A Tragic Goodbye

This comes to you from a broken soul. A soul that, in fact, has been broken countless times over this same tragic event. It’s the one that keeps us all on our toes. We never know what’s going to happen, or rather, when it’s going to happen. Although, deep down, we know this is an inevitable fate that sooner or later we must come to terms with. No, I’m not talking about death, but I might as well be. It’s that same earth-shattering feeling – saying goodbye to your favorite TV show character.

As I’m sure you’ve heard, Grey’s Anatomy fans everywhere, including myself, kept tissues locked in hand while they wept together last Thursday as they felt great remorse over the loss of THE Derek Shepherd (played by Patrick Dempsey). (If you aren’t a fan of the show, THIS IS HUGE HUGE HUGE !!!!!!!) Ultimately this untimely misfortune made people furious. How can they just kill off one of the main characters? they ask. What about Meredith? they wonder. You can’t have Grey’s Anatomy without McDreamy!!!! they proclaimed.

Well, turns out they (Shonda Rhimes, to be exact) can kill off a main character. Meredith will never have a happy ending, obviously. And it looks like you can have Grey’s without McDreamy, because that’s exactly what’s about to happen with the remainder of this season and with Season 12, that has already been signed on for.

So, why do they do this to us? To keep us entertained? To make us weep hysterically? Those are age old questions that we see with almost every show on television. The creators and writers set us up with these perfect people that we spend seasons/years getting to know and falling in love with and then BOOM they take them from us. It seems that, even though it’s just about as unbearable as it can get at first, it makes the show better. They take the characters we know and love and kill them, send them to another country, give them their own show, etc. and give us bigger and better characters and story lines.

For example…

• Angel leaves Buffy right after her high school graduation (talk about heartbreaking) but ends up having his own show where he’s able to shine on his own and gives her a chance at dating a living boy (which doesn’t turn out so hot, but oh well). – Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• Peyton & Lucas both leave at the end of season 6, right when they’re doing beautifully in their family life/relationship. This was probably the worst time to say goodbye to them because EVERYONE wanted to see where they would go next in life. But, we got some really good characters (Quinn and Clay forever <3) the next season out of their farewell. – One Tree Hill
• The in and outs of Rory’s boyfriends throughout her whole high school and college life. We fell in love with Dean and then were ready for him to go when Jess came in the picture. Then she got Logan and we were all like “eh” and then “aw.” – Gilmore Girls

You see, friends, maybe something good will come out of this really horrible goodbye to the hottest doctor we’ve ever seen. Maybe we’ll get something better than we could’ve ever expected. Yes, we will continue to mourn him and our other loved ones that we’ve lost along the way, but keep your heads up soon we’ll be in greener pastures. (Lord, I hope…)