Grey’s Anatomy has long cemented its status as a record-breaking show. It is currently the longest-running primetime medical series with over 400 episodes. Hollywood actors such as Ellen Pompeo, Sandra Oh and Patrick Dempsey all played (and still played) notable characters on Grey’s Anatomy. Pompeo herself broke records through Grey’s Anatomy by being the highest-paid actress in a drama series when she renegotiated her contract in 2017 for $20 million a year.
Breakng records necessitates that the content behind them be flawless. Grey’s Anatomy does, on many occasions, deliver flawless episodes season after season, but oftentimes, their best episodes are season finales. Over 21 seasons and counting, Grey’s Anatomy has opened and resolved many plotlines, with a few standing out as the best of the best:
10. Grey’s Anatomy, Season 13, Episode 24 “Ring of Fire”
The season 13 finale of Grey’s Anatomy was not the first finale to be explosive — metaphorically. However, it is the first season finale where Grey-Sloan Memorial is actively on fire because of an explosion. Stephanie Edwards set a rapist on fire in the previous episode, Grey’s Anatomy, Season 13, Episode 23, “True Colors”, in order to save her patient, which ultimately caused the explosion. While Stephanie and her patient survive the fire after making it to the roof, the incident results in Stephanie reconsidering her career as a surgeon, and she quits her residency program.
Stephanie (played by Jerrika Hinton) is the main focus of this episode, and it is her determination to get her patients away from the fire and to safety as soon as possible that makes the season finale so notable. At no time is it clear that both of them will survive the fire until they both make it to the roof. The finale also provides closure to a few plot lines, including the discovery of Owen’s sister, Megan, and the departure of Eliza Minnick.
9. Season 3, Episode 25 “Didn’t We Almost Have It All?”
The finale of season 3 of Grey’s Anatomy resolved almost every plotline that had developed throughout the season, only for none of the characters involved to end up happy with the resolutions. Alex loses his relationship with Ava when her husband, Jeff, seeks Ava out. He reveals that her name is Rebecca, and that he has come to take Rebecca back. Adele is admitted to the hospital pregnant, disappointing Richard and her when she miscarries. Even married couples are not safe — George and Callie muddle through their marital issues, wondering if they’re fit to be parents.
Cristina is the reason Grey’s Anatomy, Season 3, Episode 24 “Didn’t We Almost Have It All?” is so heartbreaking. In the finale, Cristina spends the episode preparing for her wedding to Burke, only for him to completely abandon her before the ceremony. Cristina’s marriage to Burke was represented to the interns that they were deserving of happiness and would eventually get to be in dedicated relationships. When Burke abandoned Cristina, all of their hopes were dashed.
8. Season 12, Episode 24 “Family Affair”
Grey’s Anatomy saves its weddings for its season finales, and along with them an entire season’s worth of familial drama. In Grey’s Anatomy, Season 12, Episode 24, “Family Affair”, the episode focuses on Amelia’s wedding, though the rest of the staff at Grey-Sloan Memorial have their own set of dramas. Through the smaller dramatic acts, the power of the season 12 finale is that it demonstrates the different definitions of family.
Though they’re not all related by blood, Maggie and Meredith are the ones who stand up as Amelia’s bridesmaids for her wedding. Meredith is even the one to indulge Amelia’s last-minute hesitations about marrying Owen. The forging of platonic families is also a key theme, most strongly demonstrated when Ben performs a c-section to deliver April’s baby in Meredith’s kitchen. Lastly, Arizona shows that personal compromises must be made for the sake of a family’s happiness, even if that family is no longer theirs. Her decision to allow Callie to leave for New York is the second most powerful arc in the finale behind Amelia’s. as it effectively ends their relationship.
7. Season 4, Episode 17 “Freedom: Part 2”
After the storylines of Season 4, the finale offered all of the staff at Seattle Grace some brevity. The central patient, a teenager trapped in cement, gives Cristina the opportunity to perform her first solo surgery. Izzie receives control of the clinic from Bailey after she demonstrates her willingness to fight for her patients. Richard returns home to Adele after a season-long fallout over his affair with Ellis. Callie, who spent the season exploring her sexuality, finds the courage to kiss Erica. George also gets his victory; after learning he failed the intern test by one point, his appeal to Richard grants him the opportunity to take the test again.
The emotional impact of Grey’s Anatomy, Season 4, Episode 17, “Freedom: Part 2,” is cathartic and evolutionary: each of the characters shown in the episode has found themselves free to evolve into the type of person they want to be. It was most impactful for Derek and Meredith, who not only succeeded with one of their clinical trial’s patients, but were open and honest with each other about the people they wanted to become — in a candlelit floor plan of their future home.
6. Season 8, Episode 24 “Flight”
The season 8 finale of Grey’s Anatomy focused on the aftermath of a single incident: the plane crash that stranded Meredith, Derek, Arizona, Mark and Lexie in the woods. Meredith is traumatized by the crash, Derek’s hand is injured, Arizona’s leg is mangled, Lexie is trapped under some debris and Cristina has inexplicably lost her shoe. Viewers spend most of the episode alternating between the surgeons struggling to survive in the woods and the staff at Seattle Grace working to retrieve them.
