Patrick Dempsey recounts his final 'Grey's' scene: 'We all cried'
Patrick Dempsey said goodbye to the Grey's Anatomy universe in 2015 when Derek "McDreamy" Shepherd tragically died from a car accident, but he reprised his character for the longest-running primetime medical drama's current 17th season.
Derek first re-appeared last November as Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo), his widowed wife, slipped into an unconscious dream-like state while battling a severe case of COVID-19. Throughout this season, Meredith has visited with Derek at this beach symbolizing the state between life and death. Last Thursday's episode ("Good as Hell") wrapped up the storyline, though, with Meredith deciding to wake up and keep fighting at Derek's urging.
"I thought it was a beautiful way to close it," the 55-year-old actor told Variety's Marc Malkin. "The intention was to really give people some hope because they are such an iconic couple. We've lost so many people this year, the thought that we'd have angels hovering around us taking care of us is a good message to send out in such a bleak world that we're living in. So for all of us, it was a beautiful ending to this story. I'm so grateful that I did it and happy that the fans really loved it."
Dempsey wouldn't definitively say whether this second Grey's goodbye will be his final one—"Never say never with this show, right?"—but he did dish on what it felt like to film the final scene of this four-episode arc.
"We all cried at the beginning and we hugged each other," the two-time Golden Globe nominee said. "It was really for us to get the message out there to wear a mask, take care of yourself. Ellen and I were like, 'What can we do together to make some impact here?' That was in the spring around this time last year. It just was a positive action that reverberates into more positive action."
Derek's reappearance allowed for closure not just for the fans but for Meredith, who was left in a catatonic state when her husband was hit by a truck then declared brain dead after his doctors failed to get a CT that would have shown his head trauma all before Meredith had a chance to get to the hospital and say goodbye.
Last week's episode allowed for them to finally have a proper wedding (Post-It note and courthouse aside) and have a discussion about what Derek was feeling, if he was in pain, as he died. "I didn't want to leave you, but I knew, at a certain point," he told her, then reassured that he could feel her when she came to his hospital bedside. "You gave me permission to go. You told me it was OK. You got me. You gave me everything I needed until my last breath."
Grey's Anatomy airs Thursdays beginning at 9 p.m. EST on ABC.
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