When season 19 of Grey’s Anatomy returns this week on Thursday, February 23, it will be time for Grey Sloan Memorial (and Grey’s fans) to say goodbye to Doctor Meredith Grey as she leaves Seattle in order to get Zola into the type of gifted school she needs in Boston. It won’t exactly be the last time we see Meredith on the show, but for all intents and purposes, Mer will no longer be a doctor at Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital.
It’s wild to even type that sentence since we’ve been following Meredith’s journey for almost two decades now. Through all the loves and losses, the ferryboat crashes and bombs in bodies, the failed trials and the medical miracles, Meredith Grey (played by Ellen Pompeo) has been our hero. While so much can be said about her romantic entanglements and the friendships that stood the test of time, today we’re going to focus on one of the most important aspects to Meredith Grey: her time in the O.R.
While not all of these memorable moments over the course of Meredith’s career as a hardcore surgeon have to do with actual surgery (the drama of Grey Sloan knows no bounds!), they do all take place within the walls of one of Meredith’s favorite places in the world — the operating room. Below, we look back at 10 important moments Meredith had in the O.R. — the wins, the losses, and some wild emotional crises — before she scrubs in one last time.
Meredith’s First Time in the Seattle Grace O.R.
Season 1, Episode 1, “A Hard Day’s Night”
It’s not the most exciting moment in the O.R. that we’ve witnessed over the past 18 seasons, but it is a moving one — and one that we’ve revisited time and time again. On the new recruits’ very first day as interns at Seattle Grace Hospital, Chief of Surgery Richard Webber walks them around the hospital and eventually inside an operating room. It’s there that he gives all of them his famous Intern Speech. It’s all the “today you are the doctors” and “the seven years you spend here as surgical residents will be the best and worst of your life” you could want. Meredith can’t help but be inspired — she can’t help but begin to understand that this is where she belongs.
Meredith’s First Surgery
Season 1, Episode 1, “A Hard Day’s Night”
You never forget your first — surgery, that is. Or love, I guess — because for Meredith Grey, they’re really one and the same. Grey’s Anatomy doesn’t mess around and waste time getting Meredith into an operating room: In the pilot episode, she meets Katie Bryce, a girl who does rhythmic gymnastics and is having seizures. While she is a pain in Mer’s ass, once Meredith and Cristina figure out that she has a brain bleed, Meredith gets to scrub in with Derek for Katie’s surgery.
Does Meredith promise to let Cristina be the one to scrub in and then go back on her word when it comes down to it? Sure. But Cristina forgives Mer for being “a shark” — actually, deep down she’s mostly impressed — and so do we. Mostly because we see her face post-surgery, and it is the face of a person who has just found her one true passion in life. “That was such a high. I don’t know why anybody does drugs,” she tells Derek, in awe. Welcome to the game, indeed.
When It Was About More Than the Patient
Season 2, Episode 6, “Into You Like a Train”
I wish I could forget “Into You Like a Train.” I wish I could forget it, but this season two episode — in which two very nice people get impaled together by a pole during a train accident, and one has to die in order to save the other — is seared into my brain. The emotional damage it inflicted on us all haunts me. Now, there are several moments in this episode that are gutting — Derek and Bailey in the elevator?! Forget it! — but it’s Meredith’s breakdown in the O.R. that might be the most memorable of the bunch.
Remember, in the previous episode, Mer had given her big “pick me, choose me, love me” speech and then here finds out that Derek is staying with Addison, rocking her — so emotions are high even before dear Bonnie is removed from the pole, and after a few futile moments of trying to save her, the docs move on to Tom. But when Meredith sees everyone just leave Bonnie there on the table, she loses it. “What about her?” she yells, unable to let her go. “We can’t just abandon her!” she goes on until Bailey has to come over and physically get Meredith to stop working on Bonnie. One might be asking: Is Meredith talking about Bonnie, or is she talking about herself? Because honestly, what about Meredith, Derek?! Like so many Grey’s Anatomy medical moments, this is about much more than the patient.
