Of course, there is the question of how willing Patrick Dempsey might be to show up on Grey’s Anatomy once more.
Dempsey had expressed that he was ready to move on from the show, and he didn’t seem too heartbroken at leaving the series behind.
Shonda Rhimes has explained that Derek had to die because the only other option was splitting him from Meredith; now that Meredith is trying to move on, it might actually be counterproductive to bring Dempsey back and remind fans of the dynamic that was lost with McDreamy’s death.
He doesn’t seem to have left the show with nearly as much bad blood as Katherine Heigl did, but Derek was killed off before Dempsey’s contract officially expired.