Grey's Anatomy Character Guide

The Interns

Dr. Meredith Grey

Meredith is the pensive voice of Grey’s Anatomy that makes sense of all the drama ensuing in the hospital. Wispy, with an award-worthy worry face, Meredith leads the viewer into her surgical intern life after a dreamy one-night stand with her soon-to-be boss. Dr. Shepherd is the name of the doc under the covers, a guy who has pushed the path of Meredit’s plot for the past two seasons. Her on-and-off-again relationship with ‘Dr. McDreamy’ (as the interns refer to him) was the original dollop of melodrama the show led with. The situation was peachy-keen in the first season–with Meredith and McDreamy facing minor blips in their relationship based on getting to know each other, breaking in their relationship with fellow-staff, as well as ironing out those deep-closeted secrets each of them seems to have.

The situation got further complicated though when McDreamy revealed his bigshot also-doctor wife, which threw a wrench in the happily-ever-after Meredith probably longed for. Not to fret however, after a while of wallowing, and having a breakdown while attempting to move on with best friend George (also an intern), Dr. Grey, Jr. seems to be coping fine with her veterinarian, a.k.a ‘McVet’, a.k.a Chris O’Donnell, boyfriend, who has her heart beating just a little bit faster. The season finale left us with Meredith teetering between McDreamy and McVet after spending a forbidden few minutes rolling around on the hospital beds with the former during a hospital prom event.

Who will she pick? And just how will that work with McDreamy’s McWife in the picture? Though Chris O’Donnell’s baby face is undeniably irresistible, Shep holds the key to Meredit’s weakness. That is, because he is her weakness. Her ultimate choice will probably lead to the phasing out of the great McVet, but if Grey is as good as its ratings can attest to, the writers will know not to keep Meredith with McDreamy for too long. Many a wise writer has attested to the power of storylines when lead characters are unhappy, and giving Meredith everything she’s ever wanted will not only lead to a premature flatlining of Grey’s heat, but also make the show dreary, none too fast.

Dr. George O’Malley

George is probably the one character that everyone cheers for on the show, since he’s a very likable guy. He eventually became roommates with fellow interns, Meredith and Izzie. The problem with that is the fact that George had a crush on Meredith. He was infatuated with her. He would never admit it at first, though. He’s probably the most emotional male doctor on the show, and can easily get into arguments with anyone. He did date a nurse in the hospital named Olivia, but that ended when he contacted syphilis from her and the fact that Olivia could tell that George liked Meredith. Meredith would always ignore George, though. He was just a friend to her. It didn’t help that Meredith fell in love with Derek, the doctor all the ladies call “McDreamy”.

George finally got enough courage to tell Meredith how he felt. This is a big moment in any friend/lover relationship. Meredith is not in a good state of mind at the moment and this leads to them having sex. However, in the middle of it she begins to cry. George thinks its because Meredith doesn’t want to have sex with him and can’t believe she is. The real reason for the crying is she is sad about Derek and George said all of the right things, so she gave it a shot but in the middle knew she didn’t want to. George is crushed. They can kiss their relationship goodbye, and that includes just being friends. Meredith apologized to George many times, but George stopped talking to her. He wasn’t listening when Meredith said she wanted to go back to the way they were.

Eventually, George did talk to Meredith again. It took a LONG time, and only after he found a new love interest. George started dating an orthopedic surgeon at the hospital named Callie Torres. Callie was the agressive one in the beginning. She quickly fell in love with George. The other women on the show noticed this before George did. They even commented that George was Callie’s “McDreamy”. That completely baffled them, but it was true. George was still dealing with the whole Meredith thing, but he began to like Callie as well. Callie told George that she loved him. George didn’t say it back, but only because he wanted it to mean something when he said it to her.

Callie is now regular member of the cast, so she should be sticking around for a little bit. Do I think George and Callie are a great couple? Not really. I still don’t think George is over Meredith, and it will probably come around and bite him down the road. I’m happy that George is with someone else that appreciates him. That’s definitely a good thing.

The truth is George is the “nice guy”. That can work one of two ways. Girls like Meredith will consider him “just a friend”, since he isn’t a “bad boy”. That’s the “nice guys finish last” sort of thing. However, there will be certain girls like Callie, who may have been burned in the past by the “bad boys”. They have learned their lesson and are instantly attracted to George now. So George can go from being a guy with no options to a guy with many options. That’s what I think will happen to George. Women on the show will quickly fall in love with George. George won’t know what to do with all of this attention, and he’ll probably have to break a few hearts along the way. He’ll do it in a way, though, that people will still like him. You can also count on George and Meredith tip-toeing the “friendship/love” line once again before it’s all over with.

