Something truly incredible happened this week, and we're going to take a moment on the blog to celebrate it.
Grey's Anatomy aired its 300th episode on Thursday night.
I remember Grey's premiering when I was in high school, and what a huge splash its first season made. I watched a few episodes, said something along the lines of "Wait, so there's no ghosts or time travel or anything?!" and walked away because I was a super weird kid. Little did I know what I was missing out on.
It took until I moved out to LA to actually start watching the show. I was talking to a friend about pilots, how Little C and I were working on one and reading a zillion others to figure out style and format. She recommended the Grey's pilot as one of the best character set ups she knew, and boy oh boy was she right. Getting ready for the 300th episode, I rewatched the pilot and was again taken aback by how well formed these characters were from moment one. They are whole people with complicated pasts that inform every decision they make, and that's apparent in the writing in that very first episode.
The heart of this show, and I believe the heart of its continued success is how well written the characters are. The characters are why we can be here fourteen years later and Grey's still feels fresh.
Outside of the straight characterization, there is something absolutely magical about the way female friendships play out on this show. If you've been around the blog for a while, you know that the portrayal of female friendships is hugely important to Little C and I. And it's the one friendship that everyone talks about, but rewatching the pilot made me realize how much I missed watching Meredith and Cristina together. They were fiercely loyal, deeply ingrained in each other's lives, willing to call each other out on things. You see something similar in Arizona and April, or Jo and Stephanie, or... The list goes on and on.
The concept of sisterhood as a literal and metaphorical bond between women is so well examined on Grey's Anatomy that I honestly feel like it should be required viewing for young television writers.
The other part of Grey's that I will never be sick of talking about is the casting. Shonda Rhimes (magical unicorn woman that she is) casts whoever the hell she wants for whatever role she wants, race be damned. And like a magical unicorn, whenever she's asked about it she says something like,
"It's not trailblazing to write the world as it actually is," which makes me cheer and shout every time. Because that's exactly it.
Our world is diverse, and our art should reflect that. And with very few exceptions, a character's race is almost never brought up. Because it's infinitely more important to know that Cristina is hyper competitive and brilliant than it is to know that she's Korean.
Moment of honesty- I cried pretty much straight through the 300th episode. It was such a beautiful tribute to the characters that we've spent so many years with, and the ones we've lost along the way. And in the midst of acknowledging loss and fear and grief, it was super funny.
Because Shonda is magic.
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Congrats Grey's! Here's to your next few years because I for one am not done watching this amazing, bananas show.
CT
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