Like enduring the cacophony of an MRI machine – a brutal, mechanical assault that vibrates through your very bones – sometimes you subject yourself to discomfort for a deeper look inside. In my case, it’s a literal look inside my aching back; in the realm of television, it’s revisiting the long-running medical drama Grey’s Anatomy. As the MRI pounds, my mind drifts to the familiar faces of Grey Sloan Memorial, the fictional hospital where for years, doctors have navigated professional crises and personal dramas with equal intensity. And inevitably, just like in the show, when the images appear, There Is Something Wrong. This feeling, that something is always amiss, is core to the Grey’s Anatomy experience.
Even when scans are clear, in the world of Grey’s Anatomy, something is perpetually Something Wrong. This isn’t a flaw; it’s the very engine of a network drama designed to fill an hour each week. For sixteen of its seventeen seasons, each episode has been a cycle of diagnosis, a relentless pursuit to determine if The Thing That Is Wrong can be cured, surgically removed, or is a chronic condition to be endured. These categories – cure, cut, chronic – resonate far beyond medicine, applying to the very human problems the characters grapple with: relationships, ambitions, and personal demons. Incorrectly diagnose a patient or a person in this world, and the consequences are immediate and often devastating: death, departure, stagnation, or worsening conditions. The stakes are always sky-high.
For anyone unfamiliar with the television landscape of the mid-2000s, Grey’s Anatomy exploded onto screens in 2005, charting the tumultuous residency of Dr. Meredith Grey. Meredith’s return to Seattle was shadowed by her legendary surgeon mother, Ellis Grey, battling Alzheimer’s, a secret Meredith was pressured to keep. The night before residency, Meredith’s “meet-cute” was with Derek Shepherd, the dazzling brain surgeon, her attending, and predictably, a man with his own baggage. Over nearly two decades, Meredith and her cohort of residents became a family, bound by love, conflict, marriage, illness, death, and the constant, high-pressure environment of a surgical residency. They lived to cut, both literally in the OR and figuratively in their personal lives.
In the context of a scripted drama, to “cut” also signifies editing, moving on, or even ending storylines. For characters like Derek Shepherd, famously known as McDreamy (played by Patrick Dempsey, now apparently selling watches in Poland Spring ads, according to Instagram), and Doctor Cristina Yang, portrayed by the phenomenal Sandra Oh, “cutting” meant evolving beyond the show itself. Derek’s death in Season 11, while impactful, didn’t resonate as deeply for me as the departure of Addison Montgomery, Derek’s first wife. Addison, the fiery redhead, was a complex character who added a unique dynamic to the early seasons.
However, the exit of doctor cristina yang in Season 10 felt like a seismic shift, fundamentally altering the show’s core. While Derek was Meredith’s romantic love, Cristina was her “Person,” and their bond was Grey’s Anatomy’s true revolutionary heart. Their friendship, a fiercely supportive alliance between two ambitious, brilliant women, began with a shared pact after Meredith supported Cristina through an abortion. Abortion in Grey’s universe, much like in real life, is portrayed as a complex cure/cut/chronic dilemma, a deeply personal medical decision where emotional implications often outweigh surgical risks. Cristina, remarkably, faced two unplanned pregnancies and, both times, was unwavering in her decisions about motherhood, highlighting her character’s strength and self-assuredness.
Acidic, ruthlessly funny, and fiercely ambitious, doctor cristina yang was the prototype for Meredith’s ever-expanding circle of “sisters.” Lexi Grey, Meredith’s half-sister, and Maggie Pierce, the unexpected offspring of Ellis Grey and Richard Webber, followed, each adding layers to Meredith’s family and professional life. Amelia Shepherd, Derek’s younger sister, a brilliant but troubled neurosurgeon, felt like a plot device too far, a character stretched beyond credibility even for Shondaland’s dramatic universe.
Yet, Grey’s Anatomy seems to favor brain tumors over sisters in its narrative toolkit. Brain tumors function as deus ex machina, those convenient plot devices that introduce magical realism into the medical world. They allow for dramatic resurrections ( Grey’s loves a good ghost), rekindled romances, and dramatic climaxes, all under the guise of medical science. Hearts, in the world of Grey’s, are comparatively straightforward, while brains are chaotic, mysterious landscapes – mirroring Ellis Grey’s Alzheimer’s, Richard Webber’s alcoholism, Miranda Bailey’s OCD, and Andrew DeLuca’s bipolar disorder. Hearts may break predictably, but brains remain enigmas.
But doctor cristina yang wasn’t a brain surgeon; she was a cardiothoracic surgeon, a heart specialist. Her brilliance in the OR was unmatched, but her romantic life was a series of mismatches. She outshone her partners, Preston Burke and Owen Hunt, reducing them to embodiments of insecure masculinity. She essentially eclipsed Burke’s surgical prowess. Burke’s mother, played by the iconic Diahann Carroll, retaliated in a memorably bizarre way – by taking Cristina’s eyebrows. Cristina’s departure from Seattle was orchestrated by Burke, who lured her to his state-of-the-art clinic in Switzerland and then, in a grand gesture, offered her his position. His seduction tactic? A three-dimensional hologram of a human heart, a symbol of the surgical world she so passionately inhabited.
Owen Hunt, whom doctor cristina yang actually married (perhaps even twice; the details blur with time), offered no such grand gestures. He should have exited her life after the icicle incident (a classic Grey’s dramatic injury), but instead, he lingered, their relationship becoming a source of constant conflict. Owen’s resentment following Cristina’s second abortion fundamentally undermined the very “Person” concept that was central to the show’s appeal. Derek’s death, while tragic, solidified this point: in Grey’s Anatomy, men were always approximations of the “Person” – holograms, not the real heart. Before leaving, Cristina’s iconic line to Meredith, “He’s not the sun. You are,” served as a powerful declaration of Meredith’s self-worth and foreshadowed her trajectory beyond Derek’s shadow.
Derek’s death cleared the path for Meredith to become the sun, a central, almost blinding figure in the Grey’s Anatomy universe. She accumulates children, becomes an activist, even flirts with jail time – evolving into a concept more than a relatable character. This is why the introduction of text messages in Season 16 felt so refreshing, a modern touch reminiscent of Sally Rooney’s novels. When Meredith’s article on healthcare inequality inadvertently implicated her own hospital, a text message appeared: Cristina, in quintessential form, distilled to pure essence: “MOVE TO SWITZERLAND BEFORE BAILEY MURDERS YOU IN YOUR SLEEP.”
And Cristina’s influence didn’t stop there. Text-Cristina even sent Meredith a potential love interest – an Irish pediatric surgeon, complete with shamrock emojis, a clear setup for a new romance. Even as an unseen presence, doctor cristina yang’s competence and insight were reassuring. She was, in a way, still running the show from afar (Cristina ex machina!), sending guidance from her sophisticated Swiss world.
I, like many, turned to Grey’s Anatomy during the pandemic, seeking comfort in the familiar chaos of the hospital. I endured the seemingly endless angst of Owen and Amelia in Season 12 and Meredith’s abrupt relocation after Derek’s death. I needed the show to catch up to our reality, to reflect the pandemic we were all living through. And Grey’s did address the pandemic head-on in Season 17.
The show’s decision to confront the pandemic was admirable. However, Season 17 shifted Grey’s from escapist drama to a stark reflection of our broken world, forcing viewers to confront the realities many Americans faced but didn’t see: overflowing hospitals, strained medical staff, and the relentless grief of loss. The individual heroics of the surgeons felt insignificant against the overwhelming tide of Covid-19, and the show’s usual focus on personal stories faltered.
Having lost both parents during the pandemic (though not to Covid), the storylines about loss and overwhelmed healthcare systems felt too close to home. The political commentary, while relevant, sometimes felt heavy-handed. What I, and perhaps many long-time viewers, craved was a return to the show’s earlier escapism – the drama, the romance, the “hot people having sex in a supply closet” as the original article humorously puts it.
This sentiment was echoed by critics like Khadija Mbowe, who, despite being a Grey’s Anatomy “stan,” noted the show’s shift towards overt political messaging. The monologues and “speeches on why Black Lives Matter,” while important, sometimes overshadowed the character-driven narratives that had been the show’s strength. Meredith’s semi-comatose Covid experience, mirroring a brain tumor in its convenient plot function, felt like an attempt to incorporate beloved past characters (like Mark Sloan) without fully engaging with the present reality.
Credit: ABC
Grey’s Anatomy, much like its surgeons battling an unstoppable virus, struggled to transition from personal dramas to systemic issues. While diagnosis is key in individual medical cases, structural problems are often glaringly obvious. The challenge lies in addressing those systemic issues, a kind of “structural surgery” that eluded even Dr. Calliope Torres. Grey’s attempt to tackle these issues is commendable, even in its imperfections.
In a recent interview, Sandra Oh stated she would not reprise her role as doctor cristina yang. Yet, she acknowledged Cristina’s continued existence, envisioning her on the pandemic front lines, “attacking the systematic problems, not just the day in and day out.”
While Sandra Oh’s vision is compelling, I prefer to imagine doctor cristina yang in a different light. Picture her in a sophisticated lab in Switzerland, away from the immediate chaos, brilliant and even more insightful. The hologram heart is now the world itself, which she turns thoughtfully in her hand. Then, a smile, and a text to Meredith, not just about personal crises, but about how to truly save the world, one brilliant, strategic text at a time.
Beth Boyle Machlan’s original article provided a compelling analysis of Grey’s Anatomy. This rewritten piece expands on her insights while focusing on the enduring appeal of doctor cristina yang for an English-speaking audience.
