The adorable Lexie Grey was the half-sister of the central protagonist Meredith Grey in the long-running medical drama Grey’s Anatomy. Lexie initially appeared to be somewhat fragile, overtly good, and someone who usually let others take advantage of her goodness. Even Meredith herself refused to treat her decently.
However, in time Lexie revealed her feisty side and became someone to reckon with. Her shocking and untimely death along with her incomplete love story with Mark Sloan makes her one of the most tragic characters on the show. Here are a few things Lexie could have avoided doing and a few that would have made her proud.
Ashamed: Performing A Surgery Without Supervision
The intern Sadie convinced Lexie to perform an appendicitis operation on her. The surgery went terribly wrong as Lexie wasn’t prepared to take it on all by herself.
It was extremely foolish of Lexie for her and her fellow-interns to venture into a full-fledged surgery without appropriate supervision. True, the surgeries were intended to be practice-run so that they could improve their skills, but to cut open a real, live person was rather idiotic and not one of Lexie’s proudest moments.
Proud: Sticking Up For George
For some time, Lexie was the only intern in her class to know that George was repeating his intern year. Lexie kept this fact from her fellow-interns to prevent George from being embarrassed and humiliated. She even motivated him when he doubted himself and his self-confidence waned as a result of having failed his intern exam.
Lexie was one of the few people who were there for George when he was going through a difficult phase after his marriage with Callie ended on a bitter note. However, George never seemed to notice her obvious feelings towards him, thus keeping a potential relationship from happening.
Ashamed: Overstepping With Thatcher’s Girlfriend
Lexie crossed a line when she hurled several uncalled for insults at her father’s young girlfriend. Thatcher was admitted into the hospital with abdominal pains and accompanying him was his girlfriend Danielle, whom Lexie took an immediate dislike to, mainly because she was almost her age.
Thatcher was completely entitled to dating women as he saw fit. After all, he was a lonely widower, and all his daughters lived away. However, Lexie seemed to turn a blind eye to his loneliness and kept on judging and nagging about what she called his ‘mid-life crisis.’
Proud: Her Bedside Manner
Lexie was gentle and sweet and had the potential of becoming the Izzie Stevens of her batch. Of course, Izzie’s compassion often added to her woes–the whole Denny Duquette affair stemmed from her soft-heartedness, after all–but her wonderful bedside manner was one of her best qualities as a person.
Lexie too was one of those doctors who could start a conversation with her patients, and keep them engaged with her innocent charm. For instance, Lexie’s connection with Nick Hanscom, the young man with the giant tumor on his carotid artery, was instant and quite spontaneous. She also encouraged Kathleen Patterson to speak after her vocal cords were repaired and helped Clara Ferguson with her physical therapy. Her gentle interaction was definitely something she should have been proud of.
Ashamed: Pestering Meredith
Lexie Grey spent a lot of time in the beginning when she first arrived at Seattle Grace as a surgical intern pestering Meredith, who was her half-sister, to let her into her life.
Now, Meredith was extraordinarily mean to Lexie initially and fans often felt bad for the latter. But the truth was that Meredith had every right not to want a half-sister in her life, who just happened to share DNA with a man who had hardly ever been a father to her. Lexie did nag her almost annoyingly instead of simply letting her be.
Proud: Calling Out Meredith
Even though Meredith was not totally unjustified in her irritation with Lexie, she did hurt her at every turn, which was unnecessary.
In the season 4 episode, “Losing My Mind,” Lexie called out her older half-sister for being mean to her and forgave her for the hard time she had given her. Meredith had constantly thwarted her best efforts to get to know her, been hostile, and even had Cristina dance to the same tune to support her. However, Lexie was able to rise above that and be the bigger person, as was her general nature.
Ashamed: Stealing Items From The Hospital
One of the most shameless things Lexie did, which was also rather uncharacteristic of someone as decent as her, was to steal items from the hospital to decorate her apartment.
Lexie and George were sharing a very ramshackle apartment, which was the only thing they could afford. George literally hated the place, a feeling he was very vocal about. Lexie then had the brainwave of stealing the odd thing from the hospital itself to give the apartment a facelift. This was shocking, especially coming from someone like the sweet little Grey sister.
Proud: Diagnosing Problems Senior Doctors Couldn’t
In season 5, Lexie’s photographic memory helped save a patient from continuing to live with intense pain, and from being subjected to needless brain surgery.
Lexie was able to recall that an inflamed nerve in the nose could cause the kind of pain that her patient was suffering, which proved to be true, thus giving her elderly patient a new lease of life. She impressed senior doctors such as Derek Shepherd and Mark Sloan with her diagnosis, something she would have been infinitely proud of.
Ashamed: Being Mean To April
When Seattle Grace first merged with Mercy West Hospital and the interns from the latter started pouring into the former, both parties had a hard time adjusting.
At this time, Lexie became more and more paranoid about losing her job and was uncommonly mean to April Kepner, who had joined from Mercy West. The two were thrust together working a case and Lexie ended up trying to one-up April at each instant, being rather petty in general. Of course, April herself was not the sweet person she became later at the time, but perhaps she deserved a little consideration, being the newbie.
Proud: Stepping Up
Lexie Grey had a hard time at home. Her mother Susan had died suddenly and shockingly after being admitted into the hospital simply for hiccups. Susan’s death caused Thatcher Grey to begin drinking, which left Lexie to take care of him for most of the time.
Nevertheless, despite worrying about her family, Lexie still managed to be one of the most promising surgeons to ever walk the halls of Seattle Grace. Gentle Lexie died a devastating death in season 8’s shocking finale, but had she lived, she would have made a wonderful surgeon and possibly even went on to win a Catherine Fox award.
