George O'Malley



George O'Malley is a fictional character from the medical drama television series Grey's Anatomy. The character was created by series producer Shonda Rhimes, and was portrayed by actor T.R. Knight from 2005 to 2009. He was the son of Harold and Louise O'Malley. He started work at Seattle Grace Hospital and after a bad start, he became one of the best with a great interest in trauma. Fellow resident Izzie Stevens became his best friend and for a while he was married to Callie Torres. He was kind-hearted, compassionate, loyal and had an excellent bedside manner. He died in surgery shortly after jumping in front of a bus to save a woman's life.

Personality
Since his birth, George was soft and emotional. He represents the good and polite child in the family. During his early years (up until adulthood) he spent his time camping with his father and his brothers hunting turkeys, although George refused every single year. George was often teased by his brothers due to his lack of manhood. He and his brothers were taught about cars and other "guy's stuff". Despite this he was growing up, competing with his brothers and always trying to do the right thing.

He was also very emotionally attached to his dog Bucky, whom he though had run away, not knowing that his father accidentally ran over and killed the dog, which was chasing after the truck and got caught under the tire. His father knowing that George would be devastated, lied to him, telling him that Bucky had escaped.

Storylines
George is introduced as a fellow surgical intern to Meredith Grey, Cristina Yang, Izzie Stevens and Alex Karev; the five of them working under Miranda Bailey. O'Malley and Stevens move in with Meredith, for whom he has romantic feelings. On the first day of internship, O'Malley is selected by Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery Preston Burke as the first intern to perform surgery. He freezes in the operating room, and is mocked by his peers. He further earns the nickname "007" because during his internship several of his first patients die. O'Malley dates nurse Olivia Harper, breaking up with her when he contracts syphilis from her, which she in turn contracted from Karev. His friendship with Karev is further strained when the two become trapped in an elevator with a patient who begins to bleed out. Karev freezes, and O'Malley is able to save the patient singlehandedly. He goes on to admit his feelings to Meredith, and the two hand a one-night stand. When Meredith tells him that sleeping together was a mistake, O'Malley begins avoiding her and starts dating Orthopaedic surgeon Callie Torres.

During a camping trip, O'Malley learns that Torres has slept with Chief of Plastic Surgery Mark Sloan, and also discovers that Burke is experiencing temors in his hand. When O'Malley's father is diagnosed with esophageal cancer and a leaking aortic valve, he refuses to allow Burke to operate on him, instead contacting Erica Hahn, Burke's medical school rival. His relationship with Torres is strained when he confronts her about sleeping with Sloan, but he allows her to support him through his father's deteriorating health. Complications from his father's surgery leave him in multi-system organ failure, and his life support is turned off. In an attempt to overcome his grief, O'Malley elopes with Callie to Las Vegas. He later begins to feel that he was mistaken to marry her, and sleeps with Stevens while intoxicated. Stevens confesses that she is in love with him, so O'Malley considers transferring to a different hospital so he can be faithful to his wife. However, he is ineligible to transfer after failing the intern exams. O'Malley decides to repeat his intern year, and confesses to Torres that he slept with Stevens, leading the two to divorce. O'Malley and Stevens embark on a short-lived relationship, only to discover there is no real chemistry between them.

O'Malley moves in with new intern Lexie Grey, Meredith's half-sister. Lexie and O'Malley discover that he only failed his exam by a single point, leading him to confront Richard Webber, the Chief of Surgery, to ask for a chance to retake the exam. He passes the second attempt, and begins to distance himself from Lexie, who has fallen in love with him. O'Malley supports Stevens when she discovers she has melanoma, and walks her down the aisle as she marries Karev. O'Malley begins to display a talent for Trauma Surgery, and is told by the Chief of Trauma Surgery Owen Hunt that it is definately his specialty. He decides to join the United States army. While his friends at the hospital prepare an intervention to convince O'Malley to stay, they all work on a severely disfigured John Doe, brought in after a horrible bus accident, in which he pushed a woman out of the way and saved her life. When Meredith goes to check on "John Doe", he seems to recognise her and will not let go of her hand. After several times of trying, he succeeds in writing "007" on Meredith's hand, and shocked, she realises John Doe is in fact George. She informs the other surgeons and they rush him to surgery. However, he flatlines during it and is ultimately declared brain dead. His organs are donated after Stevens confirms that is what O'Malley would have wanted, and he is buried a week later.

He is mentioned again when his mother is admitted to Seattle Grace Mercy West following a botched operation at another hospital. It is during her surgery that Bailey admits to Meredith that George was her favourite intern of their class.

