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Fans Launch Petition to Get Dr. McDreamy Back on “Grey’s Anatomy”: Shonda Rhimes, You’ve Destroyed Us!

Over 13,000 fans ask series creator to make shocking death into a dream sequence, get Patrick Dempsey back on board

Apr 27, 2015 08:20 GMT  ·  By
Patrick Dempsey played Dr. Derek Shepherd aka Dr. McDreamy on ABC's “Grey’s Anatomy”
   Patrick Dempsey played Dr. Derek Shepherd aka Dr. McDreamy on ABC's “Grey’s Anatomy”

Last week brought a very unexpected development to ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy,” with the death of a series regular, who had been on the show since day 1. Fans are still in disbelief and they’re rallying to make Shonda Rhimes, the series creator, understand the kind of damage she’s done with this creative decision.

A petition posted on Change.org is getting plenty of attention online and from the fans, with a text that leaves no room for doubt: when Shonda killed off Dr. Dereck Shepherd, aka Dr. McDreamy, she broke the fans’ heart and unkindly repaid over 10 years of loyalty.

So she must bring him back.

Shonda, you do not do this to loyal fans!

You can read the text of the petition in full below, at the end of this post. It says pretty much what fans have been saying on social media since the episode aired, but it does it in a more organized form than a Twitter rant.

The hope is to get enough signatures on it to show Ronda the kind of ratings decrease she should expect if she doesn’t get Dr. McDreamy back, because all those who sign the petition promise to never tune in again for the series.

For the time being, that’s only about 13,000 of them, which isn’t saying a lot, considering that the death episode marked a new ratings high for the series. That’s partly because word of McDreamy’s death had leaked online hours before the premiere.

But it’s better than nothing, it’s a good start to show Rhimes that her decision hasn’t been welcomed as she hoped she would, and that fans see Dr. McDreamy’s death as ingratitude for their years of loyalty to the show.

“You do no DO THIS TO LOYAL FANS!” the petition reads. The all-CAPS and bold fonts are meant to show Rhimes that they mean business.

“When you killed Lexie, it was tragic, cried for days!!!... but we let you have that one.. THEN you kill off McSteamy! LORDT! We STILL let you have that one... but the third strike.. this is the third and final strike! You can NOT DO THIS TO US! You do NOT KILL off 50% of Mer-Der! You DO NOT! You do not have someone survive a mass murderer, a plane crash, A FREAKING PLANE CRASH, AND A crushed hand, as a neurosurgeon...just to kill them off on a BEAUTIFUL DAY!! Seriously? SERIOUSLY SHONDA?! SERIOUSLY MS. RHIMES!?!?!?!?!”

The petition even holds it against Rhimes that Dr. Shepherd looked particularly handsome on his last episode, as if the plan was to make him as irresistible as possible before having him taken away so cruelly and violently.

For the time being, it doesn’t seem like the petition struck a chord with anyone over at ABC.

The likely story behind the shocking death

Dr. Shepherd died because he was taken to a sub-par hospital where doctors treating him after a car accident didn’t realize the importance of giving him a CT. Prior to being hit by a truck, he had stopped his car to offer assistance to passengers in a vehicle involved in another crash, thus saving lives once more.

The idea was that death can come at the most unexpected moments, from the most unexpected places.

However, the background to the story hints at on-set tensions between leading man Patrick Dempsey and Shonda Rhimes, tensions that made her want to “punish” him by first limiting his time on-screen, then by killing him off. Apparently, Dempsey had been acting like “a diva” on set, and Rhimes has a known zero-tolerance policy for that.

The fact that Dempsey still had another year on his contract and his admission that he was “surprised” at the way events in his character’s life progressed, leading up to his death, seem to confirm the theory that Rhimes had it in for Dempsey.

If that’s the case, chances are no amount of signatures online or Twitter rants like those below will make her reconsider.  

Grey's Anatomy Petition