Imagine them eating in slow-motion, and you've got about three selections from this list.

Did people in the 1960s, when TV was a relatively new source of entertainment, predict that at the end of the “Mr. McBeevee” episode of “The Andy Griffith Show,” the previously-unseen-by-everyone-but-Opie titular character was going to appear? Like we would now. You see, Mr. B is a “Not So Imaginary Friend,” and because of Opie stating that he has 12 hands…The point I’m trying to make is: recognizing tropes have made us more cynical about TV, and that’s why I love them.

One of the reasons why shows like “Community” and “South Park” are so good is because they rarely go the easy route and do something that’s been seen a million times before. Their success comes from the way they subvert tropes, unlike, say, “Two and a Half Men” or “Family Guy,” both of which have been doing the same exact stories with the same exact jokes that “The Honeymooners” did in 1955. Just not as well.

On the following pages are 10 of my least-favorite TV tropes. If ever you’ve groaned at a character screaming in horror when they realize who their bedmate is, or turned the channel when someone thought they were high or drunk when they were actually just given a placebo, this list is for you. (Note: this is not the 10 WORST – it’s 10 that really bug me, even if some of my favorite shows use them. Please list your least favorites.)

#10. Ugly Guy, Hot Wife

TV Tropes Excerpt: “A very common trope, particularly in animation and sitcoms, is for a woman to be far more attractive than her significant other. This is largely a result of Hollywood-style casting for women’s roles in which average-looking women are virtually unknown, leaving a large amount of hotties needing work.”

Notable Examples: Peter and Louis Griffin on “Family Guy,” Kevin James and Leah Remini on “The King of Queens,” Homer and Marge Simpson on “The Simpsons,” Harry Goldenblatt‎ and Charlotte Yorke on “Sex and the City” (This one’s so overused that I’ve put it down at #10, because it’d be too obvious of a #1 choice, no matter how obnoxious the idea of James Belushi schtupping Courtney Thorne-Smith is.)

#9. We Want Our Jerk Back

TV Tropes Excerpt: “A common Sitcom plot where the total Jerk Ass learns his lesson, turns sweet and benevolent — and becomes absolutely intolerable, making the other characters yearn for the original personality. Eventually the character in question will revert to normal, and the reaction will either be relief, or realization that he really is worse in his obnoxious form.”

Notable Examples: Bender from “Futurama,” Peter Griffin from “Family Guy,” Roy from “Wings,” Reese from “Malcolm in the Middle,” Toby from “The West Wing,” Fun Bobby from “Friends” (This one’s frustrating because you know the character who goes from jerk-to-friendly will be back to acting like an asshole by the end of the episode. It’s a 22-minute/44-minute plot stall.)

#8. Annoying Laugh

TV Tropes Excerpt: “In some cases, the Annoying Laugh is used in place of actually fleshing out a character, since the type of annoying laugh can lead the audience to assuming the character basically is just as annoying as his or her laugh happens to be.”

Notable Examples: Janice from “Friends”, Kitty from “That ’70s Show,” Vince Masuka from “Dexter,” Urkel

#7. Spicy Latina

TV Tropes Excerpt: “This character is very hot-blooded and confrontational, and often times has a rough background where they had to learn to defend themselves.”

Notable Examples: Vanessa from “Six Feet Under,” Carla from “Scrubs,” Ana Lucia from “Lost,” Gloria from “Modern Family,” Santana from “Glee” (Replace every Spicy Latina — with the exception of Gloria — with a Sassy Black Nurse, and you’ve got yourself an improved show.)

#6. Exotic Animal in Urban Setting

TV Tropes Excerpt: This one doesn’t have a definition because it’s not a trope that exists. YET. It’s been bugging me lately because of the horse from “2 Broke Girls,” who the writers finally got rid of during Monday’s episode. No, they didn’t kill the thing, but rather sent him to a stable, out of the broke girls’ Brooklyn backyard. In a show full of stupid characters, Chestnut might be the worst. Except for Peach. She’s the WORST.

Notable Examples: Marcel the Monkey from “Friends,” Bear from “B. J. and the Bear,” Chestnut the Horse from “2 Broke Girls” (“Lancelot Link” is excepted because IT’S ABOUT TALKING MONKEYS)

#5. Dumbass Has a Point

TV Tropes Excerpt: “A character who’s normally Book Dumb, The Ditz, or possibly even the Ralph Wiggum comes up with a valuable insight. The character most often heard belittling their intelligence sighs heavily and concedes, ‘I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I agree with him.’”

