After 11 seasons on Grey's Anatomy, Patrick Dempsey is off the show. Derek Shepherd is dead. To say "this is very sad" would be an understatement. I burst into tears on the street and got goosebumps on my scalp like a weirdo when I heard the news last night. (Like many people, I found out about Derek's death ahead of the episode, thanks to an unintentional EW spoiler. OOPS.)

But I'm not sad because I'll miss Derek — that's not the main reason, at least. The spark around him went out for me a while back, and neither his absence nor his freakishly upbeat attitude in the episodes since he returned had rekindled that for me. I'm mostly sad for Meredith. And for the show, which now feels far too punishing and cruel to its protagonist.

The episode was dark and twisty and a bit reminiscent of the finale in which George died, in that you didn't see its tragic end coming (unless, again, you were exposed to that unfortunate EW spoiler). Derek witnessed a massive accident while driving on a country road and heroically saved everyone involved while tossing out classic Derek lines: "It's a beautiful day to save lives," "Please don't say [you're going to die]. It's insulting. I don't let people die." He used dry-cleaning bags to pack abdominal wounds. He shattered car windows and pulled victims through them. He stabilized a man who seemed to have an actual chunk of skull missing from his head. He was a hero — he was Derek Shepherd.

The EMTs showed up, the victims were loaded into ambulances, and a paramedic congratulated Derek on his hard work. Derek hopped back into his own car, but started rummaging around for his cell phone in the middle of the road, which is a little less caution than one would expect from a doctor who just treated victims of a car accident. A semi-truck jackknifed his car, and he woke up at a second-rate hospital, with no trauma center and few experienced specialists.

Derek couldn't speak to the doctors because of his injuries, but he was aware of what was going on, and we heard his inner monologue right up until the very end, as he tried to mentally will his doctors into doing the right thing. It was heartbreaking to see Derek so helpless, and it was painfully ironic: a world-class brain surgeon died of a brain bleed he diagnosed in his own mind, but that all the other doctors missed.

I could cry again writing about it.

When Meredith arrived at the hospital, there was a profoundly painful shot of her riding in an elevator by herself, flashing back to her mother's suicide attempt. She bounced back by being in control as hell the rest of the time she was at the hospital, demanding to see Derek's chart and telling the doctors not to call her "Mrs. Shepherd." She only broke down twice: once, when she vomited into the bushes after a confrontation with Derek's ER doctor; and again, when she sat by Derek as he's taken off life support. Her last words to him were "You go; we'll be fine." Then an extra-sad version of "Chasing Cars" played as the nurse extubated him. Could this really be happening? It was really happening. Tragic. (Although I'm enough of a Grey's purist to point out that "Chasing Cars" will always be Denny and Izzy's song.)

So now what? What does the future hold for Meredith? What sort of pain will she endure going forward? And what sort of pain will we as an audience have to endure watching it? It already feels exhausting, not to mention like a betrayal to what many fans loved most about the series.

Shonda Rhimes, creator of the show, has always been committed to giving Meredith a happy, or at least stable, relationship and family life. Because Rhimes believes that dark, twisted characters deserve true love as much as the bright and shiny ones. For that reason among others, I've identified strongly with Meredith from the Grey's pilot onward; it mattered to me that she could be a little bit crazy and still love and be loved. "You are worth love as you are" has always been the operating thesis of Derek and Meredith's relationship, and while that seems like a simple sentiment, it's not necessarily a common one. So many of the love stories Hollywood tells us are about changing yourself in order to be loved and so, in a tiny way, Derek and Meredith's story was profoundly hopeful and revolutionary, at least as TV goes. To grieve Derek's death is also to grieve the loss of that promise and ideal.

I know that life isn't fair and this is just a television program about sexy doctors, but this is so not right. Meredith has all but walked through fire throughout the past 11 seasons: she lost her entire family, survived a plane crash, witnessed the execution of a serial killer. What made those things bearable to her (and to us, the viewers) was the fact that at the end of the day, she had Derek. He (alongside Cristina) was her one indisputable good thing in a sea of work and death and loss and struggle. And now he's gone — on the heels of Cristina.

Frankly, it's hard to stick with a show that's willing to treat its protagonist that way. Why watch a character you've spent years caring about get every single thing torn away from her? Again, one of the ideas driving Grey's has always been how finding people to love make a dark, twisted world a little bit brighter. Meredith found them, and they've either died or gone away. It's probably just the grief talking, but if all Meredith gets to do now that Derek is gone is fight like hell for scraps of happiness, where's the joy in watching?

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Lauren Hoffman Lauren Hoffman writes about television, women in pop culture, and her feelings.

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