Grey’s Anatomy :: Leave A Light On

ABC

‘The truth is? There’s no good way to say goodbye’, quothe Meredith on the voice-over outro of this 16th episode of the 16th season of Grey’s Anatomy. And while that may be true? There are also about 100 BETTER ways to say goodbye to Dr. Alex Karev than the complete and utter cop-out shenanigans that we got force-fed during ‘Leave A Light On’.

I suppose we should just be grateful that we actually got Justin Chambers’ voice-over for three out of his four goodbye letters.

16 seasons, series original, and all we get is ‘I went back to Izzie.’ (Who also had his babies because of that one time they froze embryos in a cup because Izzie was dying.)

I don’t know whether to fume with rage-fury-flames or to laugh at the absurdity of it. Or to cry outright for the fact that the GA writing team is so pathetic, and so out of ideas (and so out of respect for the Alex Karev character … nevermind whatever Justin Chambers did to get himself booted off the show …) that THIS – this is the best that they could come up with.

Mer gets a letter. Jo gets a letter. Bailey gets a letter. Webber gets a letter. Who do they think Alex is, Oprah? Everyone gets a letter! What’s he going to do next, start handing out cars?

The mush-gush factor of ‘you have to understand – now that I know I have test-tube twins’ (but seriously good job on making those farm-fed rugrats look passably like twins that could have been fathered by Alex and mothered by Izzie) isn’t enough to send off one of Grey-Sloan’s most beloved. At least when Sloan went off to die we got FauxFlashback footage (which was filmed for that exact purpose.) This was just a montage of old Izzie-Alex (and Alex/other) scenes strung together in a sentimental hogwash string of affairs. Props to the editor of archive footage, I guess.

We watched 42 minutes of episodes we’ve already watched, minus a few minutes of Mer and Jo and Bailey having facial reactions, a quick scene with Richard at AA (and even more flashbacks we’ve already seen) and a super-quick (but super important and relevant) scene between Ben and Bailey. They’ve got a communication problem that they’re fixing … though Ben ought to watch out. The last time someone conceded an argument like that without actually having the argument? Was Sloan during the Amnio-needle test when Callie was pregnant. And he died two seasons later.

I feel bad for Richard, I do. The trembling hand, the failed marriage, and the processing of the anger at Alex is pretty much a mirror of the anger we’re all feeling at TeamShonda right now. ‘Did the team not think that we – the fans – wanted to actually say goodbye to Evil Spawn? Did they not understand that this cop-out, BS ‘went back to Izzie & the test-tube twins’ storyline would make us angry?’ That was a great parallel.

Seriously? Seriously. 30 minutes of bad repetition, flashbacks, and clips of those kids (AND FAKE BODY-DOUBLE STAND-INS that we’re supposed to buy are Alex & Izzie) to basically send off a series originator who was a fan favorite. THAT was what we got. Guess that’s a great foreshadow for how the series will end; there won’t be any actual closure – it’ll just be a four-hour clips parade.

SERIOUSLY!?!? So disappointing. Injustice and utter rubbish!

Grey’s Anatomy airs Thursdays at 9:00 PM on ABC.

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