Ask any Grey’s Anatomy fan which former character they would like to be brought back to the show to bring their storyline closure, and the answer will be almost hundred-percent in favor of Izzie Stevens. The character will be gone from TV for 9 years by 2019, yet here we are still talking about her. Of all the characters on the show, Izzie had the most incomplete exit. She suddenly went up and away into the distance, never to be heard from again. But we’re not satisfied, and fans will be hoping for a one-off return for Izzie up until the show ends.
She was part of the original interns the show was based on, and Katherine Heigl remains the only main cast actor to win an Emmy for her role. Izzie was the sweetheart of the series at least until the third season. Her personality was of one who sought to find the best parts of a person before her and overlooked the sides that would turn someone else off. This made Izzie one of the most beloved characters on Grey’s Anatomy and ensured she remains fresh in our minds.
There were still parts of her, however, that didn’t sit well with fans. A lot of these came up starting from the third season when her personality went less good girl and more bad girl. Some of these have to do with uneven writing while others are parts of her history which she tried to hide.
So, take a look at 20 Things Wrong With Izzie Stevens We All Choose To Ignore.
Walking out on Alex
Izzie is still ed as a good character by long-term fans as her departure from the show was completely uncharacteristic. In Season 4, she had selflessly offered to Alex while he had been involved with a mental health patient; but in Season 6 it looked as if she had vehemently loathed Alex.
After getting fired from the hospital, Izzie took off to parts unknown without informing her husband of her whereabouts or why she ran off. Alex never got the chance to offer his this time around as Izzie never gave him a chance to show her he could be a great husband.
Ghost Denny
It’ll take a brainwiping mechanism to extract the knowledge of Izzie getting things done with a ghost. In Season 5, when Izzie was feeling bad from the effects of her cancer, she saw Denny as he was shown to be a personification of the disease for her. This was both poignant and interesting, that is until she started getting far too close for comfort with him.
Denny was never really there – in ghost form or in person. This means that Izzie was spending suspiciously long hours by herself and coming back all happy. Let’s not delve further into the implications over what happened here.
Being With Denny while dating Alex
Izzie didn’t handle the situation between herself, Denny and Alex at all right. Alex was noticeably jealous of the time Izzie continually spent in Denny’s company, and even made his displeasure over it clear. Although she didn’t view Denny as a romantic partner then, she still treated him as if he were her husband.
Denny was openly flirtatious with her; something that was obviously not just in ing. You could argue she was emotionally with Denny while keeping Alex along as her ‘official’ boyfriend. Alex didn’t get treated much like a romantic partner at this time so you can understand why he was so annoyed at the situation.
Using her trailer park history as an excuse
At first, it was cathartic when Izzie would burst out at people for assuming she was just a pretty face who had a privileged life and was most likely the Queen Bee in school. She would give people a reality check by informing them of her actual past as a girl from a trailer park who had a tough upbringing without a parental figure.
This was a good enough angle until she started using the “trailer park girl” on and on whenever she needed to win an argument. Eventually, we were all were aware of where she came from and didn’t need yet another Izzie Stevens special about how harsh her childhood had been.
Being the other woman
Izzie’s fall from grace in the eyes of the viewers started from the end of Season 3 when she and Geroge O’Malley had a one-time thing with each other. This angle could’ve been buried away, but the plot called for Izzie to attempt a clandestine relationship with George while he was still married to Callie.
Her justification that she was in love made her look like a clueless little girl and her hand in destroying a marriage was something she might never redeem herself from. If George hadn’t at least prevented things from getting physical, Izzie was perfectly happy being the Other Woman.
Treating George the wrong way
Before she saw George as a romantic interest, Izzie thought of George in completely the opposite way in Season 1. George was a little goof around that time and was socially awkward but likable enough that the girls felt very comfortable around him.
Izzie was so casual with George that she would walk around him without being dressed decently. This made the poor guy look like a little brother figure to the girls around the male interns, which led to brutal teasing for George from Alex. Izzie even found George’s situation quite humorous and her treatment of him as a little brother-type didn’t make life easy for George.
Blaming Alex for getting herself fired
Izzie was meant to be written out in Season 6 due to personal differences between Katherine Heigl and Shonda Rhimes. Shonda probably didn’t do her best work when writing Izzie’s exit as the character was thoroughly disgraced before disappearing.
Due to mistakes on her part, Izzie was fired from the hospital. But it made no sense why she subsequently blamed Alex for her problems. This was a fair bit of lazy writing as it didn’t match with her characterization. In-universe, however, we can’t do anything but accept that Izzie placed the blame squarely on Alex’s shoulders for not being there for her upon her firing.
Not telling anyone about her sickness
It wasn’t clear what the angle of Izzie’s brain tumor was going to be like when first introduced. Initially, it looked as if she might be seeing a ghost, but this later morphed into a terminal illness. Even after that clarification the way Izzie handled her ailment made no sense.
She didn’t tell anyone at first, instead choosing to hide it from everyone. Later on, she would relay the information to Cristina, only to ask her not to tell anyone about it. When Cristina tried her best to help Izzie recover from her disease, she told her she didn’t want to get it fixed. Make up your mind, Izzie!
Hiding Her modeling background
Izzie’s background kept creeping up on her at regular intervals as the seasons progressed, While she seemed like a normal person as the other interns, there were secrets of her ed she hid well away. One of these secrets was the fact that Izzie had been a model for a magazine before settling for a career as a doctor.
She’d done modeling as a necessity rather than a profession, but that didn’t stop Alex from teasing her. Izzie would then embrace that part of her, thereby negating any taunts Alex had, but had she been open about it from the start no one would’ve had the chance to make fun of her in the first place.
Treating a Deer instead of humans
Izzie’s sensitive side was always more apparent than the other interns – save for George O’Malley – and that was displayed time and again. This emotional side would at times turn into a fatal flaw as she would be incapable of dealing with issues in a professional manner; frequently choosing to overlook job responsibilities to tend to something that wasn’t her problem.
On her first day as Resident, Izzie chose to treat a deer, that had been hit by a truck, over mentoring the new interns. Although this would’ve made the audience like her, it was thoroughly unprofessional; something that should have resulted in her being reprimanded by seniors.
