<Tr> <Td> "</Td> <Td> The decision to have the character die the way that he did was not a difficult one in the sense of what were the options? Either Derek was going to walk out on Meredith, and leave her high and dry, and what was that going to mean? That was going to suggest that the love was not true, the thing we had said for 11 years was a lie and McDreamy wasn't McDreamy . For me, that was untenable . Meredith and Derek's love had to remain Meredith and Derek's love . As painful as it was for me as a storyteller, because I had never really thought that was going to happen, it preserved what felt true to me, was that Derek was going to have to die in order for that love to remain honest . Because I really couldn't have the idea that he just turned out to be a bad guy who walked out on his wife and kids be a true story . To me, it felt like that was the only way to make Meredith and Derek's magic remain true and forever frozen in time . </Td> <Td>" </Td> </Tr> <P> The character was later written to be a graduate of Bowdoin College, a liberal arts college in Brunswick, Maine, after an alumnus led a petition signed by over 450 students to "adopt" the character as an alumnus . Dempsey is from Lewiston, about 18 miles (29 km) away from Brunswick, and was awarded an honorary doctorate by Bowdoin in 2013 . </P> <P> Rhimes describes Shepherd as typical "Prince Charming". He was planned to be a doctor who doesn't really care about anything, who lives in his "own" universe and has a big sex appeal . A man who is charming, devilishly handsome and the type of guy every girl dreams of, and a man that often makes the wrong decisions, and is often known as a jerk or the ultimate heartbreaker . Rhimes planned to have this kind of character from the beginning, because he was the kind of guy whom girls fall in love with and a character whose storylines could easily be changed . USA Today writer Robert Bianco said: "Derek could, at times, seem like two people, warm and funny one minute, cold and self - involved the next . Dempsey's gift was in making those two sides seem like part of the same person, while keeping us rooting for that person as a whole ." </P> <P> With the show concluding its second season, Robert Bianco of USA Today said that Emmy voters could consider him because of the "seemingly effortless way he humanizes Derek's' dreamy' appeal with ego and vanity". In the third season, Alan Sepinwall of The Star - Ledger wrote that "the attempt to give the moral high ground back to McDreamy was bad . Dude, whatever happened in New York ceased to count in any kind of grievance tally once you agreed to take Addison back and give things another try . You're the dick who cheated on her, you're the one who knew that she found the panties, and still you act like her getting back together with Mark justifies what you did? Wow . I didn't think it was possible for me to dislike anyone on this show more than Meredith, but congratulations, big guy ." </P>

Episode on grey's anatomy where derek dies