Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez are just like us. They too are social distancing and staying at home to slow the spread of coronavirus. Naturally, they have a lot more time on their hands, and they’re spending some of it filming iconic dancing videos with their kids (Emme, Max, Natasha, and Ella).
Case in point: this new clip Rodriguez posted on Instagram of him, J. Lo, and the whole fam. “Worst to best ?❤️,” he wrote in the caption. He kicks things off and J.Lo, of course, is the encore. Watch the video for yourself, below:
Talent definitely seems to run in this family. Emme, whose father is superstar Marc Anthony, performed on stage with her mom during this year’s Super Bowl and blew everyone away with her voice and poise. Those pipes!
Earlier last week, Lopez posted a funny video of her son, Max, delivering drinks. “We can’t go out to any restaurants or anything but the service and entertainment here is pretty good…? #StaySafe #familytime,” she wrote on Instagram.
Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez have not said anything yet about their upcoming wedding. (The couple announced their engagement in March 2019. They’ve been dating publicly since February 2017.) According to reports, they were set to wed this summer. But given the uncertainty of what the next few months will look like in the United States, it’s unclear at this point if the nuptials will be postponed
In the meantime, we are very much looking forward to more dance videos from this fun-loving family. Maybe J.Lo can post some tutorials of the dances from some of her most famous videos, like “Jenny From the Block.” #JLoChallenge, anyone? With all this time at home, I should be able to master at least one combination of choreography, right? Right?!
If you’re one of those Grey’s Anatomy fans who flip-flopped from fearing the writers would kill off Dr. Alex Karev (Justin Chambers) to wishing they had after finding out his fate, listen up.
According to a source that spoke with Us Weekly, there’s a very simple reason the Grey’s Anatomy writers sent Evil Spawn off to live on a farm with Izzie Stevens (Katherine Heigl) and their two kids after Justin Chambers announced his exit in the middle of season 16.
“The reason he wasn’t killed off is because Shonda Rhimes is leaving the door open for a return, in any capacity, if he wants to come back,” an alleged insider told the publication. (If you’re wondering why they mention Rhimes, who is no longer the showrunner of the long-running series, it’s because she still has approval privileges as the executive producer.)
Collection Christophel / Alamy Stock Photo
Though Chambers announced in his statement from January that Grey’s had already aired his final scenes, they were ultimately able to get him to loan his voice-over to the farewell episode.
Showrunner Krista Vernoff expressed her appreciation for the actor and character in a recent statement. “We have loved writing Alex. And we have loved watching Justin Chambers’ nuanced portrayal of him,” she tweeted. “For 16 seasons, 16 years, we have grown up alongside Alex Karev. We have been frustrated by his limitations and we have been inspired by his growth and we have come to love him deeply and to think of him as one of our very best friends. We will miss him terribly. And we will always be grateful for his impact, on our show, on our hearts, on our fans, on the world.”
Though Camilla Luddington, who plays Karev’s soon-to-be-ex-wife Jo on the series, has yet to release an official statement, costar Ellen Pompeo (the titular Meredith Grey) called the exit the “best possible storyline” before reuniting with former castmate T.R. Knight.
Whether or not the doctors at Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital (or the fans) would be happy to see Karev again after all this remains to be seen….
Attention, Grey’s Anatomy fans: Ellen Pompeo has weighed in on the show’s controversial farewell to Dr. Alex Karev (Justin Chambers), and she says hard pass to fans who wish the writers would’ve killed him off instead of sending him to live with Izzie Stevens (Katherine Heigl).
In last night’s episode, Alex sent letters to Meredith (Ellen Pompeo), his new wife, Jo (Camilla Luddington), and Bailey (Chandra Wilson) explaining that his ex from over 10 years ago had his babies and that he’s going to make a life with them. Many fans were against it, but Pompeo called it the “the best possible storyline” in a new Instagram post.
“Hi here I go again … Thank YOU! You are truly the best most passionate most loyal fans anyone could ever ask for,” she wrote. “Because of you we got to make great tv… because of you we got to make television history!”
Pompeo goes on to thank the writers “for giving Alex Karev the best send off” and calls him “the most amazing character.”
“For me personally for Karev to go back to the beginning…was the best possible storyline,” she continues. “It pays homage to those incredible first years and the incredible cast…that created a foundation so strong that the show is still standing. So let’s not be sad. As our fearless leader DA always says let’s PULL UP and celebrate the actors the writers and the fantastic crew who make this show come to life every week. No matter what the challenge or how tired we all are in the end…you keep us going…That is worth dancing it out over! So much love and gratitude to you all. Xo E.”
In January, Chambers announced his exit from Grey’s Anatomy. “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,” he said in a statement. “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.”
He added, “As I move on from Grey’s Anatomy, I want to thank the ABC family, Shonda Rimes, original cast members Ellen Pompeo, Chandra Wilson and James Pickens, and the rest of the amazing cast and crew, both past and present, and, of course, the fans for an extraordinary ride.”
Whoa. In case you didn’t know, last night (March 5) Grey’s Anatomy bid an awkward farewell to Dr. Alex Karev (Justin Chambers), a character who’s been with the show for about 16 years. This was never going to be a smooth exit. Back in January, Chambers announced his leave and, to the shock of fans, that his last episode had already aired. Yeah, that was not going to work for the folks who had been watching him since the very beginning.
Ultimately, he lent his voice for last night’s episode, a true goodbye that featured cathartic flashbacks and some sort of explanation for the doctor formerly known as Evil Spawn’s departure. We learned Alex’s fate via a series of letters he wrote to Meredith (Ellen Pompeo), his wife Jo (Camilla Luddington), and Bailey (Chandra Wilson) after reuniting with…Izzie (Katherine Heigl)…and their kids.
I’m sorry…I can’t…don’t hate me.
ABC
Here’s what he wrote to his new wife, Jo: “You’re more than a letter. This right here, this cowardice, this letter, it’s officially the worst thing I’ve ever done,” he wrote. “I can’t lie to you and pretend the truth isn’t the truth. That I love you, and I love Izzie. But if it was just me missing her or nostalgia or whatever, I would have been able to walk away and come back to you. But Izzie had my kids, and I know you get what that really means.”
You know who didn’t “get” what that really means? The fans. Dear reader, I am not exaggerating when I say that a lot of them wish the Grey’s Anatomy writers had just killed Alex off instead. “When you pray they won’t kill off Alex Karev and they don’t but the way they do write him off makes you wish they had just killed him,” one fan tweeted. This was not an isolated feeling:
Okay, so some people didn’t go that far. Most unhappy fans just seemed upset that his “cowardice” went against 16 seasons of character development. “This is worse than Derek Shepherd being killed off,” another user tweeted. “This is abandonment of a character that has been through hell and back and who GREW from it. A character that is now inflicting intentional pain on his fragile wife. Alex Karev would NEVER have done this. Never.”
That last tweet got 10K likes. Frankly, it’s not easy to find a positive reaction to Karev’s final episode. The closest I could find are denials that it even happened:
One thing I’ll leave you with, Grey’s Anatomy fans, is that there was no right way for this to go down. If what Chambers told Deadline is true, this was the actor’s choice. “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 said. “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.”
So, without the ability to have Chambers return, what were the writers to do? Killing off another major figure in Meredith’s life would be cruel, and yet any other option seems out of character or unfulfilling. One option could have been to send Jo away with her husband—her recent traumas are as good a reason as any for them to take a break from Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital—but would that have been fair to Camilla Luddington, the real-life actor who plays her? All we can do at this point is create our own Archive of Our Own accounts and write some fan-fic. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some writing to do…
Grey’s Anatomy fans were shocked earlier this year when it was announced that Justin Chambers, one of the show’s original cast members, would be leaving his role in the middle of the current season. In fact, once we learned the news, his final episode had already aired.
“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 (a.k.a Alex Karev) said. “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.”
What would become of Alex Karev? How would the show handle a pivotal character’s seemingly sudden departure? Of the original group of surgical interns we first met back in 2005, only Karev and Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) remained—along with two of their mentors, Dr. Miranda Bailey (Chandra Wilson) and Dr. Richard Webber (James Pickens Jr.). This being Grey’s Anatomy, really any plot twist was on the table, including an offscreen death, which many fans feared.
But Grey’s had a happier ending in mind, or at least some longtime fans will see it that way. We learned last week that Karev was not actually taking care of his sick mother, as he had told Meredith and his wife, Jo (Camilla Luddington). Nope, he was actually reunited with none other than his long lost love and first wife, Izzie Stevens (Katherine Heigl).
Scott Garfield/Getty Images
We learned all of this by way of letters Karev sent to Meredith, Bailey, and Jo. He revealed that he called Izzie when he was rallying the troops to help save Meredith’s medical license earlier this season. (After surviving cancer, Izzie left Alex heartbroken and ran off to parts unknown in season six. He eventually married Jo.) They got to talking, and Izzie told him she had used the embryos they created during her cancer battle and given birth to twins, Eli and Alexis. The couple rekindled their relationship and he moved to Kansas to be with Izzie and raise their children. ‘I’m finally exactly where I should be. I never had that before,” Karev wrote, talking about giving his children the stable childhood and family he never had.
On January 10, actor Justin Chambers surprised everyone by announcing he was leaving Grey’s Anatomy. “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,” he said at the time. “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.” We also learned that we’d already seen the last of Karev in the November 14 episode.
Each week since then, fans have been tuning in to see if this will be the episode we learn the fate of Alex Karev. Given that this is Grey’s Anatomy, a show that has never shied away from major character deaths, fans feared Karev would be killed off. But given the clues we got in the February 13 episode, that doesn’t seem to be where things are leading.
Karev was referenced multiple times in the episode. During a conversation between doctors Richard Webber (James Pickens Jr.) and Owen Hunt (Kevin McKidd), about yet another hospital reshuffling situation, Hunt says, “Does Karev know?” Webber replies, “He’s dealing with family issues in Iowa. I called him to tell him the place was going to close and he texted me a laughing ’til you cry emoji with a party hat.”
But the more telling clues came from Karev’s wife, Jo (Camilla Luddington). She gets into a heated conversation with Amelia Shepherd (Caterina Scorsone) who asks, “Are you going through something?” Jo then reveals that she can’t get a hold of her husband. “Alex hasn’t been returning my calls,” she said. “He says that he’s going through something and he needs time. And if I didn’t know better, I’d think he was getting revenge for when I needed time. But I know he would never do that so…I’m sorry. I’m anxious.” So maybe that’s what will happen—Karev will stay in Iowa to deal with his family and his issues, never to return to Seattle. With an ending open enough that a return is possible.
Richard Cartwright/ABC
The episode ends with Jo walking into the empty apartment she once shared with Alex, a telling sign of what her future likely holds. As she looks around, Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo ) says in one of her famous voiceovers, “When one thing ends, something new always begins.”
But this is Grey’s, after all, so we’re not counting out a shocking twist.