Izzie Stevens
As Cristina and Meredith quickly became friends and the other interns disliked Alex, George and Izzie quickly made friends and soon became best friends. Together they realised that they only watched and they needed to become "doers". Their friendship remained strong, although George disliked her relationship with Alex. After George slept with Meredith, he moved out and blamed Izzie. But while treating a patient they became best friends again and their patient told George that he and Izzie argued so much because they cared about each other so much. George moved back into the house and Izzie was glad, but strongly disliked his new girlfriend Callie. Izzie began to make fun of Callie whe she could for such things as not washing her hands or having the middle name Ipheginia. She acted happy when George and Callie got married but after seeing the ring, she said "Tiny diamonds are great because you know what? No one will ever try to steal it." Callie later told George that Izzie acted that way because she loved him.

After an argument George left to ask Izzie for her supports. They started drinking heavily and woke up the next day after having sex. Only Izzie remembered but after a while George did too. He decided to pretend it never happened and didn't tell Callie. However he and Izzie shared another kiss and on Cristina's wedding day she told him that she would support him and Callie if he loved her but that she still loved him. After eighteen days of ignoring her, George told Izzie he wanted to be with her too but he needed to break up with Callie first. It took a while but eventually he told Callie he slept with Izzie. However, she misunderstood him and forgave him and took him back. He and Callie divorced later and Izzie and George started up a relationship. However, after failing to recreate the great sex they had before, they decided that although they had great chemistry it wasn't the right time. They decided to stay friends and maybe have a romantic relationship someday. When Izzie started seeing Denny, George was the first to notice something was wrong but she denied any accusations. George took it hard when Izzie told Cristina about her cancer before him. He started to avoid her but almost immediately he befriended her again. He supported her through the cancer, reminding her she was a doer. When George was rushed into a surgery and Izzie started to flatline, in a dream of some sort she went into an elevator and then saw George when the doors opened signifying his death.

Callie Torres
After his disastrous incident with Meredith, George focused on avoiding her. However, he fell down the stairwell at SGH and went to ortho to get his arm fixed. He met Callie and she gave him her phone number. He didn't call her for a while so Callie refused to speak with him. However he soon called and she forgave him. They began dating, much to the disapproval of Izzie. At the prom, Callie confessed to George that she loved him, but he didn't respond, as Izzie needed him for an emergency. George later told her that he didn't love her yet, but he could, and he didn't want to say it until he really meant it. However, George continued to leave Callie wheneber Izzie or Meredith had a problem, which prompted Callie to break up with him and start sleeping with Mark Sloan. After discovering Callie was sleeping with Sloan he refused to have any relationship with her. But they grew close again when George's father was admitted, and they kissed. After George's father died, George became addicted to sex to forget about his pain, and later he proposed to Callie. They flew to Las Vegas, and after two weeks they returned to Seattle Grace as a married couple.

After speaking with his friends, George became worried that he made the wrong decision, but eventually decided that he did make the right choice. However, after a fight with Callie, he went to visit Izzie. They got drunk and had sex, but George believed it was a mistake and they should forget what happened. After sharing another kiss with Izzie in an elevator, he decided that he was going to transfer to Mercy West Medical Center. He and Callie decided to start trying to have a baby, but Izzie told George that she still had feelings for him. After 17 days of avoiding her he decided he wantedto be with her so told Callie about the affair. She misunderstood and forgave him and took him back but the situation was cleared up and they decided to divorce. After the divorce they remained friends.

Family

 * Harold O'Malley (father)
 * Louise O'Malley (mother)

Jerry and Ronny O'Malley
George never got on well with his brothers. His brothers were jocks and he was a mathlete. However, they still protected him when they felt they had to. When the O'Malley family fought with the Wilden family, Ronny and Jerry blew up the Wilden's lawnmower for George. Every year at Thanksgiving, the brothers and their father would hunt turkeys. George refused to shoot the turkey but after years of refusing, George eventually gave in so that he could go back home and stop having to "choose a car". After hearing that George only assisted in surgeries, his brothers refused to call him a "real doctor" and often made fun of him. Overall, George is very different from his brothers.

Lexie Grey
After being separated from his class, George befriended Lexie. Lexie became like a best friend to George, and they even rented an apartment together. However, the apartment was awful, so in an attempt to get George to stay at their "crapartment", Lexie began stealing things from the hospital. George stayed and they grew closer but he got mad at her after she revealed that he only failed his exam by one point. However, Lexie's snooping managed to get George another chance at taking his intern exam and in a rush of excitement, he kissed her and she realised she had feelings for him. She continued to stay his friend, secretly loving him, but after becoming a resident, he forgot about Lexie and all her help so she refused to speak to him. George realised she liked him, but after she forgave him, she started to take an interest in Mark instead, so they remained friends.

