If Tomorrow Never Comes/Grey Matter

Krista Vernoff on writing her first episode...

''"If Tomorrow Never Comes"

Original airdate: 5/1/2005''

Shonda just told me we’re blogging season one as they repeat this summer. BLOGGING SEASON ONE. Seriously, do you know how long ago season one was? And my brain is not what it once was. Season one. Sheesh.

Okay, here’s what I remember: I remember that we all met, this bedraggled group of writers, for the most part all coming from other recently cancelled shows. I myself had come from a sweet little show called Wonderfalls that Fox killed after airing only three episodes. I liked Wonderfalls. It was fun making little animal figurines talk. We made thirteen episodes and then we said our goodbyes and I went and got married and the show got cancelled while I was on my honeymoon. Good times.

So anyway, I came back looking for a job and I met Shonda and we talked about American Idol for an hour (because it was the morning after Jennifer Hudson got voted off and we were scandalized. Scandalized!) and then she hired me.

And the writers gathered.

In the room, there was the brilliant Jim Parriott, who also was at that initial interview and seemed deeply disturbed by our AI rantings. There was Kip, who was really funny and had chickens at his home in West LA. There were Harry and Gab who were sci-fi junkies and all married and happy and shiny and funny too. There was Stacy who had been Jim’s assistant when I met Shonda and Jim that first time and she was all excited about her recent promotion to writer and also kind of intimidated and quiet and adorable. There was Mimi who is so smart it’s crazy and with whom I had worked my very first year in TV when she was on Party Of Five and I was on the Jennifer Love Hewitt spin off Time of Your Life. There was Ann Hamilton who had credits on her resume like thirtysomething and was therefore intimidating to me despite her wit and charm. There was Zoanne who was not only a writer but a doctor too. An actual practicing ER doctor. She STILL works one shift a month in the ER so she’s maybe the coolest person I know. There was, of course, Shonda who had never been in a writer’s room before and who lurked outside the door, brooding and disturbed like maybe we were all vampires who would eat her soul if she stepped foot inside.

And then there was me. WHO WOULD NOT SHUT UP.

I swear to you, I got this amazing case of verbal diarrhea and I just KEPT TALKING.

It was the nerves. And the fact that I’d been unemployed for four months and had had way too much time on my hands. And the nerves. Did I mention the nerves? And did I mention how Shonda, who had finally made her way inside the room, kept looking at me like if I didn’t shut up soon she was going to leave and never come back?

And still, I KEPT TALKING.

I was like George with Meredith in the pilot where he mentions the strappy sandals and then is convinced that she thinks he’s gay – only I was George on like, crack. Speedy speedy crack. Except I don’t do drugs so I don’t even have that as an excuse. It was truly an appalling, humiliating, mortifying day in my career. Okay, week. And so, when I got assigned “If Tomorrow Never Comes,” I felt like I had a lot to prove. Like if the script didn’t make up for the compulsive talking, I might not get to come back for season two. The theme was procrastination, which I know a thing or two about and we spent a week talking about the stories in the writers room and then I went away to write.

When I went away, Annie, the tumor-lady, was supposed to live. And somewhere, in the writing of the first draft, I decided that I had to kill her. And so I turned in the script and Shonda was all “YOU KILLED ANNIE?!” and then, in a minute, she was all “You killed Annie.” And this time it was with a proud smile. Like I had joined her in her warped club of creating characters you like and then killing them like some deranged serial killer. She was proud. And I got to come back for season two. The verbal diarrhea, by the way? Sounded a lot like this blog.

So in case you’re still wondering why I had to go and kill Annie, it was this: Alex had been a complete and total ass to her. And George had had that funny conversation with her (in which, you may have noticed, “Seriously” is used as a punchline for the first time in our series) and it affected him. And I felt like, in order for most of those things to have maximum impact, Annie had to die. Because the theme was procrastination. And believe it or not, we actually do think about what kind of message we put into the world. And the message I wanted to give was not, “Hey it’s okay to put off going to see a doctor for two years cause it all turns out alright in the end.”  George needed Annie to die so that he could actually knock on Meredith’s door and at least try to tell her how he was feeling. And I needed Annie to die so I could say all that stuff at the end about seizing the day already. Cause it’s time. Cause life is short and you never know when it’s up. The old man needed to have the brain surgery before it was too late and while he could still walk his daughter down the aisle. And Izzie needed to pull that blood clot out of the guy’s chest without a moment’s hesitation – it was a matter of life and death.

And the truth as I see it is this: it’s always a matter of life and death. Every day. Even if you’re not a doctor. Even if you’re not saving lives or risking them. Because the thing is we all die eventually and sometimes without much warning.

A few months ago, I came to work and the flag on the lot was flying at half-mast. I asked someone why and they told me that Scott Brazil had died. Our director for this episode, the brilliant and talented and gentle and kind Scott Brazil, had died. He was the kind of guy who would wrap a casting session early because he wanted to get to his son’s soccer game. He was the kind of guy who, after working with me on only this one episode, came to this tiny theatre in Hollywood to see a play I had written. He brought his wife and another couple and afterwards, he went on and on about how much they all loved it. He even emailed me the next day to say it all again. People I worked with for years didn’t bother to come see that play. But Scott came. Because that’s the kind of guy he was.

He was in his fifties when he died.

At his beautiful and funny and just monumentally sad memorial, a lot of people talked about how Scott was the kind of person who lived life to the fullest; how he was the kind of guy to just always, always seize the day.