Notable Examples: Cosmo from “The Fairly Oddparents,” Patrick from “Spongebob Squarepants,” Brittany from “Daria,” Nathan from “Misfits,” Bill from “NewsRadio” (And this one’s been on my mind because of the George Clooney movie, The Descendants, and specifically, the character of Sid. He’s a lunkhead who asks inappropriate questions and laughs at Clooney’s mom (his sort-of girlfriend’s grandmother) having Alzheimer’s, but when it’s time for him and George to have a heart-to-heart, it turns out he’s actually very wise and misunderstood gentle idiot. UGH. NO. Just keep them dumb. That’s how we like ‘em.)

#4. Will They or Won’t They?

TV Tropes Excerpt: “Two characters, often combative but with obvious Unresolved Sexual Tension, resist going into a full blown relationship for a rather long time. Usually the two characters will be presented so that “they will” is the conclusion to root for; only rarely is the question of whether the writers think they should in any real doubt.”

Notable Examples: Ross and Rachel from “Friends,” Ben and Leslie from “Parks and Recreation,” J.D. and Elliot from “Scrubs,” Mulder and Scully from “The X-Files,” Sam and Diane from “Cheers,” Niles and Daphne from “Fraiser” (Most shows — particularly sitcoms — go down this route at least once. I don’t know why, either.)

#3. Psycho Ex-Girlfriend

TV Tropes Excerpt: “This is someone The Hero used to be with, but broke it off. Said Ex does not take rejection well.”

Notable Examples: While I was thinking of obnoxious tropes (like this one!) and writing this article, my fiancée was watching “The Good Wife” on CBS. During a commercial break, a promo for an upcoming hilarious new episode of “Two and a Half Men” aired, and one of the clips showed Ashton Kutcher’s ex-wife, Bridget (why, Judy Greer, why?), crashing her car into his house, because she’s cray-cray. There are hundreds of examples of this, from both good shows and bad, and they’re all equally annoying.

#2. Jerk with a Heart of Gold

TV Tropes Excerpt: “A person you would expect to be a big Jerkass turns out to be the nicest person you’ve ever met, or at the very least has some redeeming qualities behind their tough demeanor. Occasionally, they’ll actively try to make it a Hidden Heart of Gold.”

Notable Examples: Kim Kelly from “Freaks and Geeks,” Dr. Morris from “ER,” Dean from “Supernatural,” Dan from “Night Court,” Spike from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” Major Charles from “M*A*S*H” (I honestly can’t think of a show that doesn’t use this trope. Thing is, sometimes we want our jerks to remain jerks and not team up with the good guys. That’s what ruined Spike as a character on “Buffy.” It’s not always a bad thing for characters to be just evil.)

#1. SLOW MOTION to Signify DRAMA

Every slow motion scene on TV is part of the worst trope EVER. (With the exception of this one, from “Spaced.”) I hate slow mo. I bet it was created by the same monster who gave the green light to “Shasta McNasty” and canceled “Terriers.” I’m on to you, Mr. Forced Drama. Go listen to your the Fray CD, very slowly.

Patrick Dempsey, better known to single cat-owning women as McDreamy on Grey’s Anatomy, will take his lush mane of hair and leave the show after the 2011-12 season. Or he won’t, I don’t really give a sh*t.

Dempsey told the Italian edition of Vanity Fair that he won’t return to Grey’s Anatomy after next season. “It will be my last,” Dempsey said. “I don’t know what will happen with the other characters, but for me, it’s done.”

That sounds pretty clear to us. But Dempsey’s rep says he was only referring to his contract being up after next season and it’s uncertain what he will do next: “He was referring to the fact that his contract is up at the end of next season and we have no idea what the future holds.” [EW]

On instinct, I’m trained to believe that any statement from a PR rep denying anything is a baldfaced lie, but in this case I side with Dempsey. I’m assuming he gave his answer in English, which was then translated into Italian for the article, which was then translated back into English. Anyone who’s ever used Babelfish knows that what he originally said may as well have been the plot of a sci-fi novel as described by a five-year-old with Down syndrome.