Just a Girl and Her Bomb
Season 2, Episode 16, “It’s the End of the World,” and Episode 17, “As We Know It”
She had to go and grab that bomb, didn’t she? Whether or not Meredith Grey has a death wish is something that the show will delve into later, but the thought definitely crossed people’s minds here. Even a casual Grey’s Anatomy fan will remember the big, post-Super Bowl, bomb-inside-a-chest-cavity episode.
When paramedic Hannah (hi, Christina Ricci!) arrives with her hand inside a patient’s chest cavity and people realize it is the only thing stopping the homemade explosive lodged inside there from going off, things seem pretty bad. Then, when Hannah freaks out and pulls her hand out so she can run off, and Meredith, without really thinking about the repercussions, slips her hand right on into that chest to steady the bomb, well, things seem much worse. But wait! AND THEN, when Webber and the bomb squad realize that the O.R. Meredith and the bomb are currently in is directly over the oxygen line, making the possible casualty count much, much higher should the bomb go off, that’s when things really seem dire.
In an especially great sequence, Bomb Squad Dylan (Kyle Chandler!) directs Meredith and the team to slowly walk with the gurney down the hallway to a safer O.R. It’s here where she’ll have to slowly pull the bomb out of the man’s chest without setting it off. It’s here where the reality of her situation comes crashing down on Meredith. To calm herself down, she pictures Derek. It’s just her and Derek and an empty operating room. She pulls the bomb out. Anna Nalick’s “Breathe (2 AM)” is playing. It’s an iconic moment in Grey’s Anatomy history. And then, yes, Dylan goes and gets blown up while trying to get the bomb out of the hospital, but he selected Bomb Squad Guy as his career path, so that’s really on him.
Meredith Loses Her Sanctuary
Season 6, Episode 24, “Death and All His Friends”
Ah yes, yet another harrowing experience in the O.R. for Meredith Grey (and the audience). Why does she want to be a surgeon again? This is the big season six finale in which a shooter is loose in the hospital. When Derek’s shot in the chest, it’s left to Cristina (with an assist from Jackson) to try and save him. As if that alone isn’t enough pressure, the shooter makes his way into the O.R. and puts a gun to Cristina’s head and orders her to stop operating — to let Derek die. He’s seeking revenge for his late wife, who was in the care of Webber, Lexie, and Derek at the hospital. So for Meredith, it’s pretty simple: She offers herself up as the revenge he wants in order to stop him from killing Derek.
“Shoot me,” she pleads, telling him that she’s related to and loved by all of the people he’s angry with. “I’m your eye for an eye.” It’s one of the most heart-wrenching moments of the series … maybe ever? But it’s not the only major O.R. moment for Meredith in this episode. Chaos ensues, and Owen winds up getting shot in the shoulder. While Cristina works to save Derek, she begs Meredith to save Owen. Meredith and April take Owen into another O.R. to deal with his wound, and in the middle of it, Meredith begins to suffer a miscarriage. And yet, Meredith refuses to stop. She works through it to help Owen. It’s devastating. In one day, the place Meredith considered her home and her “sanctuary” is changed forever.
Meredith’s First Solo Neurosurgery
Season 7, Episode 5, “Almost Grown”
It may not have been the first neurosurgery Meredith had planned on doing, but since when does anything go according to plan at Seattle Grace? No, seriously, why do patients still go there? That place is chaos. Anyway, fourth-year residents get to put on dark blue scrubs and lead surgeries for one day only, and when Jackson bests Meredith for Derek’s patient, she’s initially bummed. There is a silver lining: Meredith is then available when Lexie calls for an emergency consult when a post-op ortho patient goes into neurological distress. Derek has his own crisis in the O.R. to attend to, so it’s up to Meredith to give this woman an emergency craniotomy. Not surprisingly, Meredith shows nothing but confidence when she steps into that room and opens up the patient’s skull. When Derek finally does show up, Meredith tells him to let her finish because she’s got it handled. He can see that it’s true, and the man has never looked prouder. Meredith and Derek’s love language is surgery, after all.
