Grey's Anatomy is a show about surviving trauma. On the most obvious level, it's a television series about trauma surgeons at a hospital in Seattle, people whose day-to-day existence is an incessant tour of the worst day in the lives of everyone they meet. But these surgeons are also frequent victims of tragedy themselves: miscarriages, car crashes, divorces, plane crashes, ferry crashes, cancer, abusive parents, infidelities, shootings, near-drownings, and of course, PTSD. Centered around a young surgical intern named Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo), it's a story about broken, flawed humans who would do almost anything to save people's lives, but also spend just as much time trying to save their own.
The stealth message of Grey's Anatomy, however, is one that you rarely see in any form of media: Trauma isn't some exceptional circumstance experienced only by the deeply unlucky, but an unavoidable and even normal part of life. As Dr. Owen Hunt (Kevin McKidd) tells a grieving friend as she breaks down over the loss of a loved one, "You're going to survive this. Everybody does. It's perfectly normal. It's boring even." In short, what the doctors of Grey's Anatomy witness is neither a fantasy nor a tragedy, but simply the pain of everyday life, heightened to an almost mythological level of intensity.
Trauma lingers in the body of Grey's Anatomy, and while its heroes largely remain competent professionals who continue to throw themselves into one of the most harrowing jobs imaginable, the damage they accumulate doesn't disappear at the end of each episode; it follows them, year after year, as they learn to mourn it, accept it, and still find a reason to keep smiling, dancing, loving, and cutting people open like demigods.
With 11 seasons under its belt, those layers of history have grown pretty dense and rich, and the friendships that form around them as the characters suffer and survive is the glue of the series, and what—despite a few inevitable hit-or-miss patches—elevates it from a simple soap opera to something special.
Number of Seasons: 11 (244 episodes)
Time Requirements: Not gonna lie: This is a serious investment. If you want to watch all 11 seasons and you're willing to put in about three hours a day, it's still going to take you nearly three months to knock it out.
Where to Get Your Fix: Netflix
Best Character to Follow: Meredith Grey is the obvious choice since she's show's namesake and main character. She is also the rare female hero who gets to be prickly, occasionally out of control, and less focused on garnering sympathy than dealing with her own BS. But the stealth star of the series is her relationship with the ruthlessly focused, uncompromising Cristina Yang (Sandra Oh), a doctor who truly never takes her eyes off the prize. Despite (and sometimes because of) being tough, emotionally unavailable workaholics, their remarkable friendship might be the most important love story of the series, in a way that trumps all the guys who come in and out of their lives. Yes, even McDreamy.
Seasons/Episodes You Can Skip:
In any show that runs as long as this, you're going to hit rough patches. The inexplicable and short-lived relationship between Izzie (Katherine Heigl) and George (T.R. Knight) is a generally acknowledged low point, and you'll miss very little by skipping all of their scenes in the latter half of Season 3 and beginning of Season 4. You won't lose a tremendous amount if you skip Season 4 entirely, since it's mostly more on-again-off-again nonsense from Derek (Patrick Dempsey) and Meredith, horrible decisions from Izzie and George, and an unsatisfying same-sex relationship for Callie (Sara Ramirez) that ends up feeling like a shadow of the epic romance that immediately follows it.
Beyond that, here are a few other skippable installments.
Season 5: Episodes 8-13, "These Ties that Bind," "In the Midnight Hour," "All by Myself," "Wish You Were Here," "Sympathy for the Devil," and "Stairway to Heaven" There is an entire story arc about Izzie having sex with a ghost. Meanwhile, the new interns create an underground "fight club" where they cut each other open to practice surgery. Although the excellent Dr. Arizona Robbins (Jessica Capshaw) shows up in episode 11, everything else should be ignored.
Season 5: Episodes 7, "Give Peace a Chance" An odd stand-alone episode about saving a member of the hospital whom everyone apparently loves but we've never heard about before and will never hear about again.
Season 7: Episode 18, "Song Beneath the Song" This is a musical episode, and it is terrible. Perhaps worth watching for that initial laugh out loud moment when the doctors burst into song, but otherwise skippable.
Season 9 It's worth watching the first few episodes to see the aftermath of the plane crash that ended the previous season, but most of the season is spent jockeying with a corporation who wants to buy the hospital and sell it off for parts. The doctors who received big settlements from the crash decide to buy it themselves. You may now proceed to Season 10.
Season 10: Episode 14, "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" The hospital decides to institute a non-fraternization policy, which lasts about five seconds because fraternizing is the entire plot of the show.
Seasons/Episodes You Can't Skip:
Season 1 and 2 Watch these straight through; the first is only nine episodes, and both are full of backstories and events that will form the mythology of the show for years to come. This initial fantastic run also features the show's first "code black" emergency involving a bomb in the body of a patient, as well as the first appearance of Meredith's not-so-subtle death wish.
Season 4: Episode 1, "A Change Is Gonna Come" Yes, most of the end of Season 3 and most of Season 4 are skippable, but this one is worth it just so you know what's going on down the line. Cristina recovers following her failed wedding to Burke (Isaiah Washington), and Meredith comes to terms with the fact that her half-sister Lexie Grey (Chyler Leigh) is now an intern at the hospital.
Season 5: Episode 19, "Elevator Love Letter" If you did happen to endure the Meredith/McDreamy roller coaster of Season 4, this episode is your payoff. Also, former army surgeon Owen's PTSD causes him to choke Cristina while she sleeps.
Season 6: Episodes 23 and 24, "Sanctuary" and "Death and All His Friends" The show reaches its dramatic apex in a multi-episode arc about a deadly spree shooter who visits the hospital with a vendetta. The repercussions of this incident will echo through most of Season 7, and well into the future.
Seasons 10 and 11 While not everyone is a fan of these later seasons, it's where we get to see some of the most important characters of the show—Meredith, Cristina, Derek—struggle with the natural endpoints of their ambitions, how they clash with their personal lives, and whether or not their careers should lead them away from the people they love.
Why You Should Binge:
Created by Shonda Rhimes, the first black female showrunner of a hit TV show, Grey's Anatomy receives a lot of knee-jerk condescension for being the television equivalent of a chick flick. But it's starred some pretty impressive actors over the years—including McKidd, previously the star of HBO's Rome—and earned 25 Emmy nominations and 10 Golden Globe nominations. Although there are plenty of critically-acclaimed shows that push credulity to the brink (Breaking Bad, Hannibal, Homeland) the very diverse and female-focused Grey's Anatomy seems to receive less credibility not because it is unrealistic or larger-than-life, but because it focuses its high drama on women and relationships, rather than violence and power. Good on it.
Best Scene—'Shoot Me. I'm Your Eye for an Eye.':
Females are strong as hell.
The Takeaway:
Rather than embracing the toxic ideal of strength through silence and stoicism, Grey's Anatomy offers a different and perhaps more valuable idea of what it means to be strong: the capacity to suffer terribly, break down completely, and then get up again, confident that you're bigger than the sum of the tragedies you've suffered—because everyone else is, too.
If You Liked Grey's Anatomy You'll Love:
Private Practice, another Shonda Rhimes show that spins off Dr. Addison Montgomery (Kate Walsh) to another medical drama in a swanky Los Angeles wellness center.
