I believe that there would’ve been at least as big an outcry if we had killed that character off-camera, and those were our choices.
I think Elisabeth Finch did an extraordinary job with a nearly impossible task.
So I was really proud of that episode.
It was kill the character off-camera, or come up with some believable way that he gets his happily ever after, and some of the fans have posited, ‘well he could have just been off-screen in Seattle like April Kepner, but then you’ve got an actress on the show who doesn’t get to do any of the fun, sexy, playful thrill that we’re known for, then you penalize the actors who are staying on the show by limiting what you could do creatively with them.