In Grey’s Anatomy, Alex Karev was one of the original five interns who survived in the Seattle Grace Hospital for more than 15 years. He was shot, experienced a bomb going off in the OR, fell in love with a trauma patient, and saw many friends die, but lived through them all. Alex was introduced as the typical bad boy of the group who would go to any lengths to get his way. Before Mark Sloan became McSteamy, Alex Karev had a reputation for sleeping around and was generally the “jerk” that every woman hated. However, it’s safe to say that Alex Karev had one of the best character transformations in the series.
He went on from being the underdog to being interim chief and the best surgeon he could be. Alex didn’t have an easy upbringing, and seeing him make something of himself was the best arc he could get. Unfortunately, no matter how good he go, Alex was problematic, and he remained that way despite the fans choosing to ignore his red flags.
Alex Karev Had a Self-Destructive Personality
Alex Karev got off on the wrong foot with almost everyone. He somehow thought it was okay to bully George because he was a softie and a more considerate gentleman than he was ever going to be. He used cheap tricks to get surgeries as an intern and started an incredibly toxic relationship with Izzie after being disrespectful and mean to her. Fortunately, the show impressively followed into the classic trope of turning the bad boy into a humble human being, but that’s also not without its fair share of demerits.
The trope was not going to work for Alex fully because his problematic behavior was never really properly taken care of. It may have been suppressed for a while, but the tendency to go haywire was always there for Alex, and he mostly just needed a little push. Fans have been ignoring Alex’s occasional meltdowns and mess-ups for years, and all for the sake of his character progressing comparatively better than he started.
Alex is a complicated character who rightfully belongs to the gray area. He’s not completely bad or good but struggles to keep up with his self-proclaimed righteousness and the occasional urge to punch the next guy. He’s a fascinating blend of arrogance and emotional vulnerability that made the audience fall for him in the first place. The viewers love an underdog, and Alex Karev played the perfect candidate who had the odds stacked against him. So, the fans naturally rooted for him to succeed and come out shining on the other side.
One of the major reasons why fans still choose to ignore Alex’s red flags is because he represents hope for all those people who have been dealt a difficult hand. Being abandoned by his addict father at a young age and having to take care of his family wasn’t exactly an ideal situation for a kid to nurture and grow. As he said one time, he was the kid and the father of the family. With his kind of background and childhood, it’s a more appealing sentiment and storyline to have him become someone better rather than end up as a failure.
His Approach to Relationships Was Not Handled Well
Fans could have ignored a lot of what Alex did, but it's almost criminal to forgive him the way he treated women who were in a relationship with him. His and Izzie’s relationship may have been presented as a modern-day A Walk to Remember by the show, but there was nothing glorifying about their love. Alex and Izzie may have felt like their love was special, but they were definitely not meant to be together. Although Alex had been there for Izzie during her cancer treatment, the events leading up to their marriage were alarming from a relationship standpoint. He was mostly stressed and on edge throughout Izzie’s treatment, especially during and after the surgery. He said hurtful things to her and sometimes even blew things out of proportion.
Despite Izzie being a problematic character herself, she didn’t deserve the way Alex used her as a punching bag. His reactions regarding the women he had a relationship with always had been severe. For instance, his whole meltdown regarding the DeLuca and Jo situation was absolutely uncalled for. Despite being a confident and successful person, Alex had still not recovered from his insecurities and jealousy. His jealousy played a major role in making his and Jo’s relationship quite unhealthy to the human eye, and beating DeLuca to a pulp was simply the cherry on top.
Alex's Treatment of April Was One of the Most Brutal Emotional Exchanges of the Series
Characters on Grey's Anatomy often say some pretty hurtful things to each other, that's just how things sometimes go in real life, people are often cruel to each other, even people that they care about. However, in the history of Grey's Anatomy, there has rarely been a moment that fans have agreed upon as much in terms of it being SO FAR out of line than the way that Alex treated April Kepner (Sarah Drew) in the Season 7 episode, "Something's Gotta Give."
