Grey’s Anatomy had to give up on many ends last year: first Meredith actress Ellen Pompeo left the series, then season 20 could not return in the fall due to the Hollywood strike, the spin-off Seattle Firefighters will end after season 7 and is now preserved we only have a shortened season with 10 episodes. So how did the series start its new season in the USA last night? The short answer is: pretty desperate.
Warning, there are spoilers for the start of Season 20.
Ellen Pompeo as a fire extinguisher: Grey’s Anatomy brings Meredith Gray back as if nothing had happened
After the loss of long-time director Krista Vernoff, Meg Marinis takes the reins as the new series director in season 20. She has been a hard worker behind the scenes on Grey’s Anatomy for a long time and has worked her way up from production assistant to screenwriter and now showrunner. That means she knows her way around the Seattle hospital, but she certainly also knows about the crisis the series is in after the dramatic end of season 19. But how can this be done? Crisis of a Grey’s Anatomy without Ellen Pompeo fight? Apparently with Ellen Pompeo.
ABC
Grey’s Anatomy still belongs to Meredith Gray in season 20
That Grey’s Anatomy’s 20th season Meredith actress in at least 4 of the 10 episodes will bring back has been known for a long time thanks to THR. There is no real farewell to the main character. In this way, the disappointed fans are satisfied and Ellen Pompeo continues to rule “her” series as a permanent guest star who just drops by from Boston. And that won’t stop anytime soon if season 20 gives her the plotline of innovative, potentially reputation-damaging Alzheimer’s research right at the beginning.
Meredith’s presence is best demonstrated in a scene in which the visiting doctor is supposed to help out during an operation and Dr. Miranda Bailey (Chandra Wilson) rushes into the operating room. Her old mentor has to remind her that Meredith is only supposed to assist. But the message is clear: As long as Dr. Gray pushes himself into the spotlight, Dr. Bailey doesn’t shine. She has just won the prestigious Catherine Avery Prize. As the most loyal cast member with the most episode appearances (426, the same as James Pickens Jr.), she deserved the leadership position anyway.
Grey’s Anatomy – S20 Teaser Trailer (English) HD
Ellen Pompeo’s return in Season 20 may be the CPR that keeps Grey’s Anatomy going. But at the start of the season this feels uncomfortably like reviving a cold corpse. It’s as if the Series tries to take back fatal decisions or at least make us forget. She doesn’t manage to look forward, although that seemed within reach at the beginning of the last season with a wave of new cast members. But now a backwards trend runs through the entire start of season 20.
Between tradition and new start: Grey’s Anatomy is stuck at the start of season 20
The first episode of the 20th season is ironically titled “We’ve Only Just Begun”. That sounds like a steep thesis after a series run of 19 years, but it shows it at the same time Predicament that Grey’s Anatomy finds itself in: keep tired fans and still renew themselves.
A self-driving car embodies this perfectly as a metaphor in this first episode: The modern vehicle rams an ambulance due to a technical error. Again and again and again. Of course, while two doctors are trapped inside and trying to save a patient. The car is a technological innovation that… Pitfalls of change shows – why Grey’s Anatomy prefers to move on sticks to the familiar.
ABC
Grey’s Anatomy: the young doctors in season 20 are allowed to stay
So in keeping with Meredith’s appearance, everything stays the same: The interns Griffith (Alexis Floyd), Kwan (Harry Shum Jr.), Millin (Adelaide Kane), Yasuda (Midori Francis) and Adams (Niko Terho) are threatened after their patient Death means expulsion, but in the end everyone gets to stay. The life of Dr. Teddy Altman (Kim Raver) is hanging by a thread due to a dental complication after the last season cliffhanger, but Finally she wakes up again. Jo (Camilla Luddington) and Link (Chris Carmack) provide the necessary dose of positivity and alcoholic Dr. Webber once again makes the decision to turn away from alcohol. The return of Arizona (Jessica Capshaw), announced by TVLine for season 20, is also in the same old vein.
At the latest when Dr. Bailey Meredith explains that she started out as a catastrophic doctor and in the end she takes over the guidance of the next generation of doctors with the words “I have five rules” and we are back in season 1. And with the realization that Grey’s Anatomy in season 20 offers us a desperate regurgitation of what we’ve already seen here countless times. But now it is Recipe for success that tastes like bitter medicine.
It is currently not known when Grey’s Anatomy will return with its new episodes to ProSieben, Joyn and Disney+ in Germany.