Meredith Grey may not be desperately looking for love on Season 18 of Grey’s Anatomy, but it looks like it’s catching up to her anyway. In a surprise move in the season premiere, Meredith reconnected with Nick Marsh, played by Scott Speedman, with whom Meredith shared some flirty chemistry for one episode back in Season 14. But one does not simply waltz in and replace Derek Shepherd as Meredith’s main man — especially after the couple’s emotional reunion on Meredith’s COVID-hallucinated beach in Season 17. To that end, Speedman confirmed that some fans’ reactions to his return were straight-up horrifying in a Shining sort of way.
It was to be expected that Grey’s Anatomy fans would not be ready to move on from McDreamy so soon after we got Patrick Dempsey returning for multiple episodes in Season 17. Meredith and Derek were endgame from the very first episode of the series, and frankly, some people still haven’t recovered from Derek’s tragic death in Season 11. Scott Speedman said on The Drew Barrymore Show (via US Weekly) that his co-workers warned him about the rabid fan base.
There were a lot of opinions. [The cast and crew] warned me that the fans are, quote unquote, ‘very passionate.’
Scott Speedman said his wife showed him some of the fans’ reactions on Twitter, and he was pleasantly surprised by the overall positive reception his character was receiving. But then he switched over to the comment section of the Grey’s Anatomy Instagram page.
That was like Shelley [Duvall] in The Shining finding Jack Nicholson’s writing. It was just, like, 12,000 comments of, you know, diatribes against me. Just all caps, ‘NO, NO, NO.’
I can imagine Scott Speedman scrolling furiously through the comments, like Shelley Duvall's Wendy flipping through her husband's "book" in that classic scene from The Shining. We can all agree that Instagram comments can be super horrifying, right?
At least Meredith and Nick are taking things slow, as Meredith insisted in “Here Comes the Sun” that she wasn’t going to sleep with him. Despite a pretty romantic lakeside date in “Hotter Than Hell,” the couple haven’t quite taken their relationship to a steamy level yet, allowing fans to ease into the idea. And come on, guys, it’s not like Meredith hasn’t dated since Derek died. She’s had romances of varying degrees with Nathan Riggs, Andrew DeLuca and Cormac Hayes, to name a few. There’s no need to get all “Here’s Johnny!” on sweet Dr. Nick.
While it’s not exactly horror, Scott Speedman has been dipping his toes into material a little darker than Grey’s Anatomy, as he also plays Matthew Engler on the third season of the Netflix thriller You. Matthew is the neighbor of killer couple Joe and Love Quinn-Goldberg, who finds himself mixed up the new parents’ drama.
Grey’s Anatomy airs at 9 p.m. ET Thursdays on ABC, and all three seasons of You are streaming on Netflix. If you do need to find some good horror to watch as Halloween approaches, check out our list of the best haunted house movies and how to watch, and don’t forget to stay up to date with all of the upcoming TV premieres with our 2021 Fall TV Schedule.