This week’s list takes a look at TV episodes that ventured outside of their shows’ established formats. In order to highlight originality, I specifically asked Josh to avoid common gimmicks like the “bottle episode.” And to keep things from getting too meta, we’re leaving “Community” off the list altogether, because its gimmick is using gimmicks so often that they’re no longer gimmicks. And now my head hurts. –Ed.

3D Episode of “3rd Rock from the Sun”

The year 1997 was an odd time for 3D’s relationship with pop culture. Long gone were the original “golden years” of the technology, used largely for horror films in the 1950s, and it was still a decade before The Polar Express and Avatar made millions with the gimmick. The two most notable instances of 3D in 1997 were Frogger 3D and “3rd Rock from the Sun’s” two-part second season finale, “A Nightmare on Dick Street.” The episode featured Dick (John Lithgow), Sally (Kristen Johnston), Tommy (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), and Harry (French Stewart, still annoying), dreaming for the first time (highlight: “Newman” in a Fellini-esque film), with the sleep fantasies airing in 3D to the audience. The glasses were originally available at 7-Eleven stories (four pairs for $2!), but they now come with the complete second season DVD box set.

The “COPS”/”X-Files” Crossover Episode

As you probably know if you’ve seen the “Simpsons”’ episode “A Star is Burns,” Fox was big into crossovers back in the day. While some argue the authenticity and quality of Pulitzer Prize-winning Jay Sherman visiting Springfield, it’s tough to argue against “X-Cops,” a Season 7 episode of “The X-Files” that plays like an episode of “COPS.” It’s shot using shaky hand-held camera footage, and the story has police offers and the documentary crew eventually running into Mulder and Scully investigating the same case.

(GIF via)

The Day-Off Episode of “Law & Order”

The only episode of “Law & Order” to not feature a case, “Aftershock” begins with the execution of a man who clubbed a woman to death. Claire Kincaid (Jill Hennessy) is so shaken up that she decides to take a day off, as do Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach), Rey Curtis (Benjamin Bratt), and Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston). Over the course of the episode, we see the characters interact with their families, have one-nighters with a pre-”Alias” Jennifer Garner, and get drunk. I’ve never been much of a fan of “Law & Order” for all the obvious “lack of a continuing storyline” reasons, but “Aftershock,” which ends with the death of one of the characters named above, at least stands out from the “Law & Order”’s other 455 episodes; it shows who the characters are, rather than simply telling us.

The Upside-Down Episode of “Letterman”

In 1987, for no other reason than it’s fun to mess with people, an episode of “Late Night with Dave Letterman” began rotating onscreen, at 10 degrees an hour. It began during his opening monologue, with no mention from the host until later in the show, when he said, “Tonight…we bring you the 360-Degree Image-Rotation Television Program.” By 1 a.m., he was upside down, or at least that’s how he appeared to those watching at home. According to New York magazine, hundreds of people called in to NBC the next morning, “complaining of headaches, dizziness, and nausea.” Although the network was pissed, Dave and his writing crew were ecstatic because all the complaints meant that people were watching and stuck around to feel nauseated.

The Episode of “Six Feet Under” That Never Cut Away

According to Alan Poul, executive producer of “Six Feet Under,” Season 4′s “That’s My Dog” was nicknamed “the departure episode,” because unlike any of the other installments of the great HBO drama, it didn’t cut away from the main plot (at least after the first 15 minutes of the episode). David Fisher, played to perfection by Michael C. Hall, picks up a hitchhiker named Jake, the two begin to flirt, and then… Jake robs David, makes him smoke crack, beats him up, throws gasoline on him, and puts a gun in his mouth, without any explanation of why he’s terrorizing the defenseless funeral director. The show never cuts away from David’s misery, and it’s so brutal and disturbing that you wish you could turn the DVD off, but you know you need to find out what happens. The episode felt like it lasted three hours—and it’s still one of my favorites from the show.

The Backwards Episode of “Seinfeld”

A few shows have done the backwards episode gimmick—including “The Venture Bros.” and “Red Dwarf”—but “Seinfeld” is the best example. “The Betrayal” begins with Jerry, George, and Elaine (nursing a broken nose) returning from Sue Ellen’s wedding in India as the end credits run, and ends with Kramer and Jerry meeting for the first time, where Jerry foolishly says, “We’re neighbors; what’s mine is yours.” What goes in between is what makes the episode a classic, like Jerry and George getting Elaine drunk on Schnapps to get her to talk and the story of why FDR wants Kramer dead.