Cristina Yang
George and Cristina had lots of problems with their friendship. Cristina always treated George like a child and eventually started calling him "007" and "Bambi". George was also one of the first to find out about Burke and Cristina's relationship. When George moved in with the two of them, she started to walk around the apartment naked in order to get George to leave.

Things got worse when Burke was shot and received surgery. After the procedure, Burke began to get tremors, and in Cristina's attempt to protect Burke, she didn't tell anyone. When George found out, he remembered that Burke was scheduled to operate on his (George's) father. After this point, George and Cristina's relationship worsened. George later explains, that the reason he chose Cristina and Burke to operate on his father was because Cristina was a robot, "a robot in a white coat who never makes a mistake." Cristina even tells his mother, Louise, that George is the best intern and a good person, and that his mother raised a good human being.

George was angry at Cristina for hiding Burke's tremor, and when all the interns forgave her, he did not, telling Meredith that she was the one that started calling him 007, and he didn't owe her any kind of support. When George's father died, at the beginning he was not able to talk to anyone, yet Cristina allowed him to and told him her father also died when she was little, and said she was sorry to welcomehim to the "Dead Dad's Club", she understood how it felt to be without a father. After this revelation they seemed to be cordial to each other.

When Cristina found out that George signed up for the army, she cared for him, yet she described him as "the guy who gets killed while cleaning his own gun."

Meredith Grey
From the moment George met Meredith, he fell in love with her. Meredith however, was in love with Derek Shepherd so she never really thought about George as more than a friend. Only a patient and George's best friend Izzie knew how he felt about Meredith. After a small push from Izzie, George decided to tell Meredith how he felt. Meredith had had a very bad day at work so when George confessed his feelings for her, she thought that maybe George was her guy and she had just overlooked him. They proceeded to kiss but during sex, knowing it wasn't right, Meredith burst into tears. George was humiliated and furious and for weeks he refused to speak to her. Eventually he accepted her apology but admitted that he was partly to blame too, he had known how she felt about Derek and knew she didn't love him.

Their friendship continued and he moved back to her house. When George discovered that he had to repeat his intern year, he drew away from his group of friends but things soon went back to normal and Meredith and George's friendship continued, and was strengthened as she was his resident. On George's last day at SGH, he was hit by a bus and nobody could recognise him. Meredith was his doctor and although she didn't communicate with him often, she defended him in front of some of the other doctors and after he traced the word "007" on her hand, she realised it was him and had him rushed into the O.R.

Alex Karev
Ever since the start, Alex has always disliked George; probably because they were both each other's polar opposites. In the first episode, he was given the name 007 (when George froze in his first surgery), by Alex and it was the start of their mutual dislike for each other. Later on George learned that he had contracted syphilis from his girlfriend Olivia. George was given the name "Syph-boy" by Alex but soon learnt that he was the person that gave syphilis to Olivia. Which lead to Alex being punched out by George. And on a different occasion, when Alex told George that Callie (who was still his spouse at the time) had slept with Mark Sloan. George went into denial and got into another fight with him.

Alex repeatedly and frequently pointed out George's flaws, calling him weak and pathetic more than once, but in later episodes Alex reveals that he actually respected George and that if he was still alive then he would have beaten all the other residents at each milestone (1st solo surgery, chief resident etc.). Professionally, George had beaten Alex during important situations, even though Alex was better at poaching surgeries, George would have been better at dealing with emergency cases while Alex would just have frozen (e.g. cop in the elevator). In a later episode when George's mother returns which brings back memories of George. Alex reveals to Cristina and Meredith that he didn't like to think of George because it reminded him of Izzie (his ex-wife) which brought pain. In the end, it was hinted that Alex did actually like and care for George, he just didn't want to admit it.

Miranda Bailey
In the beginning, Miranda didn't care much for George. She treated him the same as any other intern, but after George helped deliver her baby when she was going through a rough time, she gained so much respect and gratitude for him. She even named her child after him, giving him the middle name George. Although there was never a strong friendship, they gained a bond beyond professional. When Miranda heard George had signed up for the army, she, along with Callie, tried her best to convince him not to go. When George died, she suffered a great loss. Later, when George's mother came to the Seattle Grace Mercy West Hospital for a surgery, Miranda wanted to make sure she got the best possible treatment. During surgery, Miranda revealed to Meredith that George was her favourite intern and was very saddened by his death, showing that she cared a tremendous amount for George O'Malley.

Richard Webber
Since George failed his first intern exam, Richard was more interested in the potential and knowledge that George had. Richard often gave guidance to George and helped him through many of his surgeries. After George passed away, Richard was very moved and sad. In a conversation with Derek, he let him know that he was teaching George so Derek could later take over for him as Chief of Surgery of Seattle Grace.

