Ellen Pompeo Just Revealed Her Dream Plot for the Grey's Anatomy Series Finale
Grey’s Anatomy returned to ABC this week for its season 16 (16!) premiere. There doesn’t seem to be a finale in sight for TV’s longest-running medical drama—which Dr. Meredith Grey’s fans are surely relieved to hear. But if and when the lights go out at Seattle Grace Memorial Hospital, star Ellen Pompeo has an epic plan for the series finale.
On a visit to The Late Late Show With James Corden, Pompeo said she’d like the Grey’s Anatomy series finale to be a reunion like TV has never seen. Her dream finale wouldn’t just bring back Dr. Cristina Yang (played by Sandra Oh) or McDreamy (played by Patrick Dempsey). She’d want the entire original cast to return.
“I’d love to have some of the old cast come back,” she said. “But that probably won’t happen. But that would be the most amazing way to end.”
The reason it might not work out? There would be some logistical hurdles to clear if every single character returned, thanks to show runner Shonda Rhimes’s legendary plot twists. “Some of them were killed on the show,” the actress noted.
And, Pompeo added, even the woman who brought us Meredith Grey for almost two decades can prescribe the wrong ending. “The ending, the final episode, matters so much,” she said. “And the fans are never going to be happy no matter what. Sopranos, Game of Thrones, they’re pissed no matter what you do. So, there’s a lot of pressure on that final episode.”
But anything can happen on Grey’s Anatomy, so why not explore wild plot directions including the resurrection of the original cast? After all, this is the drama that gave viewers secret long-lost siblings, surgeries that doubled as bomb detonations, and musicals set at a hospital.
“You know, the fun thing about doing a show for 16 years and having a loyal, amazing, fantastic audience is we can really just play and have fun,” Pompeo said. And if any fandom could accept a crazy finale with open arms, it’s the legions who’ve been checked into Seattle Grace Memorial’s dramas from the beginning.
Catch Pompeo’s entire Late Late Show interview below.