The Pop-Up Video Episode of “NewsRadio”

To celebrate their 50th episode in 1997, “NewsRadio” aired “Our Fiftieth Episode.” Nothing particularly clever there, but what was intriguing was the show’s one-time use of pop-up videos to display little tidbits about the episode. Like the VH1 show itself, some people hated the gimmick, especially considering it was a strong Bill McNeal episode (he gets sent to the mental episode after going ballistic when a police officer gives him a ticket) and didn’t need a ratings ploy, while others thought it cute. My favorite pop-up: many actors, including Charlton Heston, refused to guest on the show because they had never heard of it.

The Musical Episode of…Everything

I won’t focus on “Buffy” here (that comes later), because there are plenty of other, non-”Glee” shows that have a dedicated an entire episode to their characters singing, dancing, and, in one case, paying a troll toll to get into a baby boy’s hole. Notable examples: “Influenza” from “Even Stevens,” “Daria!” from “Daria,” “My Musical” from “Scrubs,” and “The Nightman Cometh” from “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.” Less notable and more insufferable: “Song Beneath the Song” from “Grey’s Anatomy,” featuring cast-member renditions of The Fray and Snow Patrol that somehow made their songs “Chasing Cars” and “How to Save a Life” even worse.

The Silent Episode of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”

As promised! The premise of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” lent itself nicely to have off-format episodes: when there’s a new monster in town every week, the writers are allowed to indulge in their creativity, and one of the show’s finest episodes is also one of its most unusual. Of the 44 minutes that “Hush” lasts, only 17 consist of dialogue; the rest is, well, hushed. The residents of Sunnydale have lost their voices courtesy of the terrifying Gentlemen, so Buffy & Co. are forced to non-verbally communicate with one another to defeat the bad guys. Series creator Joss Whedon wrote the episode in reaction to the media saying the dialogue was “Buffy”’s best quality, so not only is “Hush” a great episode; it’s also one big F*ck You to critics (like me!) who overly praise a certain aspect of a television show.

The Live Episode of “The West Wing”

Ever since the second season of Fox’s “Roc,” which was broadcast live (not just “live in front of a studio audience,” but actually LIVE) back in 1992-1993, no scripted show has had enough balls to hope everything works out in a single take. Every so often, though, some program will make a spectacle of airing a “live episode,” like “E.R.” in 1997 and “30 Rock” just last year, usually with a lack of mistakes, much to the audience’s chagrin. The riskiest, and best, example of this ratings stunt is “The Debate” from “The West Wing,” which is just that: a debate, between Arnold Vinick (Alan Alda) and Matt Santos (Jimmy Smits). Not a single original cast member appeared in the episode, and, for a brief moment, Jimmy Smits was watchable.

I wouldn’t be too worried for the career of Steve Carell after he leaves “The Office” tomorrow. Although his film career thus far has been spotty at best, including one of the most hated comedies of all-time ( Evan Almighty), Carell has enough roles already lined up to sustain him for awhile.

The same can’t be said for the following 10 actors and actresses, who left their hit TV shows hoping for something bigger and ended up instead finding—well, they found a lot of made-for-TV movies.

Lecy Goranson (“Roseanne”)

Fame: Known to fans as the First Becky, Goranson played Roseanne and Dan’s oldest daughter on the mega-popular show for four seasons, when she left to pursue her education at Vassar College. To cope, writers sparingly used Becky, but this soon became a problem, and Goranson was replaced with Sarah Chalke, a.k.a. Elliot on “Scrubs.” New Becky quickly jelled with the rest of the cast, and audience members began to forgot Chalke was a replacement cast member—until Goranson re-joined the show in its eighth season (except for two episodes, one involving an all-important wedding)…and left again before the show’s ninth, and final, season.

Ever Since: As someone who went to and graduated college, I’d just like to say: if I were in Goranson’s shoes in 1992, knowing what I know now, I’d have stayed on my top-five show—it certainly couldn’t have hurt her career, which has resulted in one-episode appearances in “Fringe” and “Sex and the City,” and that’s about it. She now has a tattoo and, all that having been said, a better post-”Roseanne” career than her on-screen brother, D.J.