As significant as the crash was in Grey’s Anatomy canon, what made Grey’s Anatomy, Season 8, Episode 24 “Flight” one of the more harrowing season finales was Lexie’s death. Lexie was an integral character to Grey’s Anatomy — when she was introduced as Meredith’s half-sister in season 4, it seemed impossible that Meredith would even acknowledge her. Yet, by the end of season 8, the two had developed an indestructible sisterly bond. Lexie’s death ending her relationship with Mark was just as heartbreaking. Mark and Lexie had just understood their feelings towards each other when Lexie died in the crash, and the heartache was so afflicting for Mark he passed at the beginning of Season 9.
5. Season 9, Episode 24 “Perfect Storm”
Season 9 of Grey’s Anatomy deals with much of the fallout that occurred from the season 8 finale: Mark’s death in Grey’s Anatomy, Season 9, Episode 1 “Going, Going, Gone”, Arizona’s loss of her leg and Lexie’s death. Coupled with the arrival of a new intern class, the season 9 finale is aptly named because of all the disastrous events that occur at once. For each character, Grey’s Anatomy, Season 9, Episode 24, “Perfect Storm” is an emotional test of their mettle, but none more so than for Meredith.
Viewers follow Meredith and Derek as Meredith must undergo a C-section while a storm rages over Seattle and the hospital is without power. For viewers, knowing what Meredith and Derek have been through in recent seasons of Grey’s Anatomy and finally experiencing something joyful is what makes the episode so emotionally impactful.
4. Season 2, Episode 27 “Losing My Religion”
The season 2 finale of Grey’s Anatomy showed the strong bonds holding the intern class together. Izzie’s decision to cut Denny’s LVAD wire in Grey’s Anatomy, Season 2, Episode 25, “17 Seconds” has disastrous consequences, but the interns decide to band together to protect Izzie. Because of this, Webber bans them from all surgeries until they confess, and in the meantime, are assigned to create the perfect prom for his niece, Camille.
What devastated viewers the most was the double death they received in Greys’s Anatomy, Season 2, Episode 24 “Losing My Religion”. Meredith and Derek decide to put Doc down, a death that some fans still haven’t come to terms with. Yet, after Doc’s euthanasia, they were met with an even more painful twist: after Izzie risked her career by cutting Denny’s LVAD wire and getting him a new heart, Denny suffered a stroke from a blood clot and died.
3. Season 10, Episode 24 “Fear (of the Unknown)”
The season 10 finale of Grey’s Anatomy brought an explosive end to the first decade of Grey’s Anatomy. An explosion at a mall brought many cases into Grey-Sloan Memorial; Cristina, who had mentioned going to the mall, was missing, stoking fears about her fate until she finally appeared, only to go straight onto a case. Fans follow Cristina as she struggles to stay with the case or go to Switzerland. Cristina does eventually depart after several false starts, but not before dancing it out with Meredith in an on-call room one last time.
Before Grey’s Anatomy, Season 10, Episode 24 “Fear (of the Unknown)” aired, it was announced that Cristina (played by Sandra Oh) would exit the show, as Oh felt she had no more to give to Cristina. While Cristina’s departure wasn’t marked by death, the episode’s heaviness stems from the impact Cristina had on the hospital and her impact on viewers. Before Cristina leaves, she delivers one of the most memorable lines of the show to Meredith.
Don’t let what he wants eclipse what you need. He’s very dreamy, but he’s not the sun. You are.
2. Season 5, Episode 24 “Now Or Never”
The season 5 finale of Grey’s Anatomy once more proved the strength of the interns’ bonds with each other as they rally around both George and Izzie. In Grey’s Anatomy, Season 5, Episode 23, “Here’s to Future Days”, Izzie undergoes a hippocampectomy to treat her tumor, and viewers follow her recovery as she wakes up with short-term memory loss. Their careful watch of her recovery is interspersed with their need for intervention with George, who has joined the army, and a new patient who has come in after being hit by a bus.
What makes Grey’s Anatomy, Season 5, Episode 24, “Now or Never” such a gut-punch is that it is the product of audience misdirection. While viewers were paying attention to Izzie’s recovery and the interns’ plan to insist that George not join the army, little attention is paid to the mystery identity of the patient hit by a bus — until, in a pivotal moment, he traces ‘007’ into Meredith’s palm, revealing that their mystery patient is George himself. That none of them could recognize George is amplified when, despite their best efforts, George dies on the operating table.
1. Season 6, Episode 24 “Death and All His Friends”
The highest-rated episode of Grey’s Anatomy to date, Grey’s Anatomy, Season 6, Episode 24 “Death and All His Friends” possesses its title for good reason. Viewers follow the continuation of Gary Clark’s shooting at Seattle Grace, where he has already shot Derek, Alex, Reed, Percy, and several other people. Despite their own lives being in danger, some surgeons work to save their own, including operating at gunpoint and with minimal supplies.
Audiences are kept on constant edge throughout the episode because of Gary Clark’s volatility. When Gary learns that Meredith, Jackson, Lexie and Cristina are operating on Derek, he breaks into the operating room and threatens to shoot them if they continue. When Gary shot Alex in Grey’s Anatomy, Season 6, Episode 23 “Sanctuary”, his life lay in the balance. Bailey’s faith and medical knowledge are tested when she has to save Charles while monitoring a patient of her own. There is no relief until the end of the episode, but even then, none of the characters walk out of the hospital unaffected.
