As ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy wraps its season Grey’s lovers, haters and love-to-haters wonder where in the hell did the show’s creator Shonda Rhimes go wrong.
By Adeshola Blue
Dear Shonda,
Let me preface this by saying, “I believe you are a phenomenal talent, and I admire your skill.” However, you are only as good as your last performance and you, my dear, are severely slacking. You created one of the most compelling dramas on television, and you have started to truly ruin it. Grey’s was your baby. You put your heart and soul into it, and it showed.
How did you turn the show that I loved into the show that I now love to hate?
Where did it all go so wrong?
More after the jump.
Exhibit A: You fired Isaiah Washington. It was bad enough you couldn’t decide what to do when the gay slur-filled controversy that was Isaiahgate went down. So you dragged it out for weeks and weeks, talking out of both sides of your neck, saying you wanted to keep Isaiah on the show while also wanting to placate the other side who wanted him fired. After repeatedly saying his character Burke had a shot at staying and after watching Isaiah do the dance of homophobia rehab, apologizing to God, man, every gay person and their pet, having him do an anti-homophobia PSA for GLAAD and you STILL fired him at the end of the season.
I felt like you sacrificed Washington so that you wouldn’t have to fall on the sword…. I don’t condone it but I understand. Grey’s was your baby and you had to protect your child at all costs. I was even willing to give you a pass on Isaiahgate because you had the number one drama on tv, you were a black woman, and I felt you had the talent to get beyond the loss of a pivotal member of your ensemble cast leaving and continue to right good material. Damn, I was wrong.
No matter how you feel about Washington personally, the character of Burke was one of the few half-ass adult characters on the show. With him gone George continued to falter and make less and less sense, McDreamy no longer had a tether to keep his giant head of hair tied to earth and poor Cristina Yang had to spend a season in the wilderness with virtually no storylines.
Exhibit B: The George Izzie Callie Love Triangle. No offense to George, but even before he was outed, I had no desire to see him in a sex scene … None. Then you take him out of a relationship that may have worked, and had him sneak around and cheat on Callie with Izzie, a chick he had a super creepy “sister” vibe with. Talk about a jump the shark moment. Never mind you never had him resolve his daddy death issues … or why the women of Seattle Grace would want to bone his boring ass in the first place.
Exhibit C: The Neverending Gay Girl Storyline. George is “forced” to come out in real life, but “Callie,” a once promising character with good medical storylines, has to be magically gay and have a revolving door of lesbian love affairs, evidence that the writers didn’t have a clue as to what they were doing. The whole thing was spastic to her hooking up with the Dr. Burke replacement, Dr. Hahn, then once you start to get used to Dr. Hahn, boom she is gone, heading out to the Parking Lot of No Return. Then Callie has to whine and moan about her gay love affairs to Mark Sloan, the one character she did have actual sexual chemistry with (the big Latina girl can’t get no love, eh?), then you spend several episodes of her stealing annoying and unnecessary glances with yet another female character played by Melissa George that ends in nothingness.
Finally you introduce Arizona, a much more likable and “normal” Lesbian, but because Callie doesn’t have enough issues that have nothing to do with medicine, she is abruptly cut off and cut out from her family because of said gay relationship.
Um. No.
I don’t want to see this at all. It is not that interesting, and it takes a once strong female character and turns her into a whiny whimpering shell of her former self. And the real question is this, “Why couldn’t one of the guys be gay?” Brothers and Sisters has gay men on their show. Why couldn’t George come out on the show instead of the whole stud muffin thing, George with the Unicorn Magic Penis thing? Wouldn’t that have been more compelling? He could have gotten the Emmy he felt he deserved (heavy sarcasm), despite the whole middling acting thing and the bad writing thing and the whole “he magically became unlikable” post-Isaiahgate for reasons only the writers understand.
Exhibit D: The Godawful Dead Lover storyline. PEOPLE HAVING SEX WITH DEAD PEOPLE! Really? You wasted my time this season with non-stop Izzie getting freaky with her dead fiance? Wha? Why? The Hell? Not only do you jump the shark, you humped a dead shark over and over until I was convinced you and said dead shark were going to have a litter of dead shark babies. It’s insulting to your viewer’s intelligence how much you focus on the relationships and not enough on the actual interesting part of the show.
You know? You remember? THE MEDICINE! Remember the competition and the rigour of becoming a surgeon? (Pssst! Watch season’s one and two.) Not only are the relationships silly, simple and annoying, the writing has gotten too predictable. I hate watching the show and knowing what is going to happen without ever having to read a spoiler or watching the rest of the episode. Your writing is border line bad soap opera. This foolishness must stop. (Oh yea, and fire some of those interns already. Use ’em or lose them. They’re all the stupidity of the original crew with none of the talents, looks or charisma.)
Exhibit E: Have you seen my testicles? You have single-handedly made every man on this show a eunuch. McDreamy is a wimpy crybaby that can’t allow a woman who is approximately 10 years his junior to get over her Daddy/mommy relationship issues. So he throws a tantrum and can’t seem to figure out how to be a big boy about these things when she needs time, or space, or for him to be reasonable. He then when gets what he wants, but can’t cope with his professional issues. After having patients die, which I could of swore came with the job description, he quits. And instead of handling this problem like an adult, he takes his mother’s wedding ring, a family heirloom that looks to be worth more than my teaching salary this year, and hits it with a baseball bat into the wilderness in front of his fiance? And this makes sense how?
The chief turns into a whiny baby when Bailey decides that she doesn’t want to take his place and she has to call his wife on him to get him to behave. Then McSteamy is running around, sneaking and hiding because he doesn’t want his friend McDreamy to know he’s banging the most banal character on the show, Lexie “Little Grey” Grey, Meredith’s sister. And now you expect me to believe that this irresponsibility isn’t going to have a negative effect on the continuity of care with the patients? You do remember the patients and the fact that this show is a medical drama about surgeons? Can we get a man with some balls next season? Someone with cajones of steel needs to help balance out all of the estrogen on the show. No more wimpy, whiny men. Men can be complex, strong, and understanding without being infantile.
Exhibit F: That Aborted Fetus of a Show, Private Practice. Now that I think about it, things started going badly when you started that damn spin off. You take the one strong, independent, kick ass white woman on the show, Addison, and you give her a spin off. Fine. Whatever. But then you cast Taye Diggs in said spin off. Talk about hiring the kiss of death. The man has already killed two TV shows at this point. Why must you people keep hiring Taye? Is he the only white-friendly black man in television? What did you guys think when you cast him? Is he the anti-Isaiah?
“You know we had one dark-skinned black guy, let’s get another one, but let’s make him as non-threatening as possible in a chocolate Will Smith kind of way. I know who we can get! Taye! He’s available.”
Then you had this whole crappy fertility clinic idea. Too bad no one likes the characters or the story lines. Not to mention the camera work was a little too glossy for me. I have spent plenty of time at the OB/GYN’s clinic, and it ain’t neva looked like a day spa. But I digress. The writing on that show is bad, and your baby Grey’s began to suffer. Then you had the bright idea of doing crossover episodes. The next time you decide to do the whole crossover episode thing … don’t. The beauty of Grey’s was that we got to know and like the characters. With Private Practice, the character development was lacking. You assumed that we would automatically like the people at the new clinic because they were Addison’s friends, but lazy writing + bad assumptions = show I will not watch. Don’t try to make me like a character. Let me see them develop and maybe I will like them.
The one character I did like you turned him into a jerk this season. He was playing the overprotective father and all around ass this year. Way to mess up the one light and airy, likable character on the show. And why oh why must you make Addison the perpetual homewrecker? All her strengths on Grey’s were boiled down and she became a mushy, boy crazy, hot mess and there’s poor Audra MacDonald in the middle of that hot mess and I’m just … why?
I understand that your shows are your babies, but you are not doing a good job with this motherhood thing. Your oldest child is being neglected, and your baby Private Practice is currently on life support. For the love of God, don’t have anymore children at this time. Oh wait. I hear you are going to have a new baby soon. “Inside the box,” a show staring Kim Raver and Jason George and some other random ass folks about journalism.
Look here woman, three children ain’t gonna cut it for ya. You can’t handle the two you have. Choose today woman, whom will you serve? Are you going to rededicate your life to Grey’s or continue to spread yourself too damn thin?
For the love of all that is good in television. Fix this foolishness.
Please!
Sincerely,
Depressed Grey’s fan
P.S. All said and done, *sigh* I will be watching the finale. If you go ahead and send George away to the Parking Lot of No Return and kill off Izzie. I may be able to stomach another season.
P.P.S. If you bring Isaiah back and/or hire Jill Marie Jones as the future chief of the hospital (or Jill being hired for any part at the hospital) all will be forgiven. We need another strong black woman on the show, and it would be nice if she were not a nurturer. Bailey is nurturing. Jill doesn’t have to be. Can you bring on the black Alpha diva female already? I saw a little of that with Kimberly Elise, but I truly believe that Jill can bring it.
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Adeshola Blue writes the blog Random Thoughts About Pressing Mess and watches all the horrible shows with your favorite black actors and actresses in them so you don’t have to.
Live Your Best Life. 
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