Move over, McDreamy.
And make way for 007!
A few weeks after Grey's Anatomy stunned viewers via the return of Patrick Dempsey as Meredith Grey's dead husband, Derek, the long-running ABC drama went ahead and shocked us all again on Thursday night.
Seriously, did anyone think we'd see T.R. Knight reprise his role as George O'Malley?
A dozen years after this character was killed off the show in very grisly fashion?!?
George was the first of the original Grey's Anatomy interns to leave the series, doing so in 2009.
He died on the season 5 finale after sacrificing himself to save a woman from being hit by a bus.
On the latest installment, however, Meredith -- who fell unconscious on the Season 17 premiere due to Covid-19 -- remained in the hospital and asleep...
... and returned to the beach she's been dreaming about since her diagnosis.
After acknowledging that what Derek already told her -- the sand (and ocean) aren’t “real” -- George revealed that he sometimes look down on Meredith and her three children from heaven.
“Your kids. You’ve got great kids. I check in sometimes,” he said to her.
Meredith told George that he was “devastated” when he passed way.
He corrected her, though, reminding his old pal that Meredith, Alex, Cristina and Izzie were “cracking up” at his funeral, which viewers saw during the season 6 premiere.
“I was devastated. And then? I was okay,” she replied. “Even with Derek, eventually, you go on. And the kids? Would go on.”
George pushed back, however.
“They would, but I think maybe with them it’s different,” he said. “My mom didn’t go on … Not really, not like she used to. Some grief is heavier than other grief. … I just want her to let it go.
"I want her to know I’m still me, even though she can’t touch me; she can’t see me. But I am still me.”
George later asked Meredith if she still “dances it out” like she used to do with best friend Cristina.
“That’s what I miss about being alive,” he confessed.
Back at Grey Sloan Memorial, meanwhile, Richard Weber debated how to handle Meredith’s case after Teddy Altman suggested they submit her for a clinical trial.
“If you stay here, you might break him,” George told Meredith after she imagined Richard on the beach as well.
The former chief made the decision to move forward with the aforementioned trial after Meredith, who was shaking, said George’s name out loud from her hospital bed.
After the episode aired on ABC, Knight shared some photos from the beach-based set and wrote the following:
“George O’Malley will always claim my heart. Thank you to Ellen, Chandra [Wilson], Jim, [showrunner] Krista Vernoff and all the familiar faces for once again sharing your beautiful light.”
He also spoke to Deadline about the experience of coming back to the show that made him famous.
Knight referred to his reprisal as "overwhelming" in the interview.
“It was the ending I never expected and couldn’t possibly have expected, in so many ways," said the actor.
"It’s such an awkward position to be put in to be asked that, to be honest, with all due respect, so I will just say in Krista’s hands I feel safe, I feel energized.
"It’s like when you mentioned about that line that seemed like improv. I’m not going to take credit for that. I give credit to Ellen and I give credit to Krista because to write something that can seem like improv, that’s in the writing, too.
"And that is just a joy to get to interpret.”
Unlike Dempsey, who appeared in three episodes, Knight only came back for this one.
But it clearly meant the world to him.
"It was incredible, it was just an overwhelming feeling of love in that moment," he told Deadline of filming his final scene, where he sat alongside the show's remaining trio of original cast member.
"We were apart from everybody quite a bit because that was a drone shot, and so it was just the four of us, and the sun was setting, and this big fly buzzing around our heads.
"And it filled me with just a lot of joy."