Dr. Izzie Stevens

Izzie is the pretty girl on the show. Every show has got to have their very own blonde bombshell and Dr.Stevens seems a perfect fit. ‘Seems’, however, is the operative word here, as Stevens’ beauty queen good looks are just a vessel through which she’s able to reach her dreams of becoming a surgeon. The show was impeccable with the irony of this character–she is exactly what you’d think she’d be; tall, beautiful blond with an extensive modeling background, but the entire antithesis of everything you’d expect at the same time.

You see that tall, beautiful blonde didn’t live such a perfect life, grew up in a trailer trash-tinged area and modeled underwear to pay her way through med-school. Her humble beginnings give her something to prove in the hospital, arguably more so than anyone else on the staff. Her ultimate fallout however, the place where she loses and others like the scarily-driven Yang step in front of her, is her inability to remove her personal feelings from her work. Izzy’s empathy has been in full view of the audience since season one. Even in her first few days she walked the line with an off-site procedure for Chinese stowaways who refused to come inside for fear that they’d be deported.

Her heart-on-sleeve characteristic was brought to an ultimate climax this past season when she fell in love with a sweet cardiac patient named Denny. His charming, flirty ways caught her eye, and prompted her to kick the callous Karev, who had seemed to have no real regard for her feelings. Forbidden liasons don’t really seem to bug many of the interns on this show, as Izzy, like her fellow friends, gave in to Denny’s appeal, and even risked her career by cutting his air tubes so that he’d win out in a heart transplant fight-out with another patient. He did win the heart and her heart by eventually proposing to her when all had gone well. What really put Izzy through the drama wringer this year however, was when Denny, who was recovering well, suddenly died in the final minutes of the finale. The ultimate consequence of getting too attached was the picture of Izzy, lying helplessly by Denny’s side, absolutely inconsolable. Her final words as she was carried out of the hospital were of her resignation as intern at Seattle Grace.

So where will Izzy be this season? The writers have wrung out all of her emotions this season, so it’d be nice to see her laying back, taking it easy for a while. A kid who falls down a few times always gets up and moves on, so I assume that Izzy will do the same–after a good period of sulking and moping, that is. The writers should be careful not to prolong the grieving period, as even a pretty pout can lag the show and the characte’s progress. The Denny situation should strengthen her ties with Dr. Karev, who found it in his mean manner to take some time out and console her after Denny died. What do you know– turns out he too has a heart. The fate of Izzy’s career, however, is still a pressing matter for the upcoming season. After inducing the need for a transplant, and then offering a resignation, the writers will need to find a way to fit her into the mix without making the show seem too unrealistic. Here’s to hoping she sticks around, albeit in some sort of lesser capacity at first to at least propel the image of some form of consequence. If there’s one thing we’ve learned about this character it’s that she’ll work to get back to where she was, even if it means more modeling.

Dr. Cristina Yang

Cristina is a tough motorcycle chick who doesn’t seem to quite cut it when we speak of the seemingly callous, tactless Dr. Yang. A Stanford grad, driven for all kinds of success—to the point where she may even sell her friends out for it, Yang has provided much of the show’s comic relief. She too has fallen to fancy a fellow forbidden resident by the name of Dr. Burke, who is as determined and tough as she is.

The secret about Yang, and most other characters who are originally written as surface though is that they hold a gushy sides that draw in viewers like a million McDreamys. We see glimpses of this often understated soft side as Yang struggles with her hush-hush pregnancy in the first season, as she argues it out with vulnerable, wanting patients, and finally most poignantly in this yea’s season finale when she must decide how to support her now potentially paralyzed boyfriend who may never be able to do his job as surgeon again.

Though the writers have worked to establish a soft side for Yang, they’re very clever about exposing it needlessly, never letting her delve into he deep drama unless it’s absolutely necessary. After all, they have Meredith to that. We never see Yang in an unabashed bout of passion, through almost every dramatic counter she faces, she struggle. Whether it’s her difficulty in expressing the big “I Love You” or her initial silence at Dr. Burke’s inquisition into just what he should do about his potential career-ending injury, she’s got a bout of hesitation that never seems to fully go away.
After her breakdown in the final episode of the second season, it will be interesting to see how the writers continue to balance the tough and soft sides of Dr. Yang. Methinks that she will indeed need to soften up to aid Dr. Burke through his trials, but her snark is Grey’s’ gold, often times highlighting the cutthroat world of medicine that most don’t think about. Go a little too much to either extreme, and the writers will either have themselves a case of Meredith V.2, or a She-Karev–*shudder*.

