Meredith's father leaves her as a child and then remarries/has another family. Jo was abandoned as a baby and left at a fire station. A few parents throughout the series abandon their babies.
both meredith and alex have abusive/neglectful parents which are referenced throughout the show. meredith’s mother actually appears on the show and we see her verbally abusing a now adult meredith
A patient that fell out of a tree is suspected of stalking her ex-boyfriend. She asks the doctors to call him and he confirms that they haven't been together for a while, yet she still tried to see him by climbing a tree to get into his backyard.
There are some patients and doctors who are survivors of domestic violence. The abuse is not shown, but the injuries are. One doctor’s abuser is shown strangling her but it turns out to be a dream/imagined scenario. An abuser lunges at their victim but does not teach them.
Several episodes deal with abuse/neglect, including Meredith's mother abusing/neglecting her which is a main theme, as well as Alex and his family being abused by his father
Webber is an alcoholic but recovers, patients who use drugs come in to the ER, some patients are accused of being drug seekers, and Amelia is a recovering oxycontin (and other medications) user and struggles with almost relapsing, including when she actually goes out and buys oxy and the drugs are shown on screen.
There is an episode where they use pigs for medical research and had to put them to sleep and the end but at both the begging and end of the episode they reassure that there were no animal hurts during the making
A man falls from a building and lands on a pigeon, the pigeon is shown crushed and sticking to his body in pieces but it's mostly feathers, bones, and a beak. Turkeys are shot on screen. Mice in experiments die. Pigs used for teaching are operated on while under anesthesia and then euthanized.
Season 1 episode 7 roughly 33 minutes in, a man has a fairly large tattoo of a spider on his leg, however it is badly infected so the image it quite distorted.
Season 7 episode 3 from 26 minutes to 28 minutes there's a man having surgery on his hand and a Spider crawls out from his flesh, it is clearly visible so I would recommend skipping the scene.
s8ep20, a patient was kidnapped as a child and held captive. the escaped and, while in the hospital, said she was sexually abused and the only reason she successfully ran away was because the man who held her claimed she was "too old" and was going to take a new girl, when the patient was only 18.
But the aftermath of a rape victim is shown on the operating table and it is really brutal what happened to her and was definitely triggering to me as a rape survivor.
While this episode does not directly deal with self harm season 5 episode 8 was extremely triggering as the interns practice sutures on each other’s wrists and some of the doctors believe they are engaging in self harm and the interns behave in many ways that were similar to such and extremely triggering as someone who had a history with that.
A patient has severely damaged hands from fighting against a rapist. There are likely other instances too that i am forgetting about because it is a medical drama.
im not sure when but a man gets decapitated inside his body so you dont see a head wirh no shoulders but there is mention of it and he is inside his skin. hope this helps!
It is a medical drama. It is not excessively gory but if you are pretty squeamish i would avoid it. There are many episodes where patients obtain massive injuries.
^ Cristina is choked by Owen while he was sleeping. He had a PTSD attack because their fan reminded him of a helicopters blade, he apologized but it's still distressing to watch
Season 13 episode 23 when Keith holds Stephanie hostage and tries to escape except the hospital goes into lock down shutting off all the exits so he tries to set off the sprinklers but instead Stephanie douses him in alcohol turning him into a human torch (burning him alive)
The male was on a death row sentence and wanted to donate his organs in the hospital instead of them just going to waste, Meredith goes to the prison to watch his death , it’s not a hanging but he is euthanized by IV.
Breaks, including open fractures, are shown and set on screen. Some people have broken skulls or face bones. Dislocations are also common, including severe ones and the dislocations being set.
A woman has her finger dislocated on screen. Derek has to rip his arm out of part of a plane and is cut severely. People have amputated limbs, including one man who gets his arm stuck in a meat grinder.
A girl comes to the hospital who was kidnapped and sexually assault and it is implied that she was tortured. Other than that, there aren't actually torture scenes but there are scenes where patients are held down while painful medical procedures are performed.
Meredith lied to a social worker about something important so she wasn't allowed custody of the baby she wanted to adopt with Derek. There was a brief moment I think where after this happened Meredith decided to kidnap the baby. The situation was resolved.