In a show where the doctors are constantly having sex with each other, April Kepner stood out for being a 28-year-old virgin. She soon developed a crush on Alex, who she worked with closely at the hospital. Alex could tell she had a crush on him, and in "Something's Gotta Give," after she finds him on a cot in one of the on-call rooms, she praises him for what a good job he had done with one of their patients, and how much of a good guy he was. Alex had just helped commit his brother that weekend to an institution due his brother being diagnosed with schizophrenia, so April telling him how good he was was just what he needed, only, Alex, being self-destructive (as we noted above) decided that they should have sex now. April was willing to go along with it, but she soon grew uncomfortable. Can you imagine waiting until you're 28 to have sex, and your first time is on a cot? So she asks to slow down, and Alex decides to BERATE her! He shouts, “What do you need from me? You wanna screw, let’s screw. You don’t, then get out. I’m not gonna hold your Virgin Hand, and walk you through it, Dammit! You’re not a child. I can’t take care of you. I can’t take care of everybody in this frickin’ place!”
April's friend (and fellow intern), Jackson, later beats up Alex (as it turned out, April would later lose her virginity to Jackson). Alex was obviously going through a tough time, but to be so callous to the sweet April really drew the ire of fandom.
Alex Was More Emotional and Impulsive Than He Led on
Although Alex’s was a survivor and endured a terrible childhood, he was still too attached and emotional. He got overly attached to women like Izzie, Jo, and even Jane Doe, and then, because of his lack of communication skills, he ended up hurting them because he didn’t know how to channel his feelings. Alex Karev was always the “hot thing” around the hospital, but he was never the healthiest. He had a pattern of falling too hard for women with traumatic pasts or present and then was unable to process the requirements and responsibilities of having a good relationship. It’s not like he was a terrible partner because he was there whenever he was needed and was a guy to rely on in a tough situation.
However, his rage and violent tendencies didn’t help his case at all, and they got worse with time. Instead of calming his demeanor down, the show went on to ignore his anger burst and even gave that arc a boost when he beat DeLuca and never even apologized for it when the former gave him a chance to. One of the worst things the show did to Alex’s character was to make him more impulsive and stubborn as the seasons progressed. He rarely admitted his faults and was too proud to come out when his head was down for once.
While these qualities were necessary for a guy like him to survive in the world, they became so embedded in his personality that it was almost impossible for him to separate them. Fans weren’t too quick to admit that the Alex in latter seasons of the show was simply a more controlled version of what he was in the beginning. Despite coming a long way from how he was, his underlying problems and personality traits were never addressed in a way that would make him a good candidate for a redemption arc.
His Exit Did Nothing For His Character
Almost the entire Grey’s Anatomy fandom can unanimously agree that Alex Karev had the worst exit in the show. The way he left the drama undid everything that the show might have done to redeem his character from the initial bad boy persona to a decent person who made it to the finish line as he dreamt. When Alex Karev’s screen time was drastically reduced, the viewers were alarmed that the fan-favorite character might be leaving the show. They were right, but the show did not handle the character’s exit well at all, which even enraged the fans at one point. Instead of having a tearjerker episode, Karev chose to walk off by sending four hand-written letters to the four most important people in his life.
Even with the actor not being on the screen, the prospect of Alex saying goodbye the way he did wouldn’t have hurt that much. However, the whole storyline about him leaving Jo, his current wife, for his old flame, Izzie Stevens, was downright cruel. This one action cemented everything about his character being impulsive, unhealthy, and problematic, and no amount of handwritten letters could have redeemed that. Alex mentioned that he had left to stay with Izzie and their twins, whom they had via frozen embryos before Izzie’s surgery.
All would have been forgiven if Alex Karev had gone out with guns blazing and a heartfelt goodbye that would have turned him into the hero that everyone wished him to be. However, the way his character was written off was not the treatment the character of that scale deserved.
Sure, there were many things wrong with Alex, but he was a fan-favorite character who stuck to the originality of what made the show tick in the first place. He may not have been a perfect boyfriend or a human, but he saved countless lives, and sometimes, he didn’t even get the credit for it. Although Alex Karev could have been more than what he was, the fans will forever love him and have been more than eager to brush off his shortcomings.