Owen Hunt
When Owen and George were operating, Owen immediately saw that George had talent for Trauma Surgery. Eventually, Owen focused his teaching on George. Later, behind the scenes, Owen told George that he should join the army, and that George is going to be one of the finest trauma surgeons he's ever known. George's plans were stopped in their tracks, however, when he got hit by a bus and died in surgery.

When he realised that George was brain-dead, Owen asked Chief Webber if he was a donor, since he could save many lives.

Preston Burke
Upon first meeting George, Burke disliked him. George accidentally offended him and Burke chose George to be the intern he punished a lot which would force the others to fall in line. He allowed George to scrub in with him on his first day and insulted and terrified him. However, after working on more cases, George and Burke grew to have a friendship and Preston christened George his "guy". When George moved out of Meredith's house and had nowhere to go, Burke allowed him to sleep at his apartment. They went running together and acted like a team constantly. Eventually Cristina managed to get George to move out but he and Burke remained friends, even after he left Cristina on their wedding day.

Derek Shepherd
George often speaks to Derek, but disliked him because he slept with Meredith.

Sadie Harris
George didn't have a close relationship with Sadie, he also didn't understand how Meredith could be friends with her. During the intern ball he noticed Sadie didn't have the basic medical knowledge for her level. He also caught her cheating to win. George offered her some assistance, but at the end, he gave her an ultimatum that he would tell the Chief or she would have to. After that Sadie quit and called George as "ass".

Erica Hahn
While not known for being friendly towards interns and residents, Erica Hahn did not seem to treat George any differently from other interns and residents. She did not seem to have a problem with him being in her O.R. Before starting her employment as head of Cardiothoracic Surgery at SGH, George 'hired' her to operate on his father as he knew of Preston Burke's tremor following his gun shot wound. Despite clashing with George during her tenure as his father's surgeon, she did not appear to hold this against him during her time at Seattle Grace. George managed to talk two of Hahn's reluctant patients into having surgery. Hahn was called to SGH to harvest a heart from a brain dead car accident victim whose father was in the hospital awaiting a heart transplant. He refused to take his daughter's heart. However, he agreed after George told him he would have donated his heart to his father if it would have saved him. George later also talked a frightened 8 year old into having heart surgery after showing him the inside of an O.R. so he would know how things worked in there and would no longer be scared. While Hahn originally refused, but eventually consented to the plan.

Mark Sloan
Mark dislikes most interns and George was no exception. After George and Callie divorced, Mark decided to humiliate George for Callie so when two patients were admitted in a competition which involved holding a wedding dress, Mark ordered George to hold the dress while he treated one of the girls.

Amanda
George met Amanda the day before he left to join the army. They met at a bus stop but when he smiled at her she ignored him, interested in finding better looking guys, a bus almost hit Amanda. George threw himself under it and pushed her out of the way, saving her life. They were brought to Seattle Grace, George's face unrecognisable and Amanda's arm in a sling. Because nobody knew who the John Doe was, no family was called so Amanda refused to leave his side. She stayed with him as much as possible. Before dicovering it was George, Meredith said to him that he "...made a good friend there. Guess thats what happens when you take a bus for someone".

Carlos Torres
When Mr. Torres first met George, he mistrusted him because he assumed that George had married Callie for her money. It didn't help that George was hungover, Callie, her father and George met at Joe's bar where they discussed finance and how George apparently talked too much. However, when Mr. Torres started talking about giving them money, George refused it having just remembered sleeping with Izzie the previous night. Mr. Torres later approached him and told him that he just wanted to protect his daughter and warned George not to hurt her. Months later after George and Callie's divorce, Mr. Torres came to visit his daughter at SGH. When he spotted George he pushed him up against a wall and threatened to kill him for cheating on Callie but Callie told her father that she had cheated on him with Mark too. Mr. Torres dropped George who ran away and grabbed Mark Sloan instead,

Notes and Trivia

 * He and Lexie nicknamed their apartment The Crapartment.
 * George has seen Meredith, Izzie, Callie, Cristina and Olivia naked.
 * He has a birthmark in the shape of Texas on his right hand.
 * George was friends with two of Cristina's boyfriends: Burke and Owen.
 * T.R. Knight was the first actor who was a series regular to have his character killed off.
 * He was 29 years old when he died.
 * George had the most letters of recommendation when he applied for the surgical program.
 * George was the first intern to perform a solo surgical procedure, albeit coached by Burke, when he cut into a patient in the elevator garnering the nickname "Heart in the Elevator Guy".