No, Derek Shepherd and Meredith Grey AreNotthe Best TV Couple of All Time

Mar. 15, 2025

Patrick Dempsey and Ellen Pompeo on ‘Grey’s Anatomy’.Photo: Craig Sjodin/Walt Disney Television via Getty Images

Look, I loveGrey’s Anatomyjust as much as the next gal — hey, maybe even more considering whenever I bring up the longest-running primetime medical drama in history I’m met with “Wait, that’s still airing?” “YES!,” I say.  “And Meredith even comes around once and a while, too!”

I’ve laughed, cried and cringed along with the rest of thehordes of fanswho still watch the show and over the years have fallen in and out of love with many of the characters and storylines. I’ve followed along for the romantic drama just as much for the medical drama.

Don’t get me wrong, their marriage has been the reason for my tears on more than one occasion — even now, years after his death — but despite all that, the idea that they’d win overTHE Taylors (!!!)is wild to me

Ellen Pompeo and Patrick Dempsey.Bob D’Amico/Walt Disney Television via Getty Images

No relationship is perfect but theirs was particularly fraught, especially at the beginning — just askEllen Pompeoherself!

Hardcore fans and casual watchers alike would all agree that there’s not a Derek and Meredith scene more memorable than Meredith begging Derek to love her early on in their relationship.

“So pick me. Choose me. Love me,” she concludes her iconic speech to the then-still-legally-married-but-very-waffle-y Derek.

“When I read that scene, I was horrified,” Pompeo, who first landed the role of Meredith Grey in 2005, said on a 2021 episode of her podcastTell Me with Ellen Pompeo. “I was like, ‘I’m going to beg a man?'”

Ellen Pompeo as Meredith Grey and Patrick Dempsey as Dr. Derek Shepherd in ‘Grey’s Anatomy’.Getty

Getty

“And I was like, ‘Well, praise Jesus that she’s asking me this question and that her head is already in the right space at 12,’ " she recalled.

Pompeo evenjoked more recentlythat Meredith “invented the pick-me girl,” during a sit down with Katherine Heigl forVariety’s Actors on Actors.

And guess what? Even after Meredith bared her soul like that, Derek chose his ex-Addison Montgomery! Rude!

Of course, despite their initial hiccup, the two would go on to be together for nearly a decade — throughout which they went through plenty of highs and lows including Post-It Note vows, near-death experiences, expanding their family and then sadly, Derek’s death following a car accident during season 11.

Connie Britton and Kyle Chandler on ‘Friday Night Lights.'.Virginia Sherwood/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty

Virginia Sherwood/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty

Obviously, with a long-running medical drama, things are going to be, well, dramatic — but to me, true love can be more low-key. Just look at the Taylors, who were both aspirationalandrelatable in their steady love and support for one another, even through tough times. AsConnie Britton put it:“I love Tami Taylor and Coach Taylor because they are real people.”

source: people.com