Grey's Anatomy: A Lighter Shade Next Year?

When you go to the writers' blog for Grey's Anatomy this year it all makes sense. And I'm not quite so mad at them for putting us all through this. I understand they had to tear everyone apart so they can put them back together again wiser and more aware of themselves. But, wow, it's been painful to watch. And I still think they went too far.

I hate that everytime Meredith starts to get a little stability, a little happiness, she gets knocked down again. She did not need to lose two mother figures, no matter how flawed one of them was, in the same season. The only thing that stopped that almost-relationship with her father from being a total disaster was that it helped her to appreciate the real caring male authority figure she has in the chief. And, yes, Meredith is very flawed when it comes to relationships; they don't come easy for her.She's never really had a model for how it's supposed to be. But Derek is not turning out to be so McDreamy after all. What exactly is he demanding? He wants to be the center of her life, and more important than her friends or her career. He doesn't seem to have any friends other than the rather stiff, respectful relationship between him and Burke, the tattered best friendship with a guy who slept with his ex-wife, and that same ex-wife. But it's beginning to be a little easier to see how Addison fell into that cheating situation. I mean, Meredith just almost drowned, lost her mother, lost her stepmother, lost her father again..the last thing she needs is Derek making demands on her. Can't he give her a little time to recuperate and find her feet???

And yes, I grant that Cristina was changing and giving up a lot of herself for her wedding with Burke. And we're supposed, according to writer Shonda Rimes, to believe Burke did the right thing by letting her go through all that and then not marrying her. He had plenty of time to figure that out before the wedding. If he didn't want to make her "become a Burke," in his mother's image, he could have just swept her up and out of the church, taken her back to the apartment to get out of that dress and into her Cristina clothes, and married her at the hospital chapel, in the one place that matters most to both of them. We're supposed to see that their views were too opposing for it ever to work, but I don't buy that. And just because she was willing to make those compromises for the wedding because it mattered so much to him, does not mean she would have stopped being Cristina in the areas that really mattered to her, like her career. It was just a wedding, not the entire future.

As for George..what a mess. The man is married. Izzie is an emotional disaster area. That whole triangle is just so totally unnecessary. What's it supposed to show? That these people are totally stunted when it comes to maturity? And then he fails his exam. For heaven's sake. Next season better give him a chance to grow up, too, and act like a man and not a kid.

And while I grant Callie is an amazing doctor, I see no reason at all why the chief should have picked her as chief resident. When has she ever taken any constructive responsibility for the interns, or proven herself particularly capable as a leader or instructor? Bailey worked heroically to keep our interns on the right track, and that she sometimes failed was not her fault. So the chief doesn't want her to sacrifice her family life for her career like he did; that's not his decision to make. And furthermore, he did not sacrifice his family for his career. He made plenty of time for Meredith's mother.

Shonda Rimes acknowledges that she knows this season was "not as light" as the first one; that's an understatement. With a few exceptions, this season has been all about loss and failure and misunderstanding, and while all those things are learning experiences, so are commitment, and loyalty and ethics.

Ms. Rimes says,

"I did my level best to burn it all down this season, to burn it to the ground so that we can have a place to build from next season. Burning it down was hard. But next season...oh, next season is all about the fun and the pain and the new beginnings. Because our interns are going to become residents. Because everyone is single again -- well, there is the little matter of Izzie and George and Callie...but still...

...the future is wide open, people. "

I stayed with Grey's this season because it is so well-acted, and so well-written, that I cared so intensely about these people that I wanted to see what happened to them next. But now, I'm really over having it all "burned down." These characters need to learn now about the other side of life; the part that does work, where people do have relationships that work because they work at them, even if they have careers. They need to have fun. And not only that, but the show really needs to get back to the hospital more. There were some fascinating medical moments this season, but not enough of them. I missed that. I hope Ms. Rimes is telling the truth, and this next season is at least as much about the fun as it is about the pain. We've all suffered enough.