Grey’s Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes reveals the ‘hardest’ death she had to write

Grey’s Anatomy creator and former showrunner Shonda Rhimes has revealed the hardest death she had to write on the long-running medical drama.

The hit series, now in its 21st season, is infamous for killing off numerous main characters, with fans often considering the deaths of Dr. George O’Malley (T.R. Knight), Dr. Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey), Dr. Lexie Grey (Chyler Leigh) and Dr. Mark Sloan (Eric Dane) to be among the most heartbreaking.

However, for Rhimes, it wasn’t any of the aforementioned characters whose deaths affected her the most. Instead, she found fan-favorite patient Denny Duquette’s (played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan) tragic death to be the “hardest” to write.

“We knew a plot point from the beginning of the season would be this man who’s dying young,” the award-winning producer said Thursday at a Paley Center event in New York City celebrating 20 years of Shondaland. “And then we met Jeffrey Dean Morgan and the young man actually had to die.”

Duquette was introduced in the midseason premiere of season two as a patient in desperate need of a heart transplant. During his stay in the hospital, he becomes romantically involved with Dr. Izzie Stevens (Katherine Heigl), and the two eventually get engaged. Toward the end of the season, his condition worsens, and Stevens convinces him to get an LVAD implant as a temporary solution while he waits for a donor heart to become available. Then, in an attempt to move him up the transplant list, Stevens cuts his LVAD wire to worsen his condition. Her plan ultimately backfires, and Duquette dies in the season finale, titled “Losing My Religion.”

“Doc the dog died that episode, too,” producer Betsy Beers remembered of Dr. Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) and Shepherd’s beloved pet.

Rhimes recalled Morgan telling her that the dog’s death lasted “five minutes longer” than Duquette’s.

In the long, drawn-out scene, Grey and Shepherd take their dog, Doc, who’s suffering from bone cancer, to the vet, where they make the difficult decision to put him down.

“It was a bloodbath,” Beers said of the multi-death episode.

Pompeo, the original series lead, officially stepped down as a full-time cast member in season 19, which aired in 2022.

While she continues doing the voiceovers for each episode, her actual appearances are few and far between. She recently explained, however, why she hasn’t completely exited the series, admitting that it “would make no sense” for her to quit the show “emotionally or financially.”

“The show was streamed more than a billion times in 2024 – more than a billion times,” she told El País, adding: “The companies that own the show and stream the show make a lot of money from our images and our voices and our faces.

“If I were to walk away completely, everybody gets to make money from my hard work for 20 years and I wouldn’t make any money,” Pompeo said.

“To me, it doesn’t make any sense that everybody [else] gets to profit off of my hard work. And emotionally, the show means a lot to people. I want to have an attitude of gratitude toward the show.”

Grey’s Anatomy, which is nearing the conclusion of season 21, has formally been renewed for season 22.