Top 10 Details in Grey's Anatomy You Never Noticed

Just because an actress is pregnant doesn’t mean her character has to be, so hiding pregnancies is a common practice in the television industry. There have been some clever tactics used over the years, like strategically placed props or CGI. Even though Grey’s used some of these tactics, they took things to another level to cover Ellen Pompeo’s pregnancy in a particular episode. They created an entire story where Meredith donated her liver to her father, which meant Pompeo could lie in a hospital bed and wear a hospital gown, in addition to giving both the actress and Meredith a good reason to be absent for awhile.

This detail has us seeing double, three times! For the monumental 300th episode, the show decided to give us some nostalgia with dopplegangers of some of our favorite characters. You’ll find a George lookalike, wearing his signature brown jacket, a Cristina lookalike wearing a leather jacket and an Izzie wearing a pink sweater. All three are doctors, who take us on a rollercoaster ride of emotion and nostalgia. Executive producer Krista Vernoff revealed that actress Eryn Rea inspired the doppelganger story, since she looked so much like Katherine Heigl, and we definitely agree!

To everyone else, a Post-it note may seem like an ordinary piece of paper, but to a Grey’s Anatomy fan it’s a legally binding contract. Derek and Meredith’s first wedding vows were written on a blue post-it and the show actually foreshadows the moment earlier in the episode. Before the couple gets to their vows, Cristina gives Meredith a pen, blue post-its and an old grocery list for the traditional “Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue” bridal rhyme. That very pen and blue post-its were later used in this episode for MerDer’s iconic post-it wedding, so we can thank Cristina for saving that impromptu moment.

Do you believe in magic? Well, if you’re a fan of Grey’s Anatomy, there’s a good chance you do! If you look at the first letters of the original interns; Meredith, Alex, George, Izzie and Cristina, what do you get? M-A-G-I-C! In the Easter egg-filled 300th episode, Meredith may directly be referencing the acronym during her voiceover when she says, "we are forced to acknowledge that certain kinds of magic exist..." It may sound like a stretch, but it is the episode with doppelgangers, and she not only says this right after imagining her late mother but also right before she gets a call from the real Cristina!

Most of us will never really accept the death of Derek Shepherd, but at least the show includes little details to keep his memory alive. For those who don’t know, Derek had a thing for ferry boats, so naturally he has a scrub cap decorated with his favorite ships. It was his signature cap, so when he passed away Meredith took up the mantle, and began wearing the cap in her own surgeries. She’s even wearing it when she finds out that she’s won the Harper Avery Award, so it must be lucky!

This detail is very subtle and quick: blink and you’ve missed it. While Richard Webber is in a café leisurely reading his paper, he sees police cars going towards the hospital so he pays and runs off. If you look at the waitress in that short scene, her shirt says ‘The Rhimes Cafe,’ which is a reference to Shonda Rhimes. Rhimes is the creator of Grey’s Anatomy and wrote the episode, so it’s only natural that she’d want to slip her name into her own creation, even if it’s only for a split-second.

Something the show does really well is its music choices. They always manage to pick the perfect song to fit the mood - and you can’t forget their entire musical episode. Something you might not have noticed is that almost every episode of the series is actually titled after a song. The aforementioned musical episode for example is titled “Song Beneath the Song,” which is genius, as it’s basically like songception. The episode where Derek dies is titled “How to Save a Life,” which is the title of a song by The Fray. There have been over 350 episodes now, so the dedication to relevant song titles is impressive.

Sometimes politics have a way of slipping themselves into a show; in this case Amelia Shepherd gave a subtle diss to President Trump. Even after going through a traumatic surgery to remove a brain tumor, and even though she feels like a new person, there is one thing that remains the same for Amelia - and that’s her dislike of the President. She is going through routine questions for discharge following brain surgery when she’s asked by her doctor if she knows the current president. Without missing a beat, she responds that she wishes she didn’t. Like we said, subtle but to the point.

Where the nurses at? We know they’re physically there, and sometimes, they even sneak into a romance every once in a while, but they never seem to be doing regular nurse duties. Instead, the doctors do everything and the nurses take a backseat, often just observing the doctors and following whatever menial task the doctors give them. If you’ve ever been hospitalized, you’ll know that nurses are extremely hands-on with their patients and can even handle a medical procedure or two. One of the exceptions on the show is surgical nurse Bokhee though, who happens to be a scrub nurse in real life!

Most of us felt pretty blindsided by the death of Derek Shepherd; he was a major character, Meredith’s soulmate and our McDreamy! We didn’t think they could kill him, but his death may have been foreshadowed as early as the first season. That’s when Derek says that if he was ever in a coma, he’d want his sisters there, and wouldn’t you know it, he was in a coma before he was taken off life support! Then in season 5, Meredith has vivid nightmares of Derek dying in an accident, which is how he ends up dying several seasons later. Are these merely coincidences or was Derek doomed from the beginning?