‘Grey’s Anatomy’ season 11, episode 21 draws big ratings; Patrick Dempsey talks surprising story

The ratings have come in for Thursday night’s TV lineup, and we have to say that at least commercially, “Grey’s Anatomy” was a winner. With a 2.8 rating in the 18-49 demographic, the show was not only up from this point last season, but it also had its best performance since the start of the season. Obviously, the big hype surrounding this episode was the stunning death of Derek Shepherd, one of the few remaining characters who was around from the very beginning of the show.

Next week, the show will be airing a two-hour episode, and given all of the publicity it is receiving plus the funeral for Derek, you have to imagine that it is going to continue to pack a ratings punch for ABC. After that, it will be interesting to see. We’ve seen countless people online claim that they will never watch again after the death of Derek, but this is also the sort of thing you tend to hear with great regularity before people actually do end up watching. We do think it will lose a little momentum in the long-term, but probably not until next season.

Patrick Dempsey spoke to Entertainment Weekly about his departure, and was relatively vague as to the exact reason for leaving now with a year remaining on his contract:

“It just sort of evolved. It’s just kind of happened. It really was something that was kind of surprising that unfolded, and it just naturally came to be. Which was pretty good. I like the way it has all played out.”

Dempsey said that everything came together quickly, and it was “February or March” when the decision was made to kill Derek rather than something in the fall.

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