‘Grey’s Anatomy’ season 11 spoilers: Could Patrick Dempsey be gone for a time?

Patrick Dempsey has been a critical part of “Grey’s Anatomy” from the very beginning, but we could be seeing something come up that is extremely shocking for this show: A period of time that actually doesn’t include him. This will feel almost like a weird culture shock, given that we know that Dempsey is not leaving the show.

It strictly seems to be for story reasons that the show will not follow him after he decides to move to Washington DC after being asked there by the President (who, as a reminder, is not Fitz in this universe). They would basically have to create a whole new show with new characters over there to make that possibly, and for budgetary and time reasons, that’s just not feasible. It is for many of these reasons that show creator Shonda Rhimes had the following to say recently to Entertainment Weekly on the subject of what will happen with Derek:

“It’s highly possible that we might not see Derek for a while … There will be a time when you see him again, yes, but it’s probable that you won’t see Derek for a while.”

Eventually, you have to assume that the character will return to the world of the Grey-Sloan Memorial Hospital. After all, he is a series regular, and he has a contract for a 12th season already. When you have this sort of talent, you want to use him as much as you possibly can.

Do you think that Derek’s absence will hurt the show, or be a nice little shakeup to introduce something new into the series? Share with a comment below, and head over here to get some other scoop related to “Grey’s Anatomy”! Also, you can sign up now if you want to snag some other scoop on everything we cover via our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: ABC.)