Spoiler alert! Do not proceed if you have not watched Thursday’s episode of “Grey’s Anatomy”.

 

 

Meredith Grey had an emotional reunion with one the most beloved characters from “Grey’s Anatomy”.

Prior to Thursday’s episode, it was teased that “another person from Meredith’s past returns” after Patrick Dempsey’s McDreamy shocker, and the ABC medical drama wasn’t playing around with its latest cast surprise. As Meredith’s (Ellen Pompeo) COVID-19 battle continued, she was reunited in her beachside dreamscape with George O’Malley (T.R. Knight), a “Grey’s” OG and one of Meredith’s closest confidantes who died 11 seasons ago.

As Meredith lay unconscious at Grey Sloan, she was transported once again to her COVID dream, where she saw a figure leaning over the side of the lifeguard’s station on the beach. “Excuse me!” she yells toward the shadowed figure.

As the camera pans closer, it becomes clear it’s George.

“Mer?” George asks, slightly confused. “What are you doing here?”

Meredith and George pick up right where they left off, as if no time had passed between them. “Derek said the sand isn’t real,” Meredith says, not believing it to be true.

“Yeah, nope…,” George confirms. “It is nice though. I wouldn’t want to leave either.” The two friends catch up on all that’s happened since his premature death, most notably Meredith’s three kids.

“You didn’t meet them,” she mentions, prompting George to reply, “I check in sometimes….” Excuse us, that’s just our hearts breaking into a billion little pieces.

After a beat, Meredith asks the proverbial question about the afterlife: “Do I choose? Do I get to decide?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t,” George answers truthfully, referencing the brutal accident that left him unrecognizable. “I would’ve stayed if I could’ve. Different for everyone though.”

Knight and series executive producer/showrunner Krista Vernoff spoke about George’s return and that final scene in an interview with Deadline.

Vernoff said when asked if Knight being joined by the three remaining “Grey’s” original cast members was a coincidence or a throwback to the show’s early years: “Well, it certainly wasn’t just a coincidence. It was a beautiful pitch from Meg Marinis and Andy Reaser, who are my number two’s at ‘Grey’s Anatomy’. I had written the George-on-the-beach scene.

“Some of the writers this season didn’t even know who the special guest stars were, so I wrote all the beach scenes, and when Meg and Andy read them they came to me, and it was Meg who said, there is an opportunity here because Bailey and Richard are talking over Meredith’s bed, to have them appear on the beach, and to have this, what I think is, an instantly iconic moment of the four of them together again, and I was like, yes, please. That’s why you hire smart people. It’s so good.”

In the show, as Richard (James Pickens Jr.) and Bailey (Chandra Wilson) were looking over Meredith in the hospital room, they were then transported to the beach where they sat with Meredith and George.

Knight added of whether the scene felt iconic, “Even though we filmed this in the middle of October, I’m still trying to put into words how profound the experience was for me, so just hearing that made my eyes leak saltwater a little bit. When Krista first gave me the pages, Bailey was not in it yet, I think Richard was. And then I got the second round. It’s just hard for me to put into words, still, how meaningful it was.”

Like Dempsey’s return, Vernoff added “I think there are members of the cast who still don’t know this is happening,” due to the characters’ big comeback being kept so secret.

Knight shared, “And only my husband knows. Only Patrick knows. I’m going to have a lot of angry friends, but that’s… they’ll understand.”

Knight played George for the first five seasons on “Grey’s” before departing the series in 2009. The character was killed off in the season 6 premiere following a brutal accident in the fifth season finale, which remains one of the most stunning TV developments in the show’s history.

Kevin McKidd, who directed the last episode, played coy when asked if McDreamy’s appearance opened the door for more returns down the line, only saying that Dempsey’s return is just the “tip of the iceberg.”

“I say nothing. But you know, it’s a great premise. What I love about this is that COVID — many people who have had COVID report that in night time, they get these night visions and strange dreams and [it’s] very hard to sleep and it’s all lucid dreaming,” he told ET. “So this opportunity to do what we’re doing with the character of Meredith [through our storytelling] is truly [remarkable].”

“I know nothing,” he quipped, pausing for a moment before hinting that he knows more than he’s letting on. “Maybe…”

“Grey’s Anatomy” airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on ABC. For more on McDreamy’s return, watch the video below.

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Giacomo Gianniotti Teases ‘Grey’s’ Cast Return: ‘Anything Is Possible’

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