Justin Chambers, the actor who has starred as Dr. Alex Karev in all 15 seasons of Grey’s Anatomy, is finally saying goodbye to the role.
The cause of his departure isn’t a [deep breath] train collision, ferryboat accident, shooting, psychiatric episode, homemade bomb, or unaddressed head trauma. No: Chambers, who has devoted the majority of his professional career to Grey’s, explained his decision in an announcement on Friday, January 10.
“There’s no good time to say goodbye to a show and character that’s defined so much of my life for the past 15 years,” Chambers told Deadline. “For some time now, however, I have hoped to diversify my acting roles and career choices. And, as I turn 50 and am blessed with my remarkable, supportive wife and five wonderful children, now is that time.”
Shock number one: Karev, who is arguably the second most central character on Grey’s—next to the eponymous Meredith Grey—will soon disappear from the show. Shock number two: Justin Chambers is 50? He has five kids? What moisturizer does he use?
In his announcement Chambers thanked show creator Shonda Rhimes and his fellow remaining original cast-members—Ellen Pompeo, Chandra Wilson and James Pickens—and the rest of the Grey’s team. It’s not clear from his statement whether he’ll be back for the rest of the 16th season, which returns to ABC on January 23. It is clear that we are sad. Very, very sad.
Grey’s Anatomy is a high-class soap opera—a glossy fantasy that delights in making us salivate over abs and weep until we’re nauseous within the same 40-minute block. The character of Alex Karev—the angry, sometimes cruel child of an addict father and schizophrenic mother, who grew up to be an exceptionally compassionate pediatric surgeon—is the best of that. In him, viewers have watched a person be redeemed. Albeit in the form of a conventionally hot, white man, we have joined a character on the odyssey of becoming a better person. We have seen him renounce sexism and violence and isolation.
For all his model looks and talent for making the word “frickin” sound organic, he’s been the ideal male sidekick to protagonist Meredith Grey (Pompeo) for 15 years. Their decades-long friendship, built on their mutual instinct for survival-at-all-costs, made them demand better from one another. Karev moved away from picking on people who were smaller than him and devoted himself to saving children’s lives. He became the ethical heart of the show. He stopped being angry, and started choosing love.
