When Grey's Anatomy fans settled into the first season, they thought they knew what they were signing up for — a medical soap opera. Yes, people would die and organs would rupture in between the breakup and make-up sex, but this wasn't The Walking Dead. Fictional bloodshed contained within the operating room was expected, and after decades of medical dramas, not terribly troubling to viewers.

And then Meredith got sprayed with the eviscerated body of a bomb-squad member. She drowned. She was in a plane crash, and discovered that her sister had been crushed to death by said plane. Her husband got shot in front of her, and while her best friend attempted to save him, Meredith suffered a miscarriage. She fell down the stairs heavily pregnant, then delivered her baby during a hospital power outage, almost dying from abdominal bleeding. And this just a list of physical violence that has befallen the pathologically unlucky Grey, the tally of mental anguish goes on and on.