When Meredith Directs Residents on How to Perform Her Own Surgery … From the Operating Table
Season 9, Episode 24, “Perfect Storm”
If there’s any one surgical moment that really sums up our girl Meredith, it’s probably this one. Meredith is in labor with her and Derek’s second child during a power outage at the hospital caused by a storm (naturally), and because there are complications with the delivery (of course there are!), they need to perform a c-section … in the dark. Baby Bailey is born, but the ob-gyn is called away, leaving Meredith’s own interns, Shane and Heather, to close up. It’ll be fine, they say! It’s routine, they say! Meredith directs them on how to proceed from the table. And when she starts bleeding out from an unforeseen injury to her abdomen? Well, she keeps on directing them on how to save her life up until the moment when she loses consciousness. Thankfully, Bailey — who’s been avoiding the O.R. because of a whole MRSA thing we do not have the time to get into now — swoops in and saves Meredith’s life. Bailey is a rock star. Meredith is a rock star. This whole situation cements it.
Meredith and the Ferryboat Scrub Cap
Season 11, Episode 23, “She’s Leaving Home, Part 2”
It was never a matter of if Meredith would get back into the O.R. after Derek died, only a matter of when and, maybe, how. Grey’s Anatomy doesn’t tease us with the answers for too long: After a year away from Seattle (or two episodes in real time), Meredith has her and Derek’s third child, Ellis, and has processed Derek’s death enough that she can at least get back to work. She’s not sentimental about this major step forward (this is Meredith Grey we’re talking about), but she does take a moment to acknowledge the loss and honor her husband by taking his beloved ferryboat scrub cap, still tucked in his lab coat, and putting it on before stepping into the O.R. Once inside, Bailey asks, “You ready for this?” and Meredith doesn’t hesitate: “I am,” she says. Anyway, not like I’m crying right now thinking about it or anything.
If at First You Don’t Succeed: The Abdominal Wall Saga
Season 14, Episode 1, “Break Down the House,” and Episode 2, “Get Off on the Pain”
Okay, this is two moments for the price of one, but they are really tied together — because doesn’t the pain of our failures make our successes all the sweeter? When Megan Hunt is found alive after 10 years as a hostage in Iraq, she is a bit worse for the wear: She has an excruciatingly awful abdominal injury. Even though things are a little complicated since, before Megan rose from the dead, Meredith and Megan’s former boyfriend Nathan Riggs were sort of falling for each other, Meredith wants to help give Megan the full life she deserves. Her first plan to put a graft over the wound fails spectacularly. Meredith’s frustration and anger in that O.R. are palpable. But the misstep only pushes Meredith to work harder to solve the problem. She comes up with something wild: a complete abdominal wall transplant. The actual surgery is just a brief moment of triumph in the episode, but because we got to watch Meredith fail, we know how much this win means to her. A win so major, it might just win her the Harper Avery.
Meredith Wins Her Harper Avery
Season 14, Episode 7, “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story”
In the big 300th episode of Grey’s Anatomy, Meredith is set to fly off to Boston for the Harper Avery Awards, but she’s terrified. I mean, there’s the whole plane aspect — we know Mer does not like to fly, and we don’t blame her! — but it’s more about being terrified of losing. Meredith wants this award, the highest achievement in the surgical world, something she’s been chasing for most of her life, so badly. So, it’s not surprising that when a trauma event comes through with patients who remind her of George, Cristina, and Izzie, she uses it as an excuse to stay in Seattle and save lives for the day. She needs the distraction. Thankfully, her friends won’t let her off the hook so easily.
After Meredith finishes up yet another stellar surgery, Bailey and Webber hook up a live feed of the ceremony, and everyone gathers in the O.R. and up in the gallery. Meredith Grey wins the Harper Avery. There is applause, and there are tears (I see you, Bailey!). And then, as Meredith looks up to her daughter Zola in the gallery, she sees her mother, Ellis, standing behind her, cheering her on. Meredith’s relationship with her late mother is complicated, to say the absolute least, but all she’s ever wanted was to make Ellis proud of her. And getting to do that while standing there in an operating room, a place so special to both of them, well, it doesn’t get much better than that.
Maggie Fremont is a freelance pop culture writer with a focus on television. You can find more of her writing on Vulture, Entertainment Weekly's EW.com, and TV Guide.
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