Grey’s Anatomy is one of the most beloved and longest-running TV shows created by Shonda Rhimes. The show’s 20th season recently dropped, and it’s hard not to appreciate the elements that endured throughout the show’s nearly two-decade run. In 2005, Grey’s Anatomy aired as a medical drama that could compete with other shows like ER, which Grey’s has long since outlasted.
The show quickly shot into the spotlight and became a fan favorite because of its masterful blend of medicine and human experience. While Grey’s highlights surgery and medical research, much of the focus belongs to the characters. As such, there’s a never-ending stream of romances for fans to love. But one of them existed at the beginning.
Grey’s Anatomy may have killed off Derek Shepherd years ago, but his legacy continues to live on in the iconic procedural series to this day. The most recent episode of the show brings back Shepherd’s memory in a surprising way, leaving fans to remember his on-again-off-again relationship with Meredith Grey. This article has been updated with additional information and adheres to CBR’s current formatting guidelines.
Season 1 Introduces MerDer for the First Time
Meredith and Derek’s Early Relationship Reveals Its Attendant Complications
The first episode of Grey’s Anatomy introduces protagonist Meredith Grey as she wakes up in her living room following a drunken one-night stand. Considering it’s her first day of work, and she’s late, she rushes to get dressed, accidentally waking up her male companion, who introduces himself as Derek. Meredith expects him to leave the house and likely thinks they’ll never cross paths again. But during her first day as a surgical resident, Meredith discovers that Derek, or neurosurgeon Dr. Derek Shepherd works in the same hospital and is her boss.
Across the next few episodes, Meredith tries to keep their relationship strictly professional, but that doesn’t work out well for her. Among secret rendezvous in the hospital’s elevators and stairwells, the two resume their relationship and start casually dating. Everything seems fine, especially as Meredith confides in Derek about her mother’s health issues. But at the end of the season, a gorgeous redheaded woman shows up at Seattle Grace Hospital, introduces herself as Addison Shepherd, and drops a bomb with the line, “And you must be the woman who’s been screwing my husband.”
Season 2 Makes Meredith the Third Wheel
The Relationship’s On and Off Status Breaks Meredith’s Heart
Considering Season 1 of Grey’s Anatomy ended with the revelation that Derek was married during his and Meredith’s entire relationship, it’s unsurprising that Meredith wants nothing to do with him in Season 2, as she doesn’t want to be a homewrecker. Even though Addison intends to stay in Seattle, Meredith is willing to give Derek and their relationship another chance once she learns that he and Addison are approaching a divorce. It doesn’t take long for her to change her mind when Derek starts having second thoughts about ending his marriage.
Derek’s apprehension hurts Meredith deeply as she realizes she is in love with him. So, in Grey’s Anatomy Season 2, episode 5, Meredith corners him in the scrub room and delivers the now-iconic “Pick me, choose me, love me” line. He chooses Addison, but he basically strings Meredith along for the ride. A few episodes after Derek breaks Meredith’s heart, she rescues a dog, Doc, and tries to move on with her life. Unfortunately, Doc keeps her tethered to Addison and Derek as she surrenders her beloved pup to the couple. Meredith and Derek decide to attempt a friendship while practically co-parenting their dog. But, when Meredith begins a romance with their vet, Finn, their relationship returns to its strained default. Grey’s Season 2 ends with Seattle Grace’s prom night, Meredith and Derek putting down Doc, and finally, Meredith and Derek hooking up in an exam room.
Season 3 Finally Gives MerDer a Break
At Last, Their Relationship Becomes Legit
Early in Grey’s Anatomy Season 3, Meredith decides she won’t choose between her suitors. Instead, she has Finn and Derek court her for a couple of episodes before ultimately breaking things off with Finn shortly before the Shepherds finalize their divorce. Meredith and Derek start their relationship back up soon after their respective breakups, and it lasts for most of the season.
In the season’s 16th episode, Meredith falls into the water at the scene of a ferry boat crash, and Derek saves her from drowning, but on the same day, her mom dies. As such, she deals with some deep-seated emotional issues, especially given her father’s reappearance in her life. So it’s not too surprising that they broke up at the end of Season 3. They simply wanted different things, as he wanted to settle down, but she wasn’t ready.
Season 4 Raises the Stakes for Meredith
And Finds No End to Complications
Grey’s Anatomy Season 4 opens around three weeks after MerDer’s Season 3 breakup. The duo doesn’t stay broken up for long, though, as the second episode features Meredith proposing a casual, no-strings relationship to combat the awkwardness at work. Unfortunately, during their casual phase, Derek begins seeing a Seattle Grace scrub nurse named Rose, which ends with Meredith finding out and ending things.
While Derek dates Rose, Meredith realizes she wants to spend the rest of her life with Derek. She’s ready to take the next step with him. So, in the season’s 17th episode, she makes a grand gesture on his plot of land. In the general spot where Derek wanted to build their house, Meredith created a house of candles to celebrate their latest success in the OR. The gesture showed Derek and the audience that Meredith was willing to work things out with Derek and move toward a future with him in it.
