Grey’s Anatomy has seen its most popular characters leave, and many of those departures were surrounded by controversy, most notably Katherine Heigl’s exit, but Ellen Pompeo’s recent comments on it pave the way for Izzie Stevens’ perfect return to the show. Medical dramas continue to prove they are very popular in the world of television, and one that has been unstoppable is Grey’s Anatomy. Created by Shonda Rhimes, Grey’s Anatomy began its run in 2005 and shows no signs of stopping soon, even if some of its most beloved characters are now gone and its quality has decreased over the years.
Grey’s Anatomy follows the lives of surgical interns, residents, and attendings as they juggle their professional and personal lives, which overlap all the time and create a lot of drama inside and outside the hospital. Led by Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo), Grey’s Anatomy has seen her go from intern to head of general surgery at Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital, and many other beloved characters started as interns alongside her, among those Izzie Stevens. Unfortunately, and after going through a very tough storyline, Izzie left Seattle Grace Hospital and never looked back, but a return seems possible now that Ellen Pompeo has spoken about Heigl’s departure.
Katherine Heigl left Grey’s Anatomy in season 6 after Izzie went through a very emotional storyline. Izzie was diagnosed with cancer, and her best friend George O’Malley (T.R. Knight) passed away while she was in treatment. Izzie was fired sometime later after giving the wrong dosage of medicine to a patient and left Seattle to start over, sending divorce papers to Alex Karev (Justin Chambers). Behind the scenes, Heigl’s departure was surrounded by controversy and she ended up getting a reputation of being difficult to work with, but Pompeo’s recent comments on the situation have changed the narrative around it saying Heigl was “ahead of her time” when she spoke about the cast’s long working hours, and through this, Pompeo is paving the way for her return to the series if she’s up for it.
Heigl’s problems with Grey’s Anatomy began when she declined to put her name forward for consideration at the Emmy Awards in 2008, stating she hadn’t been given enough material on the series to warrant a nomination. In 2009, Heigl requested to be released from her contract 18 months earlier, explaining she wanted to spend more time with her family and that it wasn’t respectful to fans to see Izzie come and go. That same year, speaking to David Letterman, Heigl called out the 17-hour workdays the cast and crew consistently went through as “mean” and “cruel”. Now, on her podcast Tell Me With Ellen Pompeo, the Grey’s Anatomy lead star has praised Heigl’s past comments for speaking up on that particular issue, saying that she was “ahead of her time” and agreed with her statements about their long working hours.
The ending the writers of Grey’s Anatomy gave to Izzie is one of the most criticized ones as it was unfair not only to her and her whole journey up to that point but to Alex Karev as well, and it was made worse when his ending was linked to hers. Alex’s departure from Grey’s Anatomy was controversial as he left his wife, Jo, in order to move in with Izzie and their twins, as she used her frozen embryos to have children without Alex knowing about it. Now, while there still seems to be some tension between Heigl and Rhimes, as Heigl once showed interest in returning to give proper closure to Izzie’s story and Rhimes has said she has moved on from her story, with Pompeo’s support, Heigl could return at least for the series finale of Grey’s Anatomy, through which the show could fix its two most disappointing endings: Izzie’s and Alex’s.
