Grey’s Anatomy’s Ellen Pompeo Promises Season 17 Meredith Will Be Worth The Wait

ellen pompeo grey's anatomy abc season 16

Fans were left with tons of questions and cliffhangers at the end of Season 16 of Grey's Anatomy. Like many series, the long-running medical drama had to wrap earlier than originally planned this year, leaving viewers four episodes short and with a finale that didn't quite offer the storylines the producers had wanted. Star Ellen Pompeo's Meredith Grey had a rough season, and was still facing several challenges by the end, but now she's given us a tiny tease about the character in Season 17, saying that Mer will be "worth the wait."

Obviously, we all know that Meredith never really has an easy season, but Season 16 was especially tough on her. So, when a fan on Twitter asked her to tell us what we could expect from the successful surgeon next season, it was good to hear that we'd be in for a treat. Here's what Ellen Pompeo had to say:

I can tell you about Meredith in season 17.... she’s going to be so worth the wait!

Well, really, when is Meredith Grey not worth the wait? It sounds like good ol' Mer is going to be making some serious boss moves in Season 17 and getting her full sass on in every area of life, amirite?

And, it's a good thing, too, because Season 16 was no joke for Meredith. She started the season doing community service for insurance fraud (though that fraud was for a very good reason), and ended up spending a couple of days in lockup because she kept abandoning her post to check on patients and didn't finish all of the required hours. She nearly lost her medical license and DeLuca broke up with her. By the season's (premature) end, she was flirting her scrubs off with Karev's replacement, hot widower Cormac Hayes.

But, even though Meredith and Cormac have tons in common and were able to bond over losing their spouses and having to raise their kids alone (not to mention that they're both clearly into each other and he asked her out in the finale), Meredith is still very much tied to DeLuca. Since their breakup, she's had to watch him become increasingly erratic and irrational as it looks like he's beginning to suffer from the same condition as his father. And, Meredith actually cancelled her date with Cormac to take care of a struggling DeLuca.

Hopefully, part of Meredith being "worth the wait" will mean that she can put her big girl pants on and reconcile her feelings for DeLuca, and manage to be there to support him, while she also tries to move on with Cormac. Cece would be so disappointed if she didn't at least find a way to give this new romance a full shot!

It's clear that Meredith is going to have some heavy personal challenges ahead when it comes to her love life, but we also know that Season 17 will, in fact, deal with our current health crisis when it returns. Ellen Pompeo's words about what we have to look forward to with Meredith would seem to mean that she'll still be fully in her element, even with potential chaos all around her. That's just like our Mer, isn't it?

Grey's Anatomy will return to ABC sometime this fall, so be sure to check out our fall TV premiere schedule to see when you need to tune in!

Adrienne Jones
Senior Content Creator

Covering The Witcher, Outlander, Virgin River, Sweet Magnolias and a slew of other streaming shows, Adrienne Jones is a Senior Content Producer at CinemaBlend, and started in the fall of 2015. In addition to writing and editing stories on a variety of different topics, she also spends her work days trying to find new ways to write about the many romantic entanglements that fictional characters find themselves in on TV shows. She graduated from Mizzou with a degree in Photojournalism.