Season 5 Solidifies MerDer’s Relationship
The Couple Settle Down, Then Don’t, Then Do
Grey’s Anatomy Season 5 opens with Derek and Meredith moving in together, though Derek hits a slight snag after realizing he has to share his home with Meredith’s roommates. The duo decided to take their relationship relatively slowly and go with the flow. Their communication is notably much better throughout Season 5, as well. Around the 17th episode, Derek moves out of the house after losing a patient and tries to shut Meredith out, but they remain stable.
Two episodes after their big Season 5 fight, Derek surprises Meredith in their elevator, the small area filled with brain scans and mementos from their time together. The moment ends with a MerDer engagement. The couple agrees to let Izzie Stevens organize their wedding and eventually give their big day to Izzie and Alex Karev in Episode 24. Of course, MerDer do marry in that episode, though their wedding is hardly traditional, as they simply write their vows on a blue Post-it note.
Season 6 Features Big Decisions and Big Trauma
The Couple Try To Start a Family
Grey’s Anatomy’s sixth season began with Meredith and Derek enjoying newlywed life. They were also happy to have the house to themselves as Izzie and Alex moved into the trailer. Perhaps the most notable advancement in their relationship throughout Season 6 is their decision to start a family together.
The end of Grey’s Anatomy Season 6 features Meredith revealing to Cristina that she’s pregnant. She is excited by the news and is even more thrilled to tell Derek. But the Season 6 finale put the hospital and MerDer through Hell as a man opens fire in Seattle Grace Mercy West and targets Lexie Grey, Richard Webber, and Derek. Meredith watches her husband get shot and watches her best friend operate on her husband at gunpoint. She also watches him flatline. Tragically, the emotional stress of nearly losing her husband, little sister, and father figure puts too much stress on her body, and she miscarries during surgery.
Season 7 Gave Meredith and Derek Fertility Issues
The Couple Is Tested With Major Problems They Can’t Solve
Unfortunately, the Season 6 miscarriage isn’t the end of Meredith Grey’s conception struggles. Throughout Grey’s Anatomy Season 7, Meredith and Derek try to get pregnant, but to no avail. The fertility specialist even refers to Meredith’s uterus as hostile and tells them that a healthy pregnancy isn’t likely to happen. Their difficulty conceiving understandably damages Meredith’s mental health, but luckily, it doesn’t significantly harm MerDer’s marriage.
Near the end of the season, the couple gets extremely lucky when they cross paths with a baby girl brought over as part of Alex’s program to bring children from Africa to Seattle for necessary but inaccessible surgery. As soon as Derek meets Zola, he knows she is their baby, and Meredith falls in love with her soon after. They don’t get to adopt her in Season 7, but they do experience parenthood for the first time.
Season 8 Featured MerDer at Their Happiest
Things Don’t Get Happier For Meredith and Derek After Season 8
Immediately into Season 8, Derek discovers Meredith tampered with their medical trial, and their marriage practically falls apart. The timing is horrendous on Derek’s part, as the day he leaves Meredith, the social worker lets Meredith take Zola home. The next couple of episodes featured Meredith and Derek barely co-parenting, and the social worker sadly catches on and takes Zola away, which puts even more strain on their marriage. Luckily, their separation doesn’t stick, and they reunite with a deal to keep working out of their marriage.
Some of Grey’s Anatomy season 8 features MerDer going through several heartbreaking hurdles involving Zola’s adoption, but Zola enters their family permanently soon into the season. Meredith and Derek are at their happiest during most of Season 8. But the finale destroys all joy for them and their fans as a plane crash nearly destroys Derek’s career and kills Lexie and Derek’s best friend, Mark. On the bright side, though, their marriage doesn’t take any significant hits during the transition into Season 9.
Season 9 Expanded the Grey-Shepherd Family
Bailey Joins the Family In Season 9
Season 9 of Grey’s Anatomy opens with a two-parter that features Meredith and Derek starting to come to terms with their physical and emotional injuries caused by the plane crash. One of the primary ways they cope with the tragedy throughout the season is by spending more time with the family they have left, which also means that their marriage is still strong.
A few episodes into the season reveals that Meredith’s fertility issues aren’t a massive problem anymore, as she shows Derek Zola’s new shirt that refers to the little girl as a big sister. Several moments of domestic bliss during her pregnancy warmed fans’ hearts, especially when Meredith and Derek dress up for Zola’s tea party. The season ends with Seattle experiencing a severe storm, Seattle Grace experiencing a power outage, and Meredith starting labor. The season finale features the birth of their baby boy, Bailey, and emergency surgery to save Meredith’s life after his birth.
Season 10 Put MerDer’s Marriage at Risk
Meredith and Derek Face One of Their Toughest Challenges
Season 10 puts Meredith and Derek in a happy little bubble. Both surgeons begin innovative projects, and their careers grow further than ever before. They also thoroughly enjoyed their family life, with several episodes showcasing them with their children, including Derek using baby Bailey to win people over at a charity event and the family trick-or-treating together.
Everything changes for them a few episodes into the season when Derek gets offered a position to continue his groundbreaking research in D.C. under the President of the United States. For the weeks that Derek considers the offer, he and Meredith constantly argue about the options until she ultimately decides to stay in Seattle with their kids.
Season 11 Sees Increased Tension In Their Relationship
Meredith Comes In Second To Derek’s Ambitions
Meredith decides to stay, but Derek takes the job offer a few episodes into Season 11. He goes across the country, leaving his wife to take care of their children like she’s a single mother. Meredith and Derek understandably don’t get along for several episodes, with their marriage seemingly ending during a period when they don’t speak to each other.
Meredith also suspects him of cheating on her after a woman answers his phone suspiciously. But almost immediately after she picks up his phone, Derek appears at their house, hoping to mend their relationship. They reunite, and everything returns to normal by the time Derek heads back to D.C. to resign.
Season 11 Also Features a Heartbreaking End
MerDer Comes To a Tragic End
The Grey’s Anatomy episode “How To Save A Life” featured Grey’s most heartbreaking but most necessary death. It shows Derek on his way home when he stops to help a group of people after a car accident. He does his job, gets back in his car and is about to start driving when a semi-truck appears unexpectedly and crashes into Derek’s vehicle. He gets wheeled into the ER, but they miss a brain bleed, and he winds up brain-dead.
Of course, fans’ hearts break alongside Meredith’s as police lights show up at their dream house, and she leads her children into a hospital. She makes the heartbreaking decision to remove him from life support. While that would’ve been the end of MerDer, she would soon give birth to their last child, a baby girl named Ellis. If fans didn’t already associate the song “Chasing Cars” with dread, they certainly did after Derek’s death.
Season 17 Finally Reunited Meredith and Derek
The Couple Meet Again In a Coma
Aside from a CGI appearance in Season 15’s “Flowers Grow Out of My Grave,” Meredith and Derek’s relationship doesn’t get much spotlight until Season 17. By that point, Meredith had long since moved on romantically, and in Season 17, she is involved with Andrew DeLuca. So, it is shocking when the beloved McDreamy appears during Meredith’s COVID-19 coma.
He isn’t CGI or a flashback on the beach and isn’t the only dead loved one Meredith reunites with. But Derek is the only person to appear on Meredith’s beach repeatedly. They mostly talk about their kids, but they also talk about Derek’s death and how Meredith couldn’t leave their kids. During one of the conversations about the kids, Meredith tells Derek about how Ellis drew them in a traditional wedding. Even though Meredith hates those weddings, and they already had their perfect wedding, Season 17 features a MerDer beach wedding. Unfortunately, as Meredith decides to return to her life, fans watch Derek walk off for the final time in Grey’s Anatomy.
Derek Gets Brief Mentions in Season 19
The Loss of Their House Leaves One Final MerDer Moment
Meredith holding her wedding Post-it as her and Dereks house burns down in Grey’s Anatomy.
For the most part, Derek’s presence in Grey’s Anatomy fades away with the final episode on the beach. Meredith no longer uses his ferry boat scrub cap, and she took down the tumor painting ages ago. But Season 19 features a little bit of Derek. There are characters attached to Derek in the season, including his sister Amelia’s son, Scout Derek Shepherd Lincoln.
Season 19 also introduces a new batch of interns to Grey-Sloan Memorial, with one sticking out to Meredith as charming. Nothing is out of the ordinary with the intern, Lucas, until he utters, “It’s a beautiful day to save lives.” That was Derek’s pre-surgery catchphrase. As it turned out, Lucas is part of the Shepherd family and was Derek’s favorite nephew.
How Do Things End For Meredith?
The Terminally Traumatized Doctor Finally Gets Her Happy Ending
The biggest connection Season 19 has to MerDer’s relationship is quite tragic. A few episodes into the season, Meredith’s house catches on fire. As Meredith and the audience watch as the house and twenty seasons’ worth of memories burn down, her sister Maggie reveals the one thing they were able to grab before their escape: the blue Post-it note with their vows.
Unfortunately for MerDer fans, it’s the last spotlight to shine on the couple’s tumultuous relationship as Meredith is able to move on. She eventually gets into a relationship with the brilliant surgeon Nick Mash, and after a few seasons of going back and forth, Meredith ends her time on the show with Nick, who follows her out to Boston. Still, McDreamy and MerDer will always have a place in Grey’s Anatomy and fans’ hearts.
Derek’s Sister Remains a Part of Grey’s Anatomy
The Shepherd Family Continues to Play a Major Role In the Series
After Derek Shepherd’s death, his family mostly stopped appearing in the series, except his sister Amelia. Dr. Amelia Shepherd was first introduced as a guest star in Grey’s Anatomy’s early seasons before going on to star in the spinoff Private Practice until its conclusion in 2013. After Private Practice, Amelia joined the main cast of Grey’s, where she remains to this day.
Amelia Shepherd has taken a special central role in Season 21 of Grey’s, as has her nephew Lucas. Though their inclusion doesn’t fill the hole that Derek’s death left in viewers’ hearts, it goes a long way in preserving the character’s legacy. As Grey’s Anatomy continues to grow and change over the years, it feels good to know that there will always be a Shepherd at Grey-Sloan Memorial Hospital.