Also the comment above was about a child not an infant but it did happen.
i dont know any specific moments off the top of my head, but there are so many one off patient actors that im sure there are a few that present disabled on the show but their actors arent
Christina says she’s not “socially r****ed” somewhere in the end of the second season or beginning of the third. Haven’t gotten past S3 to inform on later episodes
In season 13 a rapist is a patient in the hospital. In order to evade authorities he holds a doctor hostage and they find a child who had wandered off from her parents and he holds her hostage as well. He does not directly harm the child, but she is hurt in their escape from him.
Including one where George has a fantasy about Izzie, Meredith, and Cristina showering together. No nude bodies are shown except for upper chest (ending around cleavage) and legs.
okay. this took me forever, i definitely missed some, and haven't watched past s16e11 but will update as i go. this is a pretty comprehensive list of the worst ones (with time stamps):
s3e4: visual and audio of meredith vomiting at ~6:10 and again at ~7:45
s5e20: visual and audio of izzie vomiting at ~21:30
s6e4: visceral visual and audio of thatcher vomiting blood TWICE at ~03:47
s6e7: visceral visual and audio of derek vomiting at ~30:45
s7e9: partial visual and audio of christina vomiting at ~41:30
s8e3: audio of owen vomiting at ~37:20
s8e21: audio and partial visual of meredith gagging and then vomiting at ~7:20, audio and partial visual of meredith vomiting at ~38:00
s8e22: partial visual and audio of meredith vomiting (twice) at ~09:35, and again at ~30:25, and at ~31:15, and at 31:50
s9e6: audio and visual of a patient vomiting on jo at ~04:45, and 29:30
s10e18: many people act as though they are going to vomit, visceral audio of jackson vomiting at ~38:30
s11e6: visual and audio of patient vomiting during intro at ~00:20,
s11e07: audio of dr. herman vomiting at 30:05
s11e21: visual and audio of meredith vomiting at ~37:00
s12e5: meredith does NOT vomit but runs to the bathroom as though she might
s13e9: visual and audio of patient vomiting blood at ~06:00
s13e10: audio of jo vomiting at ~41:30
s13e20: audio and visual of a passenger vomiting at ~22:50
s13e21: audio and visual of a patient vomiting at ~03:10
s14e2: audio and partial visual at ~21:55
s14e8: visual and audio of a young patient vomiting at ~39:10
s14e14: audio and partial visual of a young patient vomiting at ~02:50
s14e18: audio and visual of amelia vomiting at ~18:50
s14e22: visceral audio and visual of a girl vomiting at ~00:50
s16e1: young girl vomits at ~12:00
s16e5: audio and visual of zola vomiting at ~01:55
s16e11: audio and visual of a young man vomiting blood at ~07:50
s16e14: audio and visual of patient vomiting at ~01:30
i believe teddy's former girlfriend died in one of the towers during 9/11, she teddy has ptsd/flashbacks from it in season 16 or 17 i forget which one and the specific episode(s)
the show is generally anti-cop, particularly in the later seasons. cops are usually shown getting in the way of the doctors rather than helping. season 17 mentions main characters attending anti-police brutality protests.
callie is bisexual and sleeps with mark while arizona is away and they are broken up. kind of a rachael/ross situation and its almost treated like it was chesting but wasnt. arizona makes remarks about callie being unfaithful because shes bisexual
A characters sister is trans and is transitioning in secret. The hormones are damaging her spleen and she needs surgery. Her brother thinks she’s doing drugs until his wife eventually tells him the truth while his sister is in surgery. He is very unsupportive and keeps during he/him pronouns and calling her his brother for the rest of the episode
Usually you can hear when the doctors will use a needle/syringe/IV etc and there’s time to look away. But there’s a very abrupt scene with a needle stuck in someone’s arm in S15 ep 14 around 22 minutes in. Blood starts to pour from under a door, look away then
a doctor with autism is portrayed very stereotypically and is shown to be rude and cold. many other doctors make fun of her before finding out shes autistic, and even after she says she is, she refers to it as aspergers. theres a mention if curing autism later in the show i believe.
An autistic surgeon has a really bad unrealistically done meltdown where she is able to communicate exactly what she needs. What she needs ends up being physical touch by a person she barely knows. As an autistic person it was very uncomfortable to watch
A patient comes in after she got illegal gastric bypass surgery because of an eating disorder that her mother encourages. She is talked to about the danger of eating disorders.
Owen Hunt has a lot of story arcs about his PTSD from being an army medic. Being triggered results in him strangling a loved one. PTSD comes up for others as well.