Shelley Long (“Cheers”)

Fame: You’re the gorgeous star of a top-five show that’s won you an Emmy for Best Actress in a Comedy Series, along with the other three times you’ve been nominated—but you still want to leave. That’s what “Cheers” actress Shelley Long did in 1987, after five seasons of playing waitress Diane Chambers, for reasons still mostly unclear, although supposedly she constantly picked fights with the cast and crew.

Since Then: To quote Moe Szyslak, after Homer asks where his waitress went, “Oh, she left to pursue a movie career. Frankly, I think she was better off here.” You ain’t kidding, Moe: Long has never replicated the success she found on “Cheers.” She’s appeared in a bunch of largely forgettable movies—like Dr. T & the Women and the Brady Bunch films—and one spectacular bomb: the sperm-donor comedy Frozen Assets, which Roger Ebert once called “perhaps the worst comedy ever made.” But her most heinous offense: making Kirstie Alley a star.

McLean Stevenson (“M*A*S*H”)

Fame: Stevenson originally auditioned to become Franklin “Hawkeye” Pierce, the eventual breakout star on “M*A*S*H”, but that role went to Alan Alda. Stevenson, instead, played Lt. Colonel Henry Blake, but soon grew jealous at the popularity of Hawkeye. So, after only three seasons, when the show was ranked #5 in the Nielsen ratings, he asked to leave, and the writers obliged by killing his character off (the plane he was on was attacked over the Sea of Japan), making sure he could never return.

Since Then: With a name like his, it’s amazing Stevenson never became a marquee name. But how he did try: first, “The McLean Stevenson Show,” which lasted 12 episodes, then “In the Beginning” for 9, followed by “Hello, Larry,” which everyone hated, and lastly, 13 episodes of “Condo,” about a white family and a Hispanic family moving in next to one another in a condominium. Later, he played Baby’s father in the TV version of “Dirty Dancing.” Then he died in 1996. Show business is a bitch.

Recently, DirecTV began airing episodes of “Damages” with subtitles that help explain background information viewers might not know if they missed previous episodes of the complex legal drama.

The on-screen subtitles function as a primer of sorts, appearing every few minutes to flesh out a twisty plot turn or reveal a character’s sinister motives…

“It’s a way to say to viewers, ‘It’s not too late to get involved in this show,’” said Paul Guyardo, DirecTV’s chief marketing officer. “And it might keep new viewers from throwing in the towel if they can watch episodes that give them extra background and context.” [LA Times]

As cable networks and scripted series fight harder to retain viewers, it’s likely that these expository subtitles will become widely available across all cable platforms. In a Warming Glow EXCLUSIVE, the following pages reveal how those subtitles will look for some of TV’s most popular shows.

I honestly don’t understand how people tolerate medical dramas on television. Crime dramas I can understand, because most people don’t see the day-to-day lives of criminals or cops. But we’ve ALL been to a hospital before; we should know that there isn’t some hotshot doctor who does things his own way or some sassy nurse who knows more than the brash young doctor. In reality, there’s just a tired Indian intern with no bedside manner and old people trying to stave off death.

That’s why I love the video below, called “Doctors with Guns.” It makes fun of all the tired tropes from medical dramas by giving the doctors guns. A couple samples of the dialog:

“How am I supposed to shoot the leukemia out of this woman with a shoddy Brazilian knock-off?”

“I’ll have you before the Medical, Firearm, and Tobacco Board!”

That’s good stuff. I’d rather watch this three-minute video 20 times in a row than any five minutes of a “Private Practice” episode.

[via Urlesque]

“Grey’s Anatomy” had its season finale last night, and I have no idea what happened because (a) the last 48 hours have been a blur of booze, humidity, gambling, and creole sauce, and (b) I wouldn’t watch the show if I were on fire and the episode was an instructional video on how to stop being on fire. But series creator Shonda Rimes opened up her stupid yaphole about it:

It hurt to write this finale. It literally hurt me.

Bitch, it did not LITERALLY hurt you. It metaphorically hurt you. Christ, that’s irritating. Shonda Rimes has the verbal dexterity of a 23-year-old former sorority girl working in PR.