Dr. Alex Karev

Alex is the “player” on the show. He thinks he is “God’s gift to women”. He is also brutally honest and other interns and residents don’t like his “bedside manner” with the patients. Some may even call him a “jerk”. Alex quickly got involved with another intern named Izzie Stevens. He’s the “bad boy” type and Izzie liked that. Alex was a former wrestler at the University of Iowa before getting into medicine.

Things were going good with him and Izzie until Izzie caught him sleeping with a nurse at the hospital named Olivia. Alex gave Olivia syphilis, who then gave it to George. She didn’t know she had it, though. None of the other interns seem to like Alex that much. Izzie didn’t like him either after catching him cheating on her.

However, Izzie and Alex got back together during a bomb scare at the hospital. Izzie was still attracted to Alex, eventhough he was a jerk. You can tell that Alex was beginning to really like Izzie after this. You knew that for sure when Izzie got attention from a heart patient at the hospital named Denny Duquette. Denny asked Izzie out and they got into a relationship. Izzie realized she didn’t have to settle for Alex and Alex became jealous.

Alex and Izzie fought about the whole Denny thing for much of the end of season two. Alex said Izzie shouldn’t date a patient. It could affect her job, which was true but you can tell he really didn’t want Izzie to see anyone else. In the end, Denny would die of a stroke at the end of season two. Izzie was crushed after she risked her career to save him. But who was there to pick her up and console her after Denny’s death? Alex. After all they have been through, Alex still cared about Izzie and didn’t want to see her in that condition.

Alex is an interesting character as he appears to be a jerk on the outside, since he is honest. I think Alex has some growing up to do and I actually see him changing during the course of this show. Will Izzie and Alex get back together? I’m not sure, but there is no doubt that Alex cares about her. Does Izzie feel the same? I think she does, but who knows what she is thinking after the death of Izzie. Alex did work under Addison a lot during season two, much to his dismay. However, there could be something more there. Addison and Alex had great chemistry together. If things don’t work out with Derek and Addison, which I think will happen, I could actually see Addison and Alex together. In the end, I really see Alex changing from the “player” to something more mature. People still won’t like him at first, but once you understand who he is, you will see he is not as bad as you think.

The Resident Doctors

Dr. Derek Shepherd

Derek is the head of neurosurgery at Seattle Grace Hospital. He has earned the nickname of “McDreamy” from the women interns at the hospital. “He’s the man of every woman’s dreams”, hence the name. At the start of the show, he sleeps with Meredith Grey. They would later find out, that same morning, that they work together. Meredith is an intern, while Derek is a doctor at the same hospital. That means they will eventually be working together. Despite that, though, they decide to pursue a relationship together.

Everything is going good, until a woman doctor named Addison Forbes Montgomery Shepherd arrives at the hospital. Yes, that’s Derek’s wife! Meredith is completely shocked by this and Derek breaks things off with Meredith soon afterwards. Addison and Derek are still married, but they were separated after Derek learned that Addison cheated on him with his best friend, Mark. Mark eventually earns the nickname “McSteamy”. We learn that’s the reason Derek moved to Seattle. To get away from his cheating wife in New York.

However, Addison wants to work things out with Derek. Addison decides to stay in Seattle after Chief Dr. Webber asks her to stay. Derek decides to see what happens with his wife and they get back together. This quickly creates a “love triangle” between Derek and Meredith and Addison. Meredith still likes Derek and Derek admits that he still likes Meredith.

Meredith wants Derek to choose and Derek chooses Addison. He has to see if it will really work out between them. Meredith is hurt and it’s one of the reasons she sleeps with George, which was a mistake. Derek still likes Meredith and he even becomes jealous when he hears other guys have been with her. First, with George, and later with a veterinarian, Finn Dandridge. Meredith and Finn get into a relationship. Meredith tries to forget about Derek, but Derek can’t help but “not look at” Meredith. He doesn’t want to look at her, but he still likes her. Then, in a moment of weakness at the end of season two, Derek and Meredith have sex in the hospital. And Meredith has to choose between Derek and Finn.