Camera shaking is used during the 'wilderness' scenes of the plane crash episodes (the last episode of season 8 and the first episode or two of season 9).
I believe there are scenes in the NICU where babies can be heard crying, and birth scenes where babies cry. Many young kids and adults cry during the show as well
i wouldn't consider it breaking the fourth wall, but once the pandemic began, the show went along with it. many people didn't expect the show to recreate struggles of the pandemic because so many other shows pretended things were normal.
Abortions are mentioned throughout the show. One character has an abortion. She is shown lying down before the procedure. None of the actual procedure is shown. It is a sad experience for her and her partner who wanted a baby.
A few pregnant patients die throughout the show. The most graphic is season 11, episode 16 in which a third trimester pregnant woman dies suddenly following a seizure and doctors perform a C-section immediately after her death.
Their are no homophobic slurs as far as I'm aware, but some queer characters do face homophobia mostly from parents. The other doctors are fully accepting though.
The portrayal of autistic characters in the show, including Dr. Dixon in season 5, is often offensive and ableist. A main character is also interested in “curing” autism in season 11. Throughout the seasons, Autism Speaks signs show up around the hospital.
A trans woman early in the show is misgendered by staff on accident (wrong pronouns and names and correcting themselves) and by her wife (calling her her husband and he), but it implies the trans woman allows her to do. In a different episode, a trans man and his trans woman girlfriend are confronted by the trans man's dad, who isn't supportive and says many things along the lines of losing his little girl etc. A trans woman is shown in later seasons who is not misgendered and fully accepted as a woman. A trans man intern is shown and never misgendered, but he discusses the DMV refusing to change the gender on his drivers license.
There are many LGBT patients, some of them die but not all of them or even close to all of them and it doesn't come off as bury your gays. LGBT characters are otherwise treated very well.
no, but many people of all races, cultures, and ethnicities pass away throughout the show for different reasons. some of the cases and deaths are related to discrimination.
Transphobia, racism, and ableism (as far as I remember). A trans man is told by his father that he can't make the decision to have top surgery and that he is actually a girl. There is a police shooting where the police try to justify it. Disabled people are made fun of and insulted by doctors and sometimes the disabled people hear this. Jackson is pro cochlear implants and sees them as necessary and says that not getting a child a cochlear implant is abuse/neglect.
mark and lexie have a 16 year age gap, meredith and derek are 9-13 years apart (we dont know their exact ages), meredith and deluca are 9-10 years apart. owen and cristina, burke and cristina, no clue exact ages there but its a few years at least. alex and jo are 4-6 years which isnt nearly as bad as theyre similar maturity wise and have shared experiences that contributed to their maturity.
vauge mentions (the hospital has a church and some scenes are in there with characters praying silently, wedding scenes, offhand mention that some characters are W.A.S.Ps) until end of season 8 to beginning of season 9, when a character on the show starts talking about being religious and it becomes a main part of her character.
Jackson and Maggie had no feelings for each other before their parents got married as Jackson was married to someone else at the time. They started growing co-dependent long after, as Maggie lost her mom and was leaning on her new family to heal. Catherine Avery (her stepmom, and Jackson's mom) specifically refers to them as siblings. So, as they say, even if they're not technically related, it's not great when you have to justify it's not incest by saying that
People have sex and make out on screen but it only shows their heads and shoulders. One couple comes in to the hospital after getting stuck together during sex and are shown covered by blankets/sheets.
owen supports cristina getting an abortion at first, and then has outbursts at her saying she killed their child, etc. the show itself doesnt really lean towards either way, but meredith doesnt like owen particularly because of that
On multiple occasions, one being Derek's death scene. Also, There is the Calzona car crash,the ambulance crash that injures two paramedics and kills the patient.
Meredith tries to drown herself in the bathtub but denies that it was one purpose. Later in the same episode two ships hit each other and people are mentioned to have drowned, and Meredith is drowned but survives after almost dying.
Frequent gore including surgical scenes, severe injuries, and head wounds where the brain is shown. At one point Izzie drills holes into a man's head. A woman is shown after having her face severely injured, breaking many of her bones. There are scenes of internal organs, brain surgery, and intestines being operated on.
After a black kid is shot by police and treated in the hospital, Bailey has to talk to her son about being careful around police (Bailey and her son are black).
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