The Best And Worst Things Meredith Grey Has Ever Done On Grey's Anatomy

Being Meredith Grey (played by Ellen Pompeo) isn't easy. We meet her on Grey's Anatomy just as she is about to have a one-night stand at a bar only to find out that same man is not only her new boss... he's also married. Her mother, once a brilliant surgeon, is diagnosed with Alzheimer's shortly after Meredith becomes an intern. She operates on a patient who dies, then discovers that the patient is a friend. At different times along the way she loses her mother and her sister, and she breaks up with her best friend. She loses the love of her life when her husband is involved in a fatal car crash. Her father blames her for the death of her stepmother. She nearly drowns, is attacked by a patient, and is involved in several airplane incidents that would traumatize any traveler. After all this, we wouldn't be surprised if Meredith goes from someone we want to be best friends with, to someone we would cross the street to avoid. 

It would be a stretch to say these events have left Meredith a happy and optimistic person. Regular Grey's viewers who have watched since the show began in 2005 will admit that since her days as a surgical resident whose romantic encounters spawned hot-guy nicknames like "McDreamy," "McSteamy," and "McHottie," Mer's become a jaded sourpuss. In short, she's become one of us.

In spite of her shortcomings, Meredith continues to be in the running for best pal to diehard fans because she's loyal, she's supportive, and she's there for you through thick and thin. This quality makes Meredith's actions in what fans and PopSugar refer to as "the bomb episode" one of her best moments. 

In "As We Know It" Mer overcomes fear to stick her hand into a patient's open chest cavity in order to remove a homemade bomb. The episode appears very early on in the series, and it shows how Meredith is able to overcome her fears to do the right thing. (It also indicates just how much Derek means to Mer, because he is very much back to being married at this point.) 

This episode was also a high point for creator Shonda Rhimes, who received an Emmy nomination for the episode. But not everyone agrees — Screen Rant considers this one of Mer's worst moments because she showed "no attempt at self-preservation."

Mer's had plenty of bad moments — but Screen Rant ranks her romance with Nathan Riggs as her worst. Fans felt betrayed when Meredith looked like she was ready to move on to a new relationship after Derek's passing, mostly because Nathan appeared on the scene just a few real-life weeks after Derek died, although in Grey's-world Derek had already been dead a year. Screen Rant explains that the storyline felt forced, and Mer and Nathan lacked chemistry. Then again, the Meredith-Derek dynamic — which became plenty of couples' life goal — is a tough act to follow. 

Still, diehard fans are not likely to abandon TV's longest-running medical drama just yet because let's face it, if we can't handle Meredith Grey at her worst, we don't deserve her at her best.