Despite remaining fairly tightlipped about her decision to inexplicably kill off Patrick Dempsey's character after more than a decade on the show with very little fanfare on a non-finale episode, Grey's Anatomy showrunner, Shonda Rhimes, is now insisting that it was the only way to save the show. According to the latest gossip news updates, Shonda came to the realization that she had to either kill off Derek Shepherd, aka McDreamy, or risk exposing him for a cheat and ruining the show. Of course, it's hard for some folks to understand why Dempsey's being alive and not a dirt bag had to be mutually exclusive concepts after 11 seasons of it never seeming to come up as a significant issue.
When Shonda Rhimes suddenly killed off Patrick Dempsey's character on Grey's Anatomy, there was a lot of suspicion that the move had more to do with the showrunner's personal feelings about the longtime star than it did what was best for the show.
In a recent interview with E! News, however, the 45-year-old ABC Thursday night head honcho explained that killing off Dereck Shepherd was the only way she could keep the show's fan base from imploding:
"The decision to have the character die the way that he did was not a difficult one in the sense of what were the options?
"Either Derek was going to walk out on Meredith [Ellen Pompeo], and leave her high and dry, and what was that going to mean?
"That was going to suggest that the love was not true, the thing we had said for 11 years was a lie and McDreamy wasn't McDreamy. For me, that was untenable."
According to Rhimes, next season isn't going to be about finding Meredith a new McDreamy -- but instead finding out what it's like to live without Dereck in her life:
"I have not planned to [introduce a new love interest for her] and that's not really the focus of what we're doing with her right now.
"Meredith is in a rebirth and she's evolving. I'm watching the character do what the character's doing and I'll see where it goes."
While ABC president, Paul Lee, didn't get too deep into any of the specifics, he did assure Television Critics Association that Grey's Anatomy was going to be even more exciting in Season 12 than it was last year (via People):
"Patrick obviously has lots of interests outside. He's very big in motosports. [Creator Shonda Rhimes] decided that was the way to go.
"We've seen the pitch for Grey's next season, and the show reinvents itself again."
What do you think about Shonda's explanation for murdering McDreamy?
Couldn't she have kept Shepherd alive and faithful to his wife just as easy as making him a devoted, yet very dead, family man?
Or, was killing Demspey off for the sake of the show clearly the only way that things have gone at this point in Grey's Anatomy story?
Let us hear what you have to say in the comment field.
