries her best friend, creates and nurtures powerful and supportive female friendships, raises and loves three beautiful children, survives tragedy after tragedy that makes our own bodies ache, and still has enough of a voice left to demand the pay raise she deserves. Meredith, though fictional, is an entirely real icon.
[Photo courtesy of Instinctive Index.]