Death and All His Friends (Grey's Anatomy)

Plot

The hospital is hit with an unprecedented crisis: a shooter is in the hospital, and there is a lockdown. Meanwhile, Dr. Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) discovers that she is pregnant, and Dr. Owen Hunt (Kevin McKidd) must choose between Teddy and Cristina (Sandra Oh). The shooter kills Reed Adamson and wounds Dr. Alex Karev (Justin Chambers). Lexie (Chyler Leigh) and Mark (Eric Dane) find the latter and try to save him. Soon, it is revealed that the shooter, Gary Clark (whose wife was a patient at the hospital and later died), is looking for Dr. Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey). At the end, he shoots Derek, which is witnessed by Meredith, Cristina, and April. With the crisis unfolding, each character is put through extreme trials and tribulations. Cristina is put under pressure to save Derek, who is seriously injured.

Meanwhile, Dr. Miranda Bailey (Chandra Wilson) and her patient Mary drag intern Charles Percy, who has been shot, through the hallway but when they get to the elevators, they are off. Bailey freaks out for a moment, then gathers herself and sits with Charles. When he asks if he was dying, she said yes. She tells him she and Mary are going to stay with him and that he isn't alone, with Charles dying soon thereafter. The shooter walks into the OR where Cristina and Jackson are trying to save Derek. Hunt shows up and Meredith tells him what was going on. He looks through the window and says she is doing fine but he'd go in to see what he could do to help. When Hunt goes inside, the audience is shown that Mr. Clark is in the room with a gun to Cristina's head, shouting at her to stop fixing Derek. Cristina and Avery refuse to stop working.

Mr. Clark tells Hunt that he'd shoot him first and then Cristina but he really only wanted to kill Derek. He believes this is retribution for his wife's death, which he believes is on Derek's hands. Meredith then comes into the room and tells Mr. Clark to shoot her. She explains that she is Lexie's sister, she is the closest thing Webber has to a daughter, and she is Derek's wife. He turns the gun toward Meredith, but Cristina says Meredith is pregnant. Hunt makes a move toward Mr. Clark and is shot, knocking him unconscious. Cristina and Avery then raise their hands and Avery tells Mr. Clark that Derek will die and he can watch it happen on the monitor. Derek flatlines and Meredith cries almost hysterically. Mr. Clark walks out.

Clark later comes across Lexie, who is bringing supplies to help Alex, and when he attempts to shoot her, the recently-arrived SWAT team wounds Clark. This gives time for Lexie to escape. Soon after, Webber walks through the halls of the hospital and finds several bodies. In a room, he finds Mr. Clark, who tells him he'd bought the gun at a superstore and bought extra ammo because it was on sale. Mr. Clark tells Webber he has one bullet left. He reveals that he planned on shooting Webber, then himself. Eventually, after Webber convinces Clark that his wife wouldn't want the shooting and would rather be reunited with him, Clark commits suicide as the SWAT team is directly out the door.

Meanwhile, in the operating room, Derek's heartbeat returns to normal, and everyone is relieved. Outside the hospital, Arizona and Callie reinstate their relationship when Callie says she doesn't want to have a baby if it means she can't be with Arizona. Arizona agrees to have a baby because she says that she doesn't want to stop Callie from being an excellent mother. Mark and Lexie show up at the other hospital. Alex is out of surgery. Lexie goes to Alex. Mark watches Lexie take Alex's hand. Meredith takes another look at her positive pregnancy test, and throws it out.

Production

The episode was written by showrunner Shonda Rhimes and directed by Rob Corn. In an interview Rhimes told that the writing of the two-part season six finale, caused her struggle. She elaborated on this:

TV Guide reported that Mandy Moore will check into Grey’s Anatomy’s two-hour season finale, adding, "She’ll play a patient named Mary as part of an explosive – and, of course, top secret – cliffhanger. Bailey – who’s having one hell of a season as a newly single gal – will be her doctor, but beyond that, details are being kept under heavily guarded wraps." The news was later confirmed by Entertainment Weekly which further reported, "Bailey – who’s having one hell of a season as a newly single gal – will be her doctor, but beyond that, details are being kept under heavily guarded wraps. She comes as part of a grand tradition of recognizable names as patients, usually quick, juicy roles like Sara Gilbert’s euthanized patient two weeks ago and Demi Lovato’s upcoming stretch as a schizophrenic. Moore did that other hospital show, Scrubs"

It was also reported as veteran actor Michael O'Neill would reprise his role as the grief-stricken widower Gary Clark. O'Neill later in an interview said, "That role changed my career. It was probably the hardest job I've ever done, hardest work I've ever done. I had a tremendous resistance to it, and I almost turned the role down. I was so afraid of that being sensationalized, and I didn't want that in the world. I hadn't worked with Shonda Rhimes, and so I didn't know. I certainly knew she was a brilliant writer, but I didn't know what the intent was. We had a conversation about it. I said, 'You know what? Can I think about this and call you back tomorrow?' I called her back, and I said, 'Shonda, I just have to say it frightens me. It really frightens me.' She said, 'Michael, it frightens me too.' I thought, OK, we're at least starting at the same place. Her writing was so good. ... We saw the wound. We got to see the wound that drove him mad, and I think that was terribly important. It was important to show the fracture that brought this man to that desperate action."