Derek is at the center of multiple “love triangles”. He’s a man that women are easily attracted to. At first, he was faithful to his wife until she wasn’t faithful to him. Later, he still can’t get over Meredith, no matter how hard he tries and they “hook up”. Something is going to come out of that. How will this affect his marriage? I don’t think him and Addison will be together much longer. Will Meredith be with Derek? I know people want to see that and it probably will happen, but I don’t think that is the best thing for this show. Not now at least. They both have to admit that they still have feelings for each other first before they can move on. Knowing Meredith, she will probably choose Derek and things will blow up down the road. They will be back from where they started from. Any way you look at, Derek has some issus to work out, though.

Dr. Preston Burke

Dr. Preston Burke is your typical Type A, who’s driven to success and believes that order is the way to go. In fact he graduate first in his class from Johns Hopkins Medical School, not necessarily on his skill or talent, but based solely on his drive. His ultimate goal is to be the chief of surgery for Seattle Grace.

He had a relationship with Cristina Yang but broke up to salvage both of their reputations. However, unbeknownst to him she was pregnant. Her miscarriage prompted their reconciliation. He subsequently invited her to move in, which she accepted.

In the season two finale, Dr. Burke was shot. This season should see his recovery and the ramifications of the shooting come into play, with diminished surgical skills being a possible outcome. And it will also be interesting to see how his shooting will affect his relationship with Cristina.

Dr. Miranda Bailey

Miranda is nicknamed “The Nazi.” That should provide an adequate glimpse into her character. She’s responsible for the five interns that are the focus of the show, which means that she’s got to tolerate all of the drama that they generate. Given that she’s got little tolerance for anything that fall outside of their job description, she’s frequently using a “raised voice.”

That said she’s shown to have heart. First and foremost, last season she gave birth to a healthy baby boy. Of course this being Seattle Grace she gave birth while her husband was in surgery and while there was a live bomb (which eventually exploded) in the hospital. She’s also proven to be one of the few people that Addison Shepherd trusts and will turn to in a time of need.

This season should probably see Dr. Bailey dealing with juggling motherhood and her role in the hospital. Also, expect her and Addison Shepherd to bond more. Maybe.

Dr. Richard Webber

Dr. Richard Webber is the chief of surgery at Seattle Grace. But just because he’s the guy in charge it doesn’t mean that he’s devoid of any of the juicy drama that seems par for the course for the hospital. For instance while a resident at Seattle Grace, many moons ago, he had an affair with a fellow resident; Ellis Grey, the mother of Meredith Grey. She thought they’d leave their respective spouses and live happily ever after, but he balked and stuck with his wife.

In the present Dr. Webber is still with his wife, though he finds time to visit with Ellis, who’s suffering from Alzheimer’s. He’s a recovering alcoholic and he recently had brain surgery, though his skills as a surgeon remain intact. The season two finale’s prom theme was prompted by his desire for his niece, who was admitted to Seattle Grace suffering from ovarian cancer, to have a proper prom.

Being that Dr. Webber is a supporting player, he pretty much reacts to the chaos in Seattle Grace, whether it’s a STD outbreak or a resident dating an attending. But it’s a safe bet that his relationship with Ellis Grey will come back into play in future episodes, especially now that Meredith knows about the affair.

Dr. Addison Forbes Montgomery Shepherd

Addison is the wife of Dr. Derek Shepherd. While they were both in New York, Addison had an affair with Mark Sloan, who happened to be Derek’s best friend. This prompted Derek’s relocation to Seattle Grace. However Addison followed him in attempt to reconcile. When Derek decided to try to work things out, Addison accepted the position as head of the neonatal unit at Seattle Grace.

Since joining Seattle Grace Addison has had to accept a bit of a cold reception from her fellow doctors as her presence effectively put an end to the relationship between Derek and Meredith (despite Meredith, in actuality being the “other woman.) However, where Addison could have been a cold jaded woman, she is in fact friendly and likeable, thus she’s found a welcome home at Seattle Grace. She’s even extended an olive branch to Meredith, despite Derek’s admission that he’s not “in love” with his wife.

This season could be a very eventful one for Addison. The season two finale ended with Meredith at a crossroads; having to choose between the vet she’d been dating and Derek whom she’s just shared a passionate shag with. Since the love triangle between Addison, Derek and Meredith is still alive and well things should heat up this season. Plus there’ the promise of the return of Mark Sloan, who professes to still be in love with Addison. Given that she’s one of the most likable characters on the show it could be renamed “Addison’s Anatomy.”