Grey’s Anatomy Producer Fought With Creator Shonda Rhimes Over Divisive Meredith Storyline
A former producer on Grey’s Anatomy details getting into a huge argument with creator Shonda Rhimes over a divisive storyline involving Meredith.
A former producer and showrunner on Grey’s Anatomy details getting into a huge argument with creator Shonda Rhimes over a divisive storyline involving Ellen Pompeo’s Meredith Grey. The long-running hospital drama distinguished itself early on for its ability to garner passionate responses and buzzy moments, solidifying ABC as a top network and catapulting Rhimes into one of Hollywood’s star creatives. But as former Grey’s writer and producer Tony Phelan reveals, not every one of those decisions was agreed upon.
In an interview with the Hollywood At Home With The Creative Coalition podcast to promote his miniseries A Small Light, Phelan also looked back on his career in television and recalled an argument he had with Rhimes over a storyline in Grey’s Anatomy season 2 that had Meredith having a one-night stand with George O’Malley (T.R. Knight). Phelan, who worked on Grey’s from 2005 to 2014, eventually serving as co-showrunner with his wife Joan Rater for eight seasons, worried the audiences would hate Meredith. Read his quote below:
I think Shonda’s genius lies in defying what the audience is going to expect. And taking pride in that. I remember we had a huge argument, the two of us in the room, about Meredith sleeping with George.
And I was like, ‘if she sleeps with George, we just hate her’. And Shonda said, ‘no, I can imagine myself at that age doing that. And then you get to deal with have they ruined their relationship. We have to do it.’
How Did Grey’s Anatomy Handle George & Meredith?
In the show’s very early days, George was in love with Meredith. She didn’t reciprocate those feelings, given her focus on Derek (Patrick Dempsey), and she really only thought of him as a friend. But with a bit of a push from Izzie (Katherine Heigl), George eventually confesses to Meredith how he feels. In the moment and after a particularly bad day, Meredith thinks George just might be the one.
The one-night stand, which happens in Grey’s Anatomy season 2, episode 18, “Yesterday”, doesn’t go well. Meredith burst into tears, and George felt humiliated. The storyline fleshes out George’s character, and he becomes the first character other than Meredith to narrate an episode. That’s the following episode in which the friends try to move beyond the awkwardness and get back what they had. At the time, there was a lot of debate about the storyline and how it negatively impacted the friendship. Some exclusively blamed Meredith, who was in love with Derek, or George for his incessant pining.
They do eventually move past it, agreeing to both share blame, and they become stronger friends in the process, Meredith even sees George on the beach in Grey’s Anatomy season 17, underlining how important he remains to her after his death. In and out of consciousness, Meredith told George how he impacted her life. He also visits her in a season 15 episode as a spirit on the Day of the Dead, proving that the purposefully clunky story wasn’t a fatal flaw.