Skip to main content

Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital sees a lot of turnover. Now that the show Grey’s Anatomy has been on for 17 seasons, there are only a small handful of the original cast members left. Season 16 saw the exit of one of fans’ favorite OG cast members, Dr. Alex Karev.

Despite being one of the most loved characters on the show, fans thought that the writers gave Dr. Karev a terrible exit. 

‘Grey’s Anatomy’: Dr. Alex Karev had a terrible exit according to fans 

JUSTIN CHAMBERS
JUSTIN CHAMBERS | Kelsey McNeal/ABC via Getty Images

Dedicated Grey’s fans will remember one of Dr. Karev’s first love interests was Dr. Izzie Stevens. She miraculously survived cancer, only to see her career at Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital ruined by a medical mistake she made with a patient.

After her grave error, she blew up at Alex, blaming him for everything. That effectively ended her tenure at Grey Sloan and her relationship with Alex in one fell swoop. She left, never to be heard from again. 

In season 16, Alex leaves to supposedly take care of his sick mother. He essentially abandons his current wife, Jo, and stops returning her calls. He later sends letters to her and his friends explaining that he found out he and Izzie actually have two children together. Before she underwent treatment for cancer, Izzie and Alex froze some embryos.

When she left Grey Sloan, Izzie apparently used them without Alex’s knowledge. When he found out that Izzie was raising the kids by herself in a rural Kansas, he decided to go meet them. He was enamored with his kids, and decided to make things work with Izzie and be a family. 

Fans may not have noticed that Alex Karev and Izzie Stevens’ kids look exactly like them 

Related

‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Hides Messages in the Backgrounds of Certain Shots Throughout the Series

Fans may hate Alex’s exit from the show, but some can’t help but notice the amazing job producers did in casting his kids. Despite the fact that Katherine Heigl, who played Izzie, isn’t seen on the show, fans do get shots of Alex’s twins. And they look just like Izzie and Alex.

In fact, the kids were a saving grace for some fans, who didn’t like the way Alex abandoned Jo.

As one fan on Reddit wrote, “Alex wasn’t lying when he said he and Eli have the same smile or that Alexis has Izzie’s eyes! That episode broke my Jolex heart but I also loved seeing the adorable kids he and Izzie had! :).”

Other fans may have been too bitter to notice that the kids were perfectly cast. As one fan said in reply to a comment that the show is great at casting family members who look alike, “Agree same with Alex and Izzie’s kids even though fans probably hated that storyline too much to appreciate the casting.”

This isn’t the first time ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ has cast actors who look alike to play family members

Fans on reddit think that Grey’s is great at casting family members. Reddit users were especially impressed with the Shepherd family. Derek Shepherd, the original heartthrob of the hospital, has seen many of his family members come and go from Grey Sloan. All of them seem to look just like him. One fan commented that Neve Campbell was the perfect choice to play Shepherd’s sister. “She also looks the most like Tyne Daly, who plays their mother. The oldest sister, Nancy, it’s hard to imagine she and Amelia are sisters, but Liz looks like both of them that it’s like a bridge between the two sisters.”

The Grey family also looks similar. One fan wrote, “The show does a phenomenal job casting family members- Ellis Grey, Mer and Ellis (her daughter) all look so much alike. Harriet is a perfect mix of Jackson and April. And this one too- they did a great job casting the Shepherd family!! :).” 

Best in Entertainment