Dr. Greene's Unforgettable, Heart-Crushing Death on ‘ER’ and the Grief of Past and Future We All Share
I was not ready then, and I’m not ready now.
I think about death regularly. Not so much of my own — though no one can really escape fantasizing about how they’ll leave this messy place one day — but rather the people I love. The eventual loss of my parents viscerally scares the hell out of me a lot more than my own demise. Contemplating it is like a coping mechanism to prepare myself for the inevitable. But don’t get me wrong, I know I can't be prepared for something like that. No one can. I'm sure it'll hit me way harder when it happens, and I'll realize how much of it I didn’t even consider or could imagine before.
It’s not a healthy way to live, constantly being terrified of the unpreventable, of losing someone vital to my existence (not just on a biological level) instead of trying to embrace the time I do have with them to make new memories. But I can’t deny who I am: the sad stuff always intrigued me because its core holds the purest of emotions. And I've been addicted to feelings ever since I was a kid.
So, watching Dr. Mark Greene (Anthony Edwards) die in Season 8 of ER the second time (now as an adult) stirred me up even more than I thought it would. I guess that’s what time does. I’m 20 years older now, two decades closer to dying and my loved ones’ passing. Back in the early aughts, the sad fate of a character like Edwards’, who has truly defined the NBC series, was particularly traumatic and tragic because we didn’t see television shows killing off their main characters as often as we do today.
At the time, Tony Soprano was still "well" and alive, Lost hadn't even started yet, neither did House M.D., and Six Feet Under was only in its second season. To say that we weren’t prepared for such a cataclysmic loss is an understatement. Many of us also didn’t know that Edwards told the creators two years prior when he wanted to exit the show, which allowed them to carefully flesh out his character’s arc for his last two seasons. That rarely happens — especially not in the early ‘00s when TV just stepped into its modern golden era.
That’s one of the reasons Dr. Greene’s final days have become television history and gave us an iconic, if devastating, episode (On The Beach) that still has an impact today. After spending 8 years with Mark, week by week, watching him save lives and get over the ones he couldn’t, his death felt like we lost a family member of our own. Edwards portrayed Greene with such a gracious, humane, and generous charisma — playing an ordinary man in an extraordinarily personal way — that he’s always been readily available to relate to. Whatever happened to him during those years (love, heartbreak, malpractice, divorce), he embodied a feeling that those could've happened to any of us (which, given how sensational the series was at times, is truly the biggest compliment).
A few weeks ago, for the first time, my dad and I talked about his future plans and retirement. He’s 58 years old, so it made sense, but my father was never one to plan much ahead. As always, he was over-ambitious and a little unrealistic, wanting to have a big farm with animals to care for, which he couldn’t afford, in his sunset days. But I was glad hearing him say these ambitions just to know that he acknowledges his aging, at least a bit, and thinks of options even if they are currently unreachable. Naturally, our conversation included a lot of “ifs” and inevitably shifted to death.
I have two grandmothers who are still alive — healthy and busy like a bee — and I told my dad that I believe they’ll die fast and peacefully when their time comes, and not after a long illness like my grandfathers did. "Why?" he asked. I didn't have a reasonable answer. I thought about this a lot before but never expressed it. It's because that would be the fair thing to happen. A compensation for how much and how long my granddads suffered from debilitating diseases that deprived their dignity and robbed their personality. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking because I love them so much that I couldn’t stand watching them suffer.
I could hear in my father’s voice that my explanation surprised him a little. He said, “I think everybody hopes to die that way." I agreed after I composed myself not to choke on the words. It's so goddamn hard to even talk about death when it comes to your own family. Most people avoid it as long as possible, and my father is no exception. When my grandmother told him that she already set money aside for her funeral, my dad said he didn't want to hear it. I bet I'll be the same way. You know your parents won’t be around forever, but it’s such a distant and quiet thought in the back of your mind when you’re younger that sometimes you try to convince yourself it doesn’t exist. But everybody dies, whether we want to acknowledge it or not.
It’s not a coincidence that our talk about death came up now. I’ve been re-watching ER in the past two months, and Seasons 6, 7, and 8 are heavy with loss and pain for Dr. Greene. In his final years, Mark loses his mom, watches his dad die slowly and agonizingly from lung cancer, and then develops a brain tumor that eventually kills him. As cruel and depressing as his storyline is, it’s also a painstaking portrayal of grief, remembrance, and making every moment count. Watching Mark and his father find common ground after decades of barely talking — as they emotionally grow closer to each other than they ever have been — and express all the unspoken emotions they kept in for too long is as hopeful as it gets. Everything that needs to be said between them is said the night before David (John Cullum) passes away. Often, and the show is more proof than anything, people don’t get that chance.
So when Mark is on his deathbed two years later in Hawaii, where he spent the most time growing up as a kid, he imparts his own wisdom to his daughter, Rachel (Hallee Hirsh): "Generosity. Be generous… with your time… with your love... with your life." It’s the saddest scene of the series by far, but through love and tenderness it finds a way to be the most beautiful too. It breaks you but doesn't leave you empty. The opposite: it fills you with something transcendent and life-affirming you can only learn from someone being on the verge of death. It’s a masterful moment of television played for maximum effect (you’ll never hear “Over the Rainbow” sound the same again).
I’ve been contemplating this line and this moment for several days now. My parents and I live in three different countries. I only see them once or twice a year. And as time goes by, faster than I can catch up to it, I feel a little more uncertain about whether I'm generous with it enough. If maybe I should give more. Whether I'm doing it all wrong. I've been intentionally trying to articulate my appreciation and love for them in different ways, and I know I have, but is that enough? Will I regret not visiting them as often as I could, and missing out on a chance to create more memories? Will I have the opportunity to sit by their side before they die and say the things that need to be said as Dr. Greene has? I don’t know.
The complications of life don't make these questions easy to answer. But what my sense of hyper-awareness and sensitivity to death (past and the future) tells me is that maybe I should try to change things until I can before the Grim Reaper gives me an ultimatum to do so.
If you want to support The Screen, the best way to recommend it to someone who’s into pop culture is by sharing posts like this one above.