Broadcast

Death And All His Friends was originally broadcast on the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) in the United States on May 20, 2010. The episode was the second half of the two-hour season six finale, the other half being Sanctuary It was viewed by a total of 16.13 million Americans, in its 9:00 Eastern time-slot, and it scored a 5.9/17 Nielsen rating

Reviews

The episode opened up to universal acclaim with the television critics lauding the writing and performance of the entire cast as well. The performances of guest stars Mandy Moore and Michael O'Neill along with Ellen Pompeo, Sandra Oh, Chandra Wilson, Kevin McKidd, James Pickens, Jr. and Sarah Drew garnered most praise. Marsi from TVFanatic highly praised the episode and gave it five stars, and expressed that it may have been the best episode of the series, adding, "The writing and acting were absolutely stellar, and may lead to many Emmy nominations, but even more impressively, despite a killing spree, it remained distinctly Grey's. Some of the back-and-forths between the characters were truly memorable, and some of the developments so heartbreaking that we don't even know where to begin now. Seriously, the Season 6 finale left us laying awake afterward thinking about everything, a feeling we haven't had from Grey's in years and rarely achieved by any program."

John Kubicek of BuddyTV also noted that the finale was the best episode, adding, "[It was] two of the best hours of television all year. It was certainly the best Grey's Anatomy has ever been, which is saying a lot since I'd written the show off for the past few years. No show does a big traumatic event like Grey's, and the shooter gave the show license for heightened drama with five major characters being shot over the two hours. It was emotional, expertly paced and had me in tears for most of the finale." PopSugar called it "most intense episodes of Grey's I have ever seen" adding, "What a whopper of an episode! Can we talk about how gripping the scene is where Bailey and Percy are hiding from Mr. Clark. Then he turns around and gets Karev right in the chest. Seriously, I haven't been so shocked by a one-two shooting spree since Michael shot Ana Lucia and Libby in rapid succession on Lost. Another review from BuddyTV called the finale "Game changing!" stating, "The finale that changes everything! You don‘t want to miss it! To her credit GA creator and writer-of-this-episode Shonda Rhimes pretty much delivered on her promise. I found myself with my heart in my mouth for the entire evening before finally being able to exhale as the credits rolled." The review lauded Ellen Pompeo and Sandra Oh adding, "The Twisted Sisters really were the showcase of the entire finale. Meredith, side-lined for much of the season, took center stage " even calling Oh's Cristina Yang a "rockstar".

Entertainment Weekly wrote, "You’re still pondering how Grey’s can still be so damn good sometimes," further hugely praising the episode, "They did a bang-up job, it felt real in every way, thanks to some stellar performances and writing. And yet it maintained its Grey’sness thanks to some quieter moments, and plenty of witty exchanges to boot." Regarding the Bailey-Mary-Charles sequence the site wrote, "the action felt so real", but added, "But the most intense action was culminating in the OR with Cristina, April and Meredith had a nice moment sitting on the ground together, April sniffling and Meredith stonefaced. Kevin McKidd did some stellar acting as he interacted with them." Talking about Meredith's miscarriage he site added, "She saved Owen, though she did it while having a miscarriage — again, leave it to Grey’s to make this the least dramatic, most underplayed storyline of the night. (Brilliantly so.)"

Spoiler Junkie wrote highly of the episode Meredith Grey in particular saying, "In the most heart-wrenching moment of the entire two-hour season finale, Meredith bursts into the room, asking Clark to kill her. Eye for an eye, she says. She’s Lexie’s sister. She’s like a daughter to Dr. Weber. She’s the Chief’s wife." and noted that, "This was an amazing season finale, one of the best in the six seasons of Grey’s Anatomy. The second hour of the Grey’s Anatomy Season 6 season finale, Death and All His Friends, is even more intense than the first. " HitFix also lauded the episode and wrote, "In every sense, these two episodes where Shonda Rhimes, directors Stephen Cragg and Rob Corn, and the entire cast and crew of the show "Going For It". There was no opportunity for suspense, or tears, or anger, or horror, or some good old-fashioned monologuing left unexplored. Huge stakes, huge emotions, great performances from everybody Chandra Wilson and Sandra Oh were particularly great, as was Michael O'Neill as shooter Gary Clark. This was about as good as I've ever seen "Grey's." Episodes like these are what I point to when anyone asks me why I'm still watching

The site also lauded Ellen Pompeo's character stating, "Meredith would suffer a miscarriage in the middle of patching up Owen Hunt's bullet wound - and be so hard-core, just as her best friend was next door in risking death to save Meredith's man, that she would just keep working even as blood dripped down her legs. A moment like that works only if everyone involved is 100% committed to the insanity of it, and here everyone was. They all went for it and came up with a riveting two hours of TV. At the completion of the eleventh season Wired named the episode in its must watch list adding, "The show reaches its dramatic apex in a multi-episode arc about a deadly spree shooter who visits the hospital with a vendetta. The repercussions of this incident will echo through most of Season 7, and well into the future." The site also called Pompeo's ’Shoot Me. I’m Your Eye for an Eye.' the best scene from the entire series.