Ellen Pompeo’s Dr. Meredith Grey, the titular Grey in Shonda Rhimes’ medical drama “Grey’s Anatomy,” is an extremely accomplished fictional woman. She’s a board-certified general surgeon, carrying on her legendary mother Ellis Grey’s (Kate Burton) legacy as an innovator and pioneer in the surgical field. On top of that, she’s a mother of three, a winner of a prestigious (and fictional) Harper Avery Award, and is the co-owner of Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital, the central Seattle hospital on the series. She’s also almost died, like, several times over. Still, what are fans of “Grey’s Anatomy” focused on when it comes to Meredith? Her love life.
To be perfectly clear, I stand by the fact that Meredith has one great love on “Grey’s Anatomy,” and it’s Dr. Cristina Yang (Sandra Oh), a cardiothoracic surgeon who leaves the series in its season 10 finale. As Meredith’s “person,” Cristina understands her fellow physician better than anyone, and before Cristina’s departure, she’s the only person who can truly be there for Meredith during the best and worst times. Cristina and Meredith, however, are not romantically involved, so as much as I hate to discount her as Meredith’s only real love, I sort of have to.
Now that I’ve got that out of the way, who does Meredith end up with on “Grey’s Anatomy?” Her love life is, admittedly, a total roller coaster, so buckle up as I give you the details on Meredith’s marriage, the loss of her husband, the new love she finds as a widow, and who she’s romantically involved with by the time she officially exits as a series regular in season 19.
For most of Grey’s Anatomy, Derek Shepherd is Meredith Grey’s one great love
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You can’t discuss Meredith’s love life on “Grey’s Anatomy” without talking quite a lot about Derek Shepherd, a neurosurgeon played by Patrick Dempsey. In the show’s pilot, Meredith kicks a naked Derek out of her house after picking him up at a bar the night before, only to discover, on her first day of work at what’s then named Seattle Grace Hospital, Derek is one of her bosses. Despite the fact that she’s a surgical intern and Derek is an attending, the two do start dating … but their first attempt at a relationship is totally derailed when Derek’s estranged (and secret, up until this point) wife Dr. Addison Montgomery-Shepherd (Kate Walsh) shows up in Seattle to get her man back.
When Addison leaves the show in season 3, Meredith and Derek have a shot — but Meredith’s fear of commitment gets in their way. The pair finally get back together for good at the end of season 4, get “married” on a Post-It in the season 5 finale, and start trying to start a family in season 6. When Derek, who’s named the chief of surgery in season 6, is shot by a former patient’s angry and grieving husband, the stress of the entire situation results in Meredith miscarrying her first pregnancy.
Ultimately, Derek and Meredith adopt a baby girl from Africa named Zola, who came to Seattle as part of a program that provided children in Malawi with much-needed medical care, and in the season 9 finale, Meredith gives birth to their son Derek Bailey Shepherd (who’s usually referred to as just Bailey in honor of Chandra Wilson’s Dr. Miranda Bailey, who saves Meredith’s life while she’s in childbirth). Despite some speed bumps in their now officially legal marriage (the two wed at City Hall during Zola’s adoption process), things go pretty well for Meredith and Derek in the aftermath of that, even when Derek wants to move the entire family to Washington D.C. in season 11. However, this is when Derek is grievously injured in a car crash and put on life support at a rural hospital that fails to give him the full exam he needs, and Meredith has to make the decision to turn the machines off. She then disappears for a two-episode arc, titled “She’s Leaving Home,” and it’s ultimately revealed that she was pregnant at the time of Derek’s death; when she returns to Seattle, she does so with their daughter Ellis Shepherd alongside Zola and Bailey. Derek is, without question, Meredith’s most important romantic relationship on “Grey’s Anatomy” — so, who follows him?
After losing Derek, Meredith Grey finds an unexpected connection
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Meredith’s first fling following Derek’s death doesn’t go well, to put it lightly; after meeting Dr. William Thorpe (Scott Elrod), Meredith takes him home only to frantically kick him out the next morning and sink into a brief depression. After that, Meredith puts her head down to focus on her career and raising her three children … until season 12, when she meets Nathan Riggs, a former military surgeon played by Martin Henderson. Nathan butts heads with his former friend and fellow veteran Dr. Owen Hunt (Kevin McKidd) and seems, at first, to be flirting with Meredith’s half-sister Dr. Maggie Pearce (Kelly McCreary), who takes over the cardiothoracic surgery department after Cristina moves to Switzerland. What ends up happening, though, is that Meredith and Nathan have an unexpected tryst and, despite concerns about Maggie’s feelings and Meredith’s reluctance, the two start dating.
Nathan and Meredith are pretty comfortable right up until it’s revealed that Owen’s sister and Nathan’s ex-fiancée Megan Hunt (Abigail Spencer), who was also an army medic and was assumed captured and dead, is alive. When Megan is airlifted to Seattle with a serious stomach injury, Meredith makes medical history by giving Megan an abdominal transplant, and she also encourages Nathan to rekindle his romance with Megan. He does and brings her adopted son Farouk (Bardia Seiri) from Iraq to Seattle, and as a family unit, Nathan, Megan, and Farouk move to Los Angeles, ending Nathan’s relationship with Meredith in season 14 (which is, obviously, also when Henderson leaves the show).
Meredith turns the tables and dates an intern on Grey’s Anatomy
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Despite a flirtation with a new orthopedic surgeon named Dr. Atticus Lincoln (Chris Carmack), Meredith ultimately experiences a total role reversal of her relationship with Derek and, as an award-winning attending surgeon, starts dating an intern. The intern in question, Dr. Andrew DeLuca (Giacomo Gianniotti), drunkenly and impulsively kisses Meredith in the season 14 finale while they’re attending a wedding, but they don’t officially start dating until halfway through season 15. (The fact that Andrew makes it a habit to seductively whisper phrases in his native language of Italian into Meredith’s ear so that she finally relents and pursues the relationship certainly doesn’t hurt.) When Meredith commits insurance fraud at the end of season 15 to help a young, uninsured girl and her father, Andrew takes the blame and ends up in prison, and the two reveal that they love each other; Meredith makes things right by confessing and nearly loses her medical license. After performing community service and arguing to keep her license, Meredith is fully reinstated. This entire ordeal, though, creates major tension between Andrew and Meredith.
Unfortunately for Andrew and Meredith, their initially sweet relationship suffers from a power imbalance that frequently gets in their way, and Andrew ends up facing some mental health issues that derail their connection as well. Before that, Andrew realizes that Meredith will always look down on him — and, perhaps mostly importantly, never respect him as much as she respected Derek — and he ends their relationship. They never reconcile either, particularly after Andrew is diagnosed with bipolar disorder and realizes he needs to figure out how to manage said diagnosis on his own. He’s ultimately killed in the show’s 17th season while Meredith is in a coma due to a severe case of COVID-19; she sees him in a dream, confirming he passed away.
In Grey’s Anatomy season 18, Meredith finally meets her match
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Dr. Nick Marsh, played by “Felicity” alum Scott Speedman, actually first appears in season 14 of “Grey’s Anatomy” as a doctor assisting Meredith on an organ transplant after receiving a kidney transplant himself. When Nick collapses, Meredith performs surgery on him and saves his life — and in season 18, when Meredith is splitting her time between Seattle and Minnesota to work on a cure for Parkinson’s disease with her mother’s former colleague Dr. David Hamilton (Peter Gallagher), she runs into Nick while she’s away from Seattle. The two ultimately rekindle a relationship, attempting to date long distance while Meredith is in Seattle.
Meredith almost moves to Minnesota to work with David and be with Nick but ultimately is needed in Seattle, temporarily ending her relationship with Nick. When Meredith moves away from Seattle and heads to Boston for a new job opportunity with the Fox Foundation — headed by Dr. Catherine Fox (Debbie Allen), mother of Meredith’s colleague Dr. Jackson Avery (Jesse Williams) and a major benefactor of Grey Sloan Memorial — to study a cure for Alzheimer’s disease, Nick joins her, and the two buy a house together, indicating that they’re in it for the long haul.
“Grey’s Anatomy” is streaming on both Netflix and Hulu now