Dear readers, please take note: “literally” means “actually” or “without exaggeration.” It gets abused and used by idiots who think it means the opposite. If you hear someone misuse the word, correct them. Or slap them. Or if it’s Shonda Rimes, push her into freeway traffic.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins spent a year of research to determine that the medical practices on shows like “Grey’s Anatomy” and “House” are often unethical and unrealistic. You can read their report in the new issue of Gigantic Waste of Time Quarterly.

The authors of the review, available online in the April issue of the Journal of Medical Ethics, say they were well aware that their findings would end up stating the obvious. But they nonetheless wanted to provide data that would shed light on the relationship of these depictions on the perceptions of viewers, both health professionals and the general public…

In analyzing the second seasons of “Grey’s Anatomy” and “House,” [Matthew] Czarny counted 179 depictions of bioethical issues, under 11 different topics, ranging from informed consent to organ-transplant eligibility to human experimentation. [Baltimore Sun]

Here’s the train of thought and execution: they knew they were going to state the obvious, but they went forward because they thought it was important to collect the raw data. But then they only watched a single season of two shows that are now both in their sixth season. And that took a YEAR. And we wonder why the wait at the doctor’s office is so long.

My problem with “House” is that no doctor on the planet looks like Olivia Wilde. It’s like, why’d I even bother getting syphilis if the person looking at my wang is some Indian dude?

Between slamming the writers of “Grey’s Anatomy” and calling Knocked Up “misogynistic,” Katherine Heigl has gotten a reputation for being an ungrateful pain in the ass. Now that she’s finally off the ABC estrogen-fest that made her a star, she opened up to Entertainment Weekly’s Michael Ausiello, the official gay best friend of Hollywood fag hags. And to her credit, she owned up to the things she said:

In 2008, you announced that you decided not to enter yourself in the Emmy race because, you said “I did not feel I was given the material this season to warrant a nomination.” Any regrets about making that statement?
HEIGL: Yes. [Laughs]

Why?
HEIGL: You know… At the time I thought I was doing the right thing. And I wanted to be clear that I wasn’t snubbing the Emmys. The night I won [in 2007] was the highlight of my career. I just was afraid that if I said, “No comment,” it was going to come off like I couldn’t be bothered to [enter the race]. But really, I could have more gracefully said that without going into a private work matter. It was between me and the writers. I ambushed them, and it wasn’t very nice or fair.

That statement, and the one you made on Letterman, combined with the fact that you’re leaving the show before your contract is up, have fostered a perception of you as an ungrateful diva.  Are you aware that this is how some people view you?
HEIGL: Yes. The ungrateful thing bothers me the most. And that is my fault. I allowed myself to be perceived that way because I was being whiny and I was griping and because I made these snarky comments. So much about living life, to me, is about humility and gratitude. And I’ve tried very hard to have those qualities and be that person and I’m just so disappointed in myself that I allowed it to slip. Of course, of course I’m grateful. How can I not be grateful? [...] I am disappointed in myself for allowing that perception to exist… And I hope that in the coming years I can change people’s minds about that… Like any job, there are ups and downs. But I don’t want to demean what that experience was. I don’t want it to become about this negativity that I’ve spewed.

You know what? She seems genuinely regretful about the things she said and her desire to change our perception of her in the coming years. I don’t like to give away too much free advice, but a good start to that would be going fully nude in her next two or three or eight films.

Oh no. Terrible news today for fans of “Grey’s Anatomy,” as America’s Sweetheart Katherine Heigl reportedly will not be returning to the show. Michael Ausiello says:

[S]eries creator Shonda Rhimes has agreed to release the fast-rising movie star [sic] from her contract. It’s now up to ABC Studios and Heigl’s reps to hash out a final exit agreement. [...]

After taking more than half of the current season off to make another movie and connect with her adopted daughter, Heigl was scheduled to return to the Grey’s set on March 1 to begin work on the five remaining episodes of the season. There’s just one problem: March 1 came and went and there was no Heigl…

The source adds that talks between Heigl and ABC have been going on for months and last week both sides mutually decided that the best solution would be to part ways now as opposed to at the end of the season. As a result, Heigl is not expected to return to the Grey’s set, which means her final episode as Izzie has already aired.

What absolutely heartbreaking news. We’ll never again have the joy of seeing Katherine Heigl pretend to love a dead guy, or pretend to have cancer. I guess we’ll just have to cross our fingers and hope for the real thing.