How this week's Grey's Anatomy was worst than last week's... let me count the ways

I haven't seen any numbers on it, but the number of people watching Grey's Anatomy this week was significantly lower than last week when Shonda Rhimes made Derek Shepherd die a terrible death. It may have been more torturous for the viewers than for him, but she Shonda didn't seem to care.

Rumors and speculation about Patrick Dempey's racing plans, divorce, or possible tiffs with Shonda on set aside, the faithful fans of the show deserved better than they have gotten the past two weeks. Whether the actor wanted out of his contract or the creator had creative differences, there were better ways to write a character out that didn't leave viewers from swearing off the show. I know that I have friends that have said, "never again."

I won't even rehash any of what annoyed me about last week and Derek's death, other to say they should have just left him in D.C. My friend, Lori, and I made our peace about that last week. 

I'm going to give a brief rundown of some of the things I found extremely stupid about this week. The writing again was terrible. The episode was supposed to show how everyone dealt with the death of Derek. Instead it was a two hour episode full of time jumps. 

• Shonda thought she was so smart paralleling Meredith's decisions and story with Ellis'. On one side, I guess that's a clever thing to do, but it was just a matter of writing Meredith to turn out more like her mother than anyone every expected her to be. I felt it was a ruse to try to be creative.
• The funeral was all of what, two minutes? No eulogy. No nothing to honor Derek's life.
• If Shonda really wanted to show how Derek's death impacted everyone, she would have brought back Addison to mourn the only man she really loved. She would have brought back Cristina to be by Meredith's side. I'm pretty sure she could have persuaded the actresses to be a part of the episode. Maybe I'm imagining it, but I do think there was a dark headed actress next to Meredith with wavy hair to give the appearance that Cristina may have been there. Meredith should have broken down next to the grave. 
• Meredith showing up a the hospital and walking into the doctor's lounge to tell the news didn't seem to realistic. Where did she leave the kids and with who?
• Meredith just leaving and no one hearing from her for months, or being on screen to show how she dealt with the immediate aftermath doesn't show how she really coped with her new reality. Oh, well she was on screen having memories of carousels and her mother trying to commit suicide. 
• We know Amelia doesn't deal with things well, but did it really take 6 months (or whatever it was for someone to finally get in her face about her attitude and flippant-ness? 
• And did Owen really just have an epiphany that he runs from situations when addressing things with Amelia? It just then dawned on him? It wasn't really clear at first that he went back on active military duty as a result of dealing with losing his friend. At least it wasn't clear to me.
• At least when April left to work in the field with Owen, we knew her motivation. However, so much more could have been done with her admission to Jackson that she didn't come home for Christmas because she was dealing with the grief of losing their baby. That could have been so much more emotionally explored, especially given how the story line was dropped so quickly.  
• Bailey and Ben arguing for months on the subject of pulling the plug was terribly annoying. Enough was enough. 
• One of the two women enduring treatment for burns died as if we didn't have enough death. Shonda evidently didn't have any friends as a child, and doesn't want her characters to have friends either. 
• At least Arizona and Callie separately were real about their emotions. I give some credit there.
• At least Alex really cared and tried to connect with Meredith. While we were told everyone else tried too, at least we were able to connect with a more human Karev.
• Backing up a couple of week's Maggie had to have heard about the plane crash and how Meredith lost Lexie. I thought Derek even told her some about that, but I digress. Why didn't Maggie seem more impacted by all this? She had a connection with Derek. 
• As someone commented on one of my posts on Facebook... Could they have possibly have played "Chasing Cars" more in the episode? They have played that song way too much with every tragedy since the beginning of the show.

I know I am missing some things, but the biggest annoyance of it all is that after Meredith and Derek talked about growing their family, they used 2 hours to span 9 months. We figure out that Meredith left town unable to deal with anyone after she found out she was pregnant. Hid it from everyone and just ran off. 

How much more powerful would it have been for viewers to connect and feel the heartstrings as Meredith found out she was pregnant while in the depths of mourning? To share with hers and Derek's family and friends as she dealt with her emotions. To see her anger and share her pain. To have her support team alongside her as she gave birth. Instead, she was in some random location -- possibly Boston -- I assume that because of where Ellis went when she ran off pregnant. Karev only shows up as her emergency contact after complications in birth. 

We breeze through 9 months, see her first moment with her humongous baby, see a cheesy faded image of Derek's face to acknowledge her baby had his eyes (or something like that). I cannot believe she named the baby Ellis either. 

And then, she returns to work and finds Derek's favorite ferry boat scrub cap. The least Shonda could have done was have her say, "it's a beautiful day to save lives" before she cut into her first patient. Especially after he said it alongside the road last week. 

The episode came more off like a last episode designed to wrap up loose ends after a show was cancelled. It glossed over way too much. 

Because I'm addicted to certain shows, yes, I'll continue watching. However, I completely understand why so many people have made the choice not to.