Grey's Anatomy: Grey Matter

From Joan Rater, one of the writers of "Deterioration of the Fight or Flight Response" (hour 1 of the 2 hour finale)

Original Airdate: May 15, 2006 (Note: The second hour of the two hour finale, titled "Losing My Religion," was written by Shonda, and she will be sharing her thoughts on that one herself in a bit...)

I know, I know, I KNOW!!!!!!  Denny's dead and it sucks.  More than sucks.  Blows.  Feels awful and empty and seriously, why couldn't Denny have lived?

Well, if you'd been hanging around the Writer's Room in March you would have heard the writers asking that very question, day after day.  Does Denny really have to die?  There was one particular day when most of the writers had decided that Denny couldn't die.  He had to live. Seriously.  Why not?  And when Shonda came into the Writer's Room and Krista said, "Does Denny have to die?", I think Shonda's head almost exploded because it was about the 12th person that day who had asked the very same question.  And here's the thing.  The person who wanted Denny to live the MOST is Shonda.  We all love Denny because he's so charming and Denny-ish and the actor is even more charming and Jeffrey-ish, but let me tell you there was no one more tortured and torn up about it than Shonda.  So you say to yourself, okay, you're the writers, you could have saved him if you wanted to.  But we couldn't.  Denny had to die. And not for plot reasons or anything like that, it's just ... it's hard to explain.  As bad as it felt, it also felt right.  “Right” is so the wrong word, but it felt inevitable.  But since Denny didn't die until hour two, and Tony and I wrote hour one, I'll leave it to Shonda to talk more about Denny ...

What I really want to talk about is you guys.  The fans.  I mean, we all know it was one hell of an emotional roller coaster, these last three episodes.  And a lot of things are still up in the air … Mer/Der/Finn in particular.  I watched last night with my nieces and nephew who literally were begging me for something, anything about next season.  I so wanted to tell them that no matter what happens with Izzie, or who Meredith picks, it's all going to be alright (I'm a mother, I have 2 kids, so I'm inclined to want to make it all better and for there to be band-aids put on skinned knees and happy endings at the end of stories).  But before I became a mother, I was a single woman living in New York City through most of my twenties.  And I know from experience that before the happy ending there's a lot of bad choices, bad luck, one night stands and tequila.  Not to mention amazing, magical times that make all those bad choices and one night stands worth it.  Your twenties are when you figure out who you are, and what matters to you.  You're forming friendships that will sustain you.  You're making plans.  Looking for your soulmate.  Wondering if there is such a thing as a soulmate. These interns are struggling with all that while learning to be surgeons.  I started this paragraph saying I wanted to talk about you guys, the fans, and I ended up talking about myself (something Tony says I do a lot).  I guess it's because when I read your comments, I can relate.  I might not agree, but I usually get and appreciate how you feel and where you're coming from, even if it's an angry rant about how dare we kill Denny.  Seriously, you guys, we feel it too.  All we're trying to do is do right by these characters, and write stuff we'd want to watch.

So I’ll leave you with what I told my nieces and nephew last night about next season:  It’s gonna be great.  You’ll laugh … and cry … and hate our characters one minute … and love them the next.  And throw things at your TV. 

And we'll keep doing our best to bring you stories about the messiness of being human.

From Joan Rater, one of the writers of "Tell Me Sweet Little Lies..."

Original Airdate 1/22/06

Since the theme of last night's episode was lying, I'll start out with a little bit of truth here - writing this blog kind of terrifies me. It's clear from comments Kip got about his episode last week that some fans are getting frustrated/upset with the whole Derek/Meredith/Addison triangle. I mean, he said he was going to try to work it out with Addison, but he keeps being McDreamy with Meredith. What's that about? In last night's episode he told Cristina that he can be nice to Meredith without being McDreamy. Right. He gets near Meredith and he's dreamy as hell. So is he just a big liar? I'd like to offer my two cents on that question, but first, let me introduce myself ...

My name is Joan, and my writing partner, Tony also happens to be my husband of twelve years. We’re the new kids on the staff, having just started this season. We come from writing much more procedural type stuff, like Law and Order, so it was a big shift to move to a show where we get to explore the personal lives of our characters. And I must say we love it. This group of writers is so passionate and committed about staying true to these characters. Even if the truth isn't pretty. So when we started work on this episode, we obviously looked to our own relationship for inspiration. Now, I haven't had an affair with Tony's best friend, and as far as I know he hasn't slept with an intern on the show, but since Tony and I work together and have been married roughly the same amount of time Addison and Derek have, we have a little insight into their relationship. There isn't a conversation that Tony and I haven't had; a subject that hasn't been covered; a story that hasn't been told, retold and then told again. I'm just saying, the day to day of a marriage can get a little monotonous sometimes – especially if one or both partners don’t constantly work at keeping things fresh. So … Addison slipped, Derek bolted across the country to start over, and he met Meredith – the woman who is quite possibly his soulmate.

Derek and Meredith were still in the exciting “getting to know you” stage of their relationship when Addison showed up. And once Derek made his choice and decided to try to work it out with Addison, his break with Meredith was abrupt … almost violent. Almost as if, like Rick the guitarist who lost his fingers, Derek and Meredith were forced to go cold turkey. And for any of you who have tried to quit smoking, there’s always that little voice in your head telling you, “C’mon, just one more cigarette. You can quit whenever you want. What harm is one more gonna do???”

Derek is telling the truth when he says he wants to work it out with Addison. But let's face it, he's not over Meredith. So here he is torn between two competing desires and so he does what we all do in these situations - he lies. And not just to Addison and Meredith. He lies to himself. “I can be friends with Meredith. Help her get her mother into the Alzheimer's clinical trial. Take her dog. I mean, it's just a dog. It doesn’t mean anything.” And the tragedy of the situation is that Derek actually believes it.

We all lie. More than any of us is comfortable with. And the joy of working on a show like Grey’s Anatomy is to explore characters we love, people we all recognize, as they struggle and fight and win and lose and take three steps forward and two steps back.