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Best Grey's Anatomy Episodes With Derek and Meredith

Grey's Anatomy: 9 Times Derek and Meredith's Relationship Made Us Sob

As much as I love how Meredith has become her own McDreamy, Derek and Meredith's 11 seasons of pure, unadulterated love on Grey's Anatomy fill up a sacred part of my heart. Meredith and Derek reminded us all that true love was possible as they bloomed from a fun one-night stand to a loving, committed couple. They made us feel butterflies almost as often as they made us ugly-cry.

Get your tissues (and feelings) ready: here are the nine episodes that capture the best Derek and Meredith moments, from their postcoital meet-cute to Derek's soul-crushing departure from Grey's.

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1. Season 1, Episode 1: "A Hard Day's Night"

Say what you will, but Shonda Rhimes reinvented the meet-cute with the funny, romantic pilot episode of the series. Meredith gets wasted the night before her first day as an intern and wakes up next to a devastatingly handsome stranger who's none other than Derek Shepherd.

She soon learns that Derek isn't only her boss — he's her boss's boss. Awkwardness ensues as sparks fly between them at work and Derek tries to ask her out. Our dark and twisty heroine rejects his advances. Despite an entire day of banter, they manage to crack a case together.

2. Season 2, Episode 5: "Bring the Pain"

This episode definitely laid the cheese on thick, but we're not even mad because the drama is insatiable. As they're searching for a shaman for their patient, Meredith and Derek find themselves at a crossroads in their relationship. Addison, Derek's estranged wife, is settling down at Seattle Grace. Derek hasn't signed divorce papers yet, unsure of what to do.

After they finish a surgery, Meredith gives Derek the disarmingly sweet "pick me, choose me, love me" speech and tells him to meet her at Joe's after work. Meredith gets terribly drunk by the end of the episode, and it looks like Derek's a no-show. While it's definitely sad, the drama is relatively lightweight compared to what's to come in their relationship.

3. Season 3, Episode 16: "Drowning on Dry Land"

Season three fleshes out Meredith's relationship with her Alzheimer's-ridden mother, the great surgeon Ellis Grey. It stands out as one of the series' darkest seasons as it explores Meredith's struggle with depression.

In this episode, Derek pulls Meredith out of the water. His rescue is more heartbreaking than heroic. For most of this episode and the next one, Meredith looks dead (although we all knew that she was going to make it out alive, because duh, she's the main character).

4. Season 4, Episode 17: "Freedom, Part 2"

Meredith and Derek eventually break up again, and Derek briefly dates Nurse Rose. The former couple remain professional as they run a clinical trial together. After their last patient pulls through, Meredith celebrates with one of the show's sweetest (and cheesiest) gestures ever in season four's finale. She creates a blueprint of their home together out of candles. Ida Maria's sultry "Keep Me Warm" creates a tender atmosphere that'll make you swoon hard.

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5. Season 5, Episode 19: "Elevator Love Letter"

Derek's elevator proposal marks a relatively bright spot in an otherwise sad and complicated episode where we see Cristina grapple with Owen's PTSD and Izzie and Alex confront the possibility of Izzie's death. Richard proves to be a pretty great wingman, refusing to move until Meredith hops onto Derek's elevator, which is decked out with all of the cases that he and Mer worked on together.

While brain scans aren't as picturesque as candles, it's exceedingly difficult not to cry when you hear Derek propose to Meredith. Derek tells Meredith that her "dark and twisty" tendency isn't a flaw — it's a strength.

6. Season 5, Episode 23: "Now or Never"

Listen, we're probably ridiculously invested in Meredith and Derek's relationship because of how unrealistically dramatic it can be sometimes. It's too hard to keep count of how many times Derek has pulled off a romantic gesture and harder to keep track of how many times he's thrown Meredith the signature Derek smolder. But sometimes the quiet moments between them are the most special, like their understated wedding vows.

After giving their wedding to Alex and Izzie, Meredith and Derek make promises to each other on a Post-It note. Grey's fans look back at this intimate moment with immense gratitude because of how emotionally devastating things become by the end of season five.

7. Season 6, Episode 24: "Death and All His Friends"

This episode hurts on so many levels. In the season six finale, Gary Clark goes on a shooting spree at the hospital after his wife dies under Derek's care. Meredith, who's pregnant, witnesses Gary shooting Derek. Gary shows up again while Cristina operates on Derek, so she and Jackson pull the plug to make him think that Derek is dead. Meredith ends up miscarrying in the middle of Derek's surgery. Derek lives, but this episode introduces us to a whole new level of tragedy in the Grey's universe.

8. Season 9, Episode 7: "I Was Made for Lovin' You"

By season nine, most of us found comfort in Derek and Meredith's rock-solid relationship as drama sparked between all the other couples on the show, like Cristina and Owen. Meredith and Derek found themselves attached to baby Zola all the way back in season seven and eventually adopt her. Without really expecting a baby, Meredith finds herself pregnant, despite her doctor telling her that her uterus is "hostile." She buys an adorable "World's Best Big Sister" shirt for Zola and mischievously asks Derek to look at it.

This moment reminds us that good things can happen in the Grey's universe, even after terrible things like the horrendous plane crash in the season eight finale.

9. Season 11, Episode 21: "How to Save a Life"

Good things come and go fast on this show. Throughout season 11, Meredith and Derek face a rough patch in their marriage when Derek decides to take a job in Washington DC. After one of his fellows kisses him, Derek takes a plane back to Seattle after realizing how much he loves and misses Meredith. Their happy time together is fleeting.

While on his way to make one last trip to Washington, Derek witnesses a car accident and rescues the victims, only to be involved in a car accident shortly after. The paramedics take him to a less-equipped hospital, and by the time the doctors figure out that he needs a CT scan, he is brain dead. Sleeping at Last's melancholy cover of "Chasing Cars" plays as Meredith takes Derek off of life-support, and it will destroy you.

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