That presumably comes as bad news for series star Pompeo, who—only weeks prior to the renewal announcement—went on the record to state that she believes it’s time to wrap the show up! (For its part,ABC has routinely repeated that they’re happy to provide a home for the show as long as it’s willing to stick around.) You don’t need to be a TV-industry insider to realize that 18 seasons is an extremely long shelf life for a primetime drama series, and even the most die-hard Grey’s fans might wonder just how many more stories the beloved series has left to tell. Plus, it seemed at the start of Season 18 like the show’s creative team was dropping Easter eggs suggesting that it would soon come to an end. Why does Pompeo think it’s time to call it quits—and what clues and hints popped up in Season 18 to suggest it was headed for a finale? Here’s everything we know about whether Season 19 will be the final season of Grey’sAnatomy.
Does Ellen Pompeo want Grey’sAnatomy to end?
“I’ve been trying to focus on convincing everybody that it should end,” Pompeo told Insider in December 2021. “I feel like I’m the super naive one who keeps saying, ‘But what’s the story going to be, what story are we going to tell?’ And everyone’s like, ‘Who cares, Ellen? It makes a gazillion dollars.’”
Is Grey’s Anatomy over?
It’s not, but if you thought the 18th season would be the last, you’re not alone! In fact, looking closely at what we’ve seen from Grey’s Season 18 so far, you could’ve picked out plenty of little signs suggesting that Grey’s was drawing to a close. Here are just some of the ones we noticed:
Grey’s Season 18 takes place in a fictional world
Although Season 17 of Grey’s Anatomy planted its feet firmly in the era of COVID-19, Season 18 takes place in a fictional post-COVID world, where the rollout of vaccines in early 2021 mostly eradicated the disease, and life has gotten back to maskless normalcy by the fall. Going into Season 17, Pompeo had indicated that there was a possibility that it could be the series’ last season, but it would have been deeply unsatisfying for fans to have watched Meredith Grey for all these years, only to have her spend her final season in a coma rather than in an operating room. Creating an optimistic world in which modern medicine was able to halt a global pandemic in its tracks not only feels true to the thesis of the show, which has long been committed to the idea that doctors can change the world for the better, but also allows for a season that can explore any themes it wants, unhampered by PPE and the looming weight of constant death. Taking such a pronounced step away from reality also opens up the doors for Grey’s Anatomy to take its storylines in pretty much any direction it wants. In Season 17, we saw Jackson Avery (Jesse Williams) pack up and move to Boston in order to revolutionize modern medicine from inside the belly of the beast, in large part as a response to the real-life killing of George Floyd in May 2020. Working such significant real-world storylines into its fictional fabric was practically mandated by the show’s decision to incorporate the real-world pandemic; it would have felt bizarre to have only included some major real-world events, but not others. But now that Grey’s Anatomy has left COVID-19 behind, it’s not beholden to any other specific events happening in our COVID-influenced world either, giving the creative team free rein to pen whatever ending they believe the story deserves.
Meredith Grey met a guy in a bar… just like in Grey’s Anatomy Season 1
It seems like a lifetime ago that we were introduced to Derek “McDreamy” Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey) as the guy Meredith meets in a bar and shares a one-night stand with in the show’s pilot episode, only to later realize he’s actually her boss. Of course, despite their rocky beginning, the two went on to become Grey’s Anatomy’s central couple, getting married a few seasons later and having two children together, only for Derek to die shortly after Meredith became pregnant with their third. Since then, Meredith hasn’t connected with any suitor on the same level, although she probably came closest with the late Andrew DeLuca (Giacomo Gianniotti). She also has shown a bit of a spark with Dr. Cormac Hayes (Richard Flood), a widowed pediatric surgeon who was handpicked for her by her best friend Cristina Yang (Sandra Oh), although the beginning of Season 18 seemed to suggest that their relationship may have fizzled out before it even got off the ground, since Cormac’s kids didn’t’ seem to be on board. However, the premiere of Season 18 threw viewers a curveball by bringing back Scott Speedman’s Nick, a transplant surgeon who showed instant chemistry with Meredith in his single episode in Season 14. Nick caught a glimpse of Meredith while she was on a business trip to Minnesota (more on that in a minute), then later caught up with her by taking a chance and waiting for her—where else?—in a bar. Although Meredith announced right off the bat that she wasn’t going to sleep with him, taking the opposite stance of her Season 1 self, the two instantly hit it off. With his promotion to series regular status, and with Hayes still in the mix, we wouldn’t be surprised if Grey’s Anatomy is setting up a good old-fashioned love triangle, harkening back to its second season when Meredith was torn between Derek and kindhearted vet, Finn (Chris O’Donnell). It seems like Meredith finding love again is the type of storyline Grey’s Anatomy would enjoy saving for its final season. Could the series end with Meredith finally walking down the aisle (after all, that didn’t happen the first time around)? Maybe that’s the excuse Grey’s Anatomy needs to bring back all of its departed (and dearly departed; Meredith does see ghosts, after all) characters, one last time.
Grey’s Anatomy Season 18 is setting up Meredith to establish a new Grey legacy that’s all her own
In the first episode of Season 18, “Here Comes the Sun,” Meredith heads to Minnesota, ostensibly to attend the dedication of a research library in honor of her mother, Ellis. The legacy of the incomparable Dr. Ellis Grey (Kate Burton) has been dogging Meredith since the first season, and Meredith spent years trying to dig out from under her shadow. Once in Minnesota, though, it turns out that the real reason Meredith was invited to Minnesota is to run her own eponymous lab, The Grey Center for Medical Research, where she would be tasked with finding a cure to Parkinson’s disease. By the end of episode 2, “Some Kind of Tomorrow,” Meredith had agreed to the offer, with a few conditions of her own. She’ll be running it from Seattle, where she’ll create her own satellite lab to continue her work, with a promise to fly back and forth once a week. She also insisted on picking her own team, which already includes her neurosurgeon sister-in-law, Amelia Shepherd (Caterina Scorsone). Considering that the series began with Meredith’s first day working at Seattle Grace Hospital (which has been through a few name changes since then), it would be fitting if it were to end with her last one. Moving across the country full time to devote herself to her new lab—with the help of some of her closest friends and family—would definitely be an exit worthy of all the work she’s put into her career. Plus, Grey’s Anatomy has been playing with the idea of Meredith’s own legacy in comparison to her mother’s for some time now. Having Meredith running her own lab, named for herself, after earning the opportunity to perform her own groundbreaking medical research based on her own accomplishments, seems like the type of series-ending achievement that even Ellis Grey would be proud of.
Grey’s Anatomy Season 18 “feels like the old days” to its series originals
Early in “Some Kind of Tomorrow,” we see series originals Miranda Bailey (Chandra Wilson) and Richard Webber (James Pickens Jr.) standing on the balcony (not the catwalk of previous seasons, but we’ll let that slide) overlooking the hospital, as Richard prepares to greet his newest crop of residents. “Feels like the old days,” Miranda muses, referring to the time before the entire ecosystem of the hospital was forced to shift to accommodate COVID-19. However, it also feels like a call back to the earliest seasons, when Miranda and Richard were the teachers, and Meredith and her peers were the students. Later in the episode, the residents competed with and supported each other in a way that strongly called back to the resident class of the first season. In recent years, Grey’s Anatomy hasn’t spent much time with its younger cast members as a group, utilizing them mostly as background characters while the spotlight remains steadfastly on the attending surgeons. However, in watching the residents compete for a solo surgery—something that was big in the first few seasons—it felt like the series was getting back to its roots. If Season 18 turns out to be the last one, we wouldn’t be surprised to see it come full circle, with an increased focus on the doctors just starting out in their careers, in order to help viewers recall the ambition and excitement that helped define the show back when it was new. In fact, speaking of “just like the old days,” Jimmy Kimmel recently brought up on his late-night talk show that, as a fan pointed out on Twitter, Meredith is even rewearing clothes she was seen in during Season 1, further suggesting that Season 18 will be all about subtly bringing things full circle. Pompeo confirmed to Kimmel, “It is the same shirt,” then cryptically suggested that such Easter eggs are meant to “pay homage to… many things in many different seasons.”
Grey’s Anatomy’s is also harking back to “remember the why”
Speaking of coming full circle, there was a lot of talk in “Some Kind of Tomorrow” about getting back to the reason they all became doctors in the first place. Miranda spoke of the “joy” of practicing medicine, which used to be a high priority for her earlier in the series, before it seemed to get crowded out by the practical concerns of her job. She also referred to the burnout and exhaustion that was causing so many doctors to leave the profession (or at least, the hospital), concerned about Grey Sloan’s waning numbers, but also perhaps in reference to the audience exhaustion for a show that’s been around long enough to get a driver’s license. Miranda spoke fondly of when the doctors used to have “pizza nights and retreats, and the residents would prank each other,” wishing they could recover the feeling that “we were all in this together for something bigger than ourselves.” Richard responds that he has ideas—“big ones”—for how the doctors of Grey Sloan may rediscover those feelings again. It all sounds like a setup for Season 18 to possibly return to the playfulness of earlier seasons, when resident competitions, living room dance parties, and tricking smarmy doctors into handing their boss a hot cup of urine was par for the course. Not only would that be a fun callback for a final season, but it would be a reminder that, as Ellis Grey used to say, “the carousel never stops turning,” and that although Grey’s Anatomy will eventually come to an end, there will (hopefully) always be a new generation of bright-eyed, idealistic doctors for us to cheer on.
Grey’s Anatomy has been bringing back some familiar faces
Grey’s Anatomy has had a lot of cast members come and go over the years, but between Seasons 17 and 18, nearly all of its biggest names have returned for a curtain call. Season 17 saw Derek, Lexie Grey (Chyler Leigh), Mark Sloan (Eric Dane), and George O’Malley (T.R. Knight) all show up on Meredith’s beach for some final moments of closure following their sudden accidental deaths many seasons earlier. It also saw the return of April Kepner (Sarah Drew), who agreed to accompany her ex-husband Jackson to Boston, and hinted that the two may finally reconcile. Now, Season 18 is bringing back former series regular and spinoff protagonist Addison Montgomery (Kate Walsh)—even calling back to her iconic entrance in Season 1—for a major arc. Grey’s has also brought back former recurring guest stars Abigail Spencer and Kate Burton to reprise their roles as well. Even Izzie Stevens (Katherine Heigl) got some closure in Season 16 as part of the controversial exit of Alex Karev (Justin Chambers). It definitely seems like Grey’s Anatomy is intentionally bringing back as many familiar faces as it can for an encore, which can’t help but feel like something a show would save for its final act. Sure, former cast members have returned before – Teddy Altman (Kim Raver) notably left the show at the end of Season 8, only to return as a series regular in Season 15 – but never en masse like this. And considering how many past fan favorites have already returned for one last bow, if this is the final season of Grey’s Anatomy, we wouldn’t rule out the possibility that the show could still have a few more guest star surprises up its sleeve. Find out which of your other favorite shows are in their final season with our Fall TV 2021 guide.
