There have been some fairly well-known Shondalogues to make their strategy to the Gray’s Anatomy scripts in its 21 seasons — together with some nice ones on the episodes at present airing on the 2025 TV schedule — however none has caught within the zeitgeist fairly like Season 2’s “Decide me, select me, love me” scene. Ellen Pompeo opened up about Meredith’s notorious quote, and he or she didn’t maintain again her disdain for it.
Again in 2005’s “Carry the Ache” (certainly one of Gray’s Anatomy’s greatest episodes, which might all be streamed with a Netflix subscription), Meredith Gray discovered herself begging Patrick Dempsey to decide on her over his spouse Addison when the 2 have been giving their marriage one other strive. In an interview on Name Her Daddy, Alex Cooper requested Ellen Pompeo what recommendation she’d give Meredith right now in that state of affairs, to which Pompeo shortly replied:
Woman! Bye.
Ellen Pompeo has had no qualms speaking about how horrified she was by that iconic scene, and he or she went on to inform the host:
There was lots of stuff that I did not wanna do on the time. I did not wanna say, ‘Decide me, select me, love me.’ And to Shonda’s credit score, she knew that was gonna pop. I used to be like, ‘Why would I do that? Why would I urge, why would I?’ And you understand, it’s important to simply suck it up and do it. And it ended up being, you understand, the most important factor ever, probably the most iconic issues ever. So I am not at all times one of the best decide of, you understand, what’s gonna [work]. It’s not like I stated it wasn’t gonna be good. I used to be similar to, ‘I don’t wanna do this.’
Find it irresistible or hate it, that Meredith Gray speech has turn into one of the vital quotable strains from the entire sequence, regardless of the damaging connotation right now of being a “decide me lady.” Perhaps we name it a win/win scenario — each for Gray’s Anatomy to dwell in infamy and for generations of ladies who know higher than to beg for somebody’s love.
Ellen Pompeo obtained to take that second again a bit, too, in Season 19’s “I’ll Observe the Solar.” It was Meredith’s farewell episode as a sequence common, and whereas some followers have been bothered by the underwhelming goodbye, I beloved its callback to that traditional second with Derek. When arguing together with her present love, Scott Speedman’s Nick Marsh, with regard as to if or not he would relocate but once more to be together with her in Boston, Meredith informed him:
I need you in my life if you wish to be in my life. But when I’ve to decide on, I’m going to choose me, I decide my youngsters, and I decide what’s greatest for us. And I’m not going to beg you to like me.
Ellen Pompeo could have needed to “suck it up” and do the road Shonda Rhimes knew could be successful with the viewers, however she obtained to have her second in the long run. Not that Season 19 was the tip. Meredith Gray has continued to recur in a number of episodes in Seasons 20 and 21, in addition to present the narration that bookends every episode and function an govt producer.
Search for her in new episodes, airing at 10 p.m. ET Thursdays on ABC and streaming with a Hulu subscription, the place you can even discover Ellen Pompeo’s new sequence, Good American Household.