It’s been 11 years since we waded deep into ShondaLand, occasionally coming up gasping for air and crying our guts out. We’ve hurled verbal imprecations our grandmothers wouldn’t be too proud of at the show’s creators/writers/basically-everyone-else-who-has-The-Power, and sworn to look away forever. Only to be hooked the next season, just as much the last.
Has Grey’s Anatomy really been on air for 11 whole years? What with the number of times we’ve watched each episode looking for Derek Shepherd’s ghost (is it time to reach out for help?), it’s been hard to keep track. Especially since the show, still running, has achieved iconic status and earned Miss Shonda Rhimes the lovely moniker ‘ruiner of lives’. Of course, there’s the running joke that Miss Rhimes is to TV what George RR Martin is to Game of Thrones fans – but that’s another landmine we aren’t touching.
Thank you though, Miss Rhimes and the Grey’s Anatomy fraternity, for giving us 11 years of sheer, exhausting, exhilarating human emotion – and particularly for these:
You’re My Person
When Meredith Grey and Christina Yang gave us new friendship goals. ‘You’re my person’ is now acceptable, nay, unavoidable best friend talk. Boyfriends, husbands, attending positions – none of ‘em matter. What does is a free-flowing bottle and a dance routine no one else gets.
McDreamy
Are you thinking McFlurry’s? Maybe a Big Mac? We understand your confusion. McDreamy became speakeasy for the gentle-eyed doctor that walked into Grey’s life over a decade ago. A decade later, we’re still mourning an unspeakable loss.
It’s a Beautiful Day to Save Lives
Sigh. Here’s to the mantra of life Dempsey/Shepherd mouthed each time he walked into an operating room (of course, it’s ironic that he said it moments before being rammed into by a truck). Also, the irony of a neurosurgeon who ends up brain-dead is lost on no one. Still, it is a beautiful phrase to live in hope. Excuse us while we go mail Shonda the Ekta Kapoor manual of bringing back the dead.
Post-it Weddings
They’re totally a thing. MerDer gave whole new meaning to on-the-spur shaadis for super busy couples when they ditched their wedding extravaganza to get married over a couple of Post-its. Writing your vows on two slips of yellow paper and calling yourself officially married? Only Mer and Der could pull that off.
That ‘Slow-Mo’ Walk of Death
Nobody, we repeat nobody, has done death as heartrendingly as Grey’s Anatomy (GOT, are you listening?). After 11 whole seasons, dying is pretty much a rite of passage on GA, and you’ll be laughed at for being a noob if you profess attachment to anyone on the show. The slow swinging open of operating room doors to announce a death, the sliding open of elevators to let harried doctors spill out, the ‘bright light’ at the end of the tunnel, the sad song at the end of an episode – are all known motifs of Grey’s Anatomy. With any luck, Shonda will hold off on killing anyone this season. (Haha, did you fall for that?)
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