Grey’s Anatomy season 14: Show execs on quick end to Meredith / Riggs story

Did anyone else imagine that Grey’s Anatomy season 14 would end the Meredith / Riggs story in the way in which they did? Even while Megan was back in Seattle and Meredith was advising him to try to win her back there was still a part of us that felt like he was eventually going to realize that he loved Meredith more and come back to her. The takeaway that we got from the first few episodes especially was that this was going to have a messy ending, and what we ended up having was actually something a little cleaner. It was probably as much of a clean break as you are going to see from a show like this, strange as that may be to think about for a show with so many twists and turns.

Was Martin Henderson’s exit always intended to happen in this way? While he said in many postmortem interviews that he had always planned to have a short run on the show, there are still questions aplenty regarding the way in which he left and also whether or not it was meant to be so abrupt. While the writers did a good job crafting an ending that made sense, most of the journey to that point did happen over the course of a single hour.

For the time being, the showrunners seem to be avoiding some of the mechanics of the episode and focusing more on the future. Speaking in a new interview with TVLine show creator Shonda Rhimes said the following about her journey:

“Meredith is a very complex character who had the love of her life die … I don’t know that, for her, an epic romance is exactly what she’s looking for. I think it might come when she least expects it, but I don’t think that’s what she is looking for next. And so I kind of subscribe to the idea that a woman should be looking for something else. Mainly something for herself as opposed to basing everything on a man.”

Meanwhile, fellow EP Krista Vernoff praised Henderson, while keeping the focus on Meredith’s future rather than seeing Riggs leave the way that he did:

“So many things go into decisions like [writing out Henderson] … What I can say is I was really proud of how we told that story. I was really proud that we had a love triangle [with Meredith, Nathan and Megan] where the women continuously supported each other and nobody ever tried to tear anybody down or backstab anybody. They were rooting for each other and grateful for each other and taking care of each other … Martin is an incredible talent and that’s what I can say.”

Whether or not there was more that went into the decision to end the Riggs story when it happened is something that will probably always be a little vague — Shondaland works like a vault that way. Take, for example, the amount of mystery that is still out there revolving around the exit of Patrick Dempsey.

Life goes on with Grey’s Anatomy, and that does include the upcoming 300th episode of the show! You can preview that more by heading over to the link here right now.

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