It’s been 20 seasons since fans first saw Meredith Grey walk into Seattle Grace for the first time. Since then, it’s been a rollercoaster ride for the audience as they experienced their favorite characters being introduced and eventually killed off. For Grey’s Anatomy, there’s no such thing as a character who can’t die.
Several beloved characters have bit the dust either due to backstage drama or their characters simply reaching the end of the line story-wise. Dr. Andrew DeLuca was one such character who quickly became a fan-favorite in the famed medical drama. He also had one of the show’s most tragic storylines, and his exit meant more than just lazily tying off a character arc.
Updated by Alex Roush on December 1, 2024: With over 20 seasons, Grey’s Anatomy has a lot of overturn in its cast. Characters leave the series all the time, sometimes in tragic ways, as is the case with Giacomo Gianniotti’s Andrew DeLuca. This article has been updated to include more information about DeLuca’s exit, enhance the reader experience, and adhere to CBR’s formatting guidelines.
Andrew DeLuca Was One of the Best Characters on Grey’s Anatomy
He Appeared in Seven Seasons of the Show
The beloved Italian doctor was introduced in Grey’s Anatomy in Season 11 as a surgical intern. It was a given that DeLuca would receive unprecedented love from the fans for some obvious reasons. However, introducing characters who are opposite of what they’re intended to be is a classic Grey’s Anatomy trait. While Andrew DeLuca could’ve been brushed off as another intern with personal issues and ambition, his character grew tremendously in all the right directions. DeLuca proved to be a very morally sound and righteous person, which completely surprised the fans, considering how morally questionable things doctors in Grey’s Anatomy have done. Despite having to deal with several low points in his life and career, DeLuca developed a strong sense of doing what was right but lost his sense of self-preservation along the way.
It’s safe to say that DeLuca wasn’t perfect and struggled quite a lot to stay afloat, but his character was somewhat inspiring and deserved praise. Although he became romantically involved with a few women, including Meredith, that didn’t undermine his progression as a good doctor and human being. DeLuca shined throughout the Alex and Jo drama, where the former beat DeLuca to a pulp, causing him several critical injuries. However, how he plays out the entire experience, especially confronting Alex, is commendable, proving how he deserved to be on the show till the end of time. Unfortunately, it utterly broke the fandom when the show decided to kill off DeLuca in Season 17’s midseason finale.
Gianniotti’s DeLuca Suffered From Mental Illness
He Was Diagnosed With Bipolar Disorder
Mental illness is often irresponsibly thrown around in TV shows and movies, especially when there are dozens of characters to deal with within a single storyline. It’s not the first time Grey’s Anatomy had to deal with this sensitive topic, but it always lacked the depth and impact DeLuca’s story had. He wasn’t immediately introduced as someone secretly suffering from a problem. His character was well within the normal range of “mess-ups” that an average Grey’s Anatomy character had. He wasn’t erratic or running around killing patients on a whim. DeLuca’s downward spiral was calculated, well-written, and executed, making the audience connect with the character on a personal level.
DeLuca had a history of mental illness in his family; his father suffered from manic attacks. Secondly, a series of events led to his fall from grace, including his on-and-off relationship on Grey’s Anatomy with Sam Bello, who had moved to Switzerland, leaving him heartbroken. The first signs of his bipolar disorder started to appear after Sam’s departure when he gave in to his depression and spent days doing nothing. Meredith had to recruit his sister’s help to get him off the couch. It was a rather subtle symptom, but it should’ve been enough for someone to notice the difference in his personality when he returned to work. During Season 16, it became evident that DeLuca was in the early stages of bipolar disorder, and his manic episodes started affecting his work. It’s impressive how the show and the actor handled DeLuca’s mental illness storyline without making it too clichéd.
According to the Canadian-Italian actor, he was able to channel DeLuca’s emotions by driving inspiration from his own struggles with dealing with mental illness in the family. Gianniotti expressed how he understood the pain of those who suffered from this illness as well as of those around them who are affected by their behavior. His character went through the same pain in Grey’s Anatomy as in the eyes of people; he was unstable, but deep down, he knew his heart was in the right place and that he was struggling.
DeLuca Suffered From a Very Tragic Death
He Was Stabbed by Opal’s Accomplice
Grey’s Anatomy fandom has experienced many tragic deaths, from losing McDreamy to Lexie and Mark dying in the plane crash. However, the one death that hit the audience hard was Andrew DeLuca’s in Season 17. After he was diagnosed with mental illness, DeLuca became sort of a liability for those around him as they started to doubt his every implication as a symptom of his mania. He almost froze to death when he tried to recover a liver for a transplant during a snowstorm. That’s when Meredith and the rest realized there was something seriously wrong with him.
Although he received help, the disorder slowly became his defