Warning: Don’t continue reading if you don’t want to know who died on ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ last night!
Fans weren’t just shocked when one of their favorite characters died on the May 17 season finale of Grey’s Anatomy – they were furious! Though creator Shonda Rhimes later tweeted that she and the actress “both decided this was the right time for her character’s journey to end,” the show’s loyal audience definitely doesn’t agree.
In case you missed the episode, Lexie Grey (Chyler Leigh) met her untimely end after being crushed by the wing of a crashed plane, despite Mark Sloan’s (Eric Dane) best efforts to save her life. In a heartbreaking scene, he finally told her that he loved her and wanted to live a full life with her — but it was too late.
(Our original post about Lexie’s death was met by dozens of angry comments from viewers, begging Shonda to change her mind and somehow put Lexie in a coma instead.)
I get that season finales need to be buzzworthy, and that killing off a major character is a guaranteed way to get people talking, but I can’t help thinking this may have been a terrible decision Shonda will soon regret. Just because an actress feels her time on a show is up, especially an actress fans actually liked, killing her character isn’t necessarily the smartest move.
It’s sort of the opposite of the way I felt about Katherine Heigl‘s exit from the show, as I’ve always thought Izzy should have been killed off. With Izzy, you had an unlikeable character — and even more unlikable actress — who was literally in the middle of a story line about her dying. It would have been the perfect out, one that would have been admittedly sad, but also justifiable.
Killing Lexie out of the blue just felt weird. Couldn’t she have been transferred to another hospital, allowing for a possible return somewhere down the road?
How do YOU feel about Lexie’s death?
Kate B
Posted at 6:52 PM on June 12, 2012
“but the actress did a great death scene. I cannot say the same for Sloane — his grunting almost-death only killed the mood.”
The scene was phenomenal! Leigh did a fantastic job and I totally disagree with the above statement. Sloan is working off adrenaline when he’s trying to save Lexi. Then he gives up and is like “well there’s no real reason to live any more.” The amount of internal injuries that he would’ve had would definitely require some level of vocalisation though!
However, Lexi’s death is poorly timed. One of the best things about Grey’s is this constant on/off relationship between Sloan and Lexi. It’s the Rachel/Ross relationship of current soap operas. Whether the show has just one more season or not this is a clear case of lazy-writers-syndrome. It’s just a little too easy to kill of characters and I feel this is one of those times. Can someone start a petition please?! Lexi Grey back on Grey’s!!!