Grey's Anatomy's Latest Victim Speaks

Grey's Anatomy went there.

In its well-publicized midseason premiere, Grey's Anatomy Season 17 Episode 7, the beloved ABC hit killed off another long-serving character in Giacomo Gianniotti's Andrew DeLuca.

On Station 19 Season 4 Episode 6, DeLuca was stabbed after he and Carina went on a dangerous mission to expose Opal, the sex trafficker who first appeared on Grey's Anatomy Season 16.

When Grey's Anatomy Season 17 Episode 7 picked up, DeLuca was in mortal danger, but he visited Meredith on the same beach she's been hanging around on for much of the season.

"I don't regret it," DeLuca told Meredith.

"We walk through our lives and we witness atrocities, see homeless people in the street asking for help and we just walk right past them. We see people who can't pay for medicine for their children.

"We see people beating their kids and say, 'It's none of our business.' We see atrocities on the news every day.

"Crimes and cruelties committed by our government, paid for nonetheless by our tax dollars. And what do we do? We just change the channel."

"We tune it out.

"Then we go back to work, and we pretend that what we just saw or that article we just read is somehow normal or acceptable.

"The people who take to the streets screaming out for change, they're written off as crazy, they're written off as extreme. It doesn't make any sense. It makes no sense.

"What you did, Meredith, risking your medical license to save that little girl, that makes sense. And what I did — following that women and not letting her get away with it, not letting her get away, not letting her harm another single human being.

"Yeah, it was dangerous, but it made sense. It's the only thing that made sense. So I don't regret it."

In Grey Sloan, Owen turned to Teddy to help with the surgery to save DeLuca and they somehow managed to save him.

Everything seemed fine ... until blood started shooting out of his nose. He was flatlining, and the doctors battled to save his life, once again.

"I don't know what happens from here, Meredith," he said during the dream sequence.

"No matter what happens, I want you to know that I've never felt seen the way you saw me. I've never felt inspired the way you inspired me.

"You made me want to be not just my best self, but better. And yeah, I felt small around you sometimes. I felt insecure. I wanted something from you that I needed to give myself.

"But here, now, on this beach with you, I get it. I don't just get it, I feel it. I know who I am, my strength."

As DeLuca flatlined in the hospital, he saw his mother, who was calling out for him in the distance.

"I'll miss you," Grey told DeLuca.

"If I go back and you don't, I'll miss you." "You'll be okay, Meredith," he replied. "I have to go."

DeLuca reunited with his mother and we returned to the present to see that he was dead.

"I'm a little bit of an exception when it comes to having a happy place, because the hospital has always been mine," Grey said in a voiceover as the episode winded down.

"Maybe it's because of where I grew up. "But if you're not like me, you're going to want somewhere else," she added.

Gianniotti took to Twitter shortly after the episode aired with the following:

"So much I could say... but all that comes to mind is thank you," he Tweeted.

"Thank you to all the fans who loved Deluca as much as I did. Telling his story was and will be one of the great honors of my life.

"Thank you."

It was a truly shocking episode of this series, and the tragic thing is that Meredith spent the entire episode intubated, so beyond the beach dream, she didn't get to say goodbye to her lover.

Grey's Anatomy typically keeps viewers in the dark ahead of a big death, and it did so this time.