Derek Shepherd’s Death Was Tragic — But Patrick Dempsey’s New Show Goes Even Darker

Patrick Dempsey’s return to network television in Memory of a Killer is set to examine a crueler fate than what befell Derek Shepherd in Grey’s Anatomy season 11. Widely recognized for playing Derek Shepherd on ABC for the first decade of Grey’s Anatomy, Dempsey exited the medical drama in 2015, ending up playing various roles on the big screen afterwards.

Since leaving Grey’s Anatomy, Dempsey starred in Bridget Jones’s Baby, Enchanted’s sequel Disenchanted, and Ferrari. However, Dempsey didn’t completely abandon TV shows, with the actor appearing in the financial drama Devils between 2020 and 2022 and more recently in Dexter’s prequel, Dexter: Original Sin, as Captain Aaron Spencer. Dempsey’s return to network TV will unexpectedly see him play an antihero.

Patrick Dempsey Plays A Hitman With Alzheimer’s In Memory Of A Killer

It Will Be Dempsey’s First Network TV Show After Grey’s Anatomy

Dempsey plays Angelo Ledda in Memory of a Killer, Fox’s upcoming thriller TV show. Memory of a Killer tells the story of Ledda, a hitman and a photocopier salesman, whose family is threatened when he’s diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s, which killed his older brother. The news forces Ledda to search into his past to save his family from his enemies.

Taking inspiration from the 2003 Belgian film De Zaak Alzheimer, adapted into 2022’s Memory, Memory of a Killer is written by Ed Whitmore and Tracey Malone. A co-production of Warner Bros. TV and Fox, the thriller TV show received a rare straight-to-series order. Memory of a Killer’s episodes will be hour-long, but its premiere date has yet to be revealed.

Derek Having Alzheimer’s In Grey’s Anatomy Would Have Been More Heartbreaking Than His Death

The Illness Has Massive Significance In The Medical Drama

With Ledda having to balance his past as a hitman with his mortality and trying to keep his family safe, Memory of a Killer has the chance to tell a story that has a thriller series’ best qualities while also leaving its protagonist room to grow. The story starting at a delicate moment in Ledda’s life makes the series compelling.

The fate awaiting Memory of a Killer’s Ledda makes Derek’s fate in Grey’s Anatomy pale in comparison with Dempsey’s upcoming thriller. Derek’s death in Grey’s Anatomy season 11 was sad, especially as it could have been avoided had the local hospital’s doctors done all the tests for his brain. Still, Grey’s Anatomy nevertheless let Derek go out as a hero.

Derek “McDreamy” Shepherd may be the dream doctor of Grey’s Anatomy, but he’s not always been a great person, and maybe he should get a new nickname.

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Had Derek received a diagnosis as life-changing as Ledda’s, things would have been much different for the worse in Grey’s Anatomy. This is due to Derek being visibly affected by the illness, had Grey’s Anatomy gone down that route, with the character unrecognizable, much like Ellis Grey wasn’t by the time she died.

Such a diagnosis would have also made the end of Meredith and Derek’s story unbelievably tragic, even more than it already was. Alzheimer’s has always been a looming threat in Grey’s Anatomy, due to how it changed Ellis’ life and how it threatened to do the same with Meredith, who tested positive for several genetic markers for Alzheimer’s.

However, with Alzheimer’s a threat to Meredith, it would have been a horrible surprise had Derek been diagnosed with it. It would have forever changed the last moments of Meredith and Derek’s relationship, being especially cruel for Meredith, who would have had to care for Derek like she did with Ellis until her last moments in Grey’s Anatomy season 3.

Although completely different from what he’d done in Grey’s Anatomy, Dempsey’s role in Memory of a Killer gives him a chance to explore a delicate story that wouldn’t have felt too extraneous in the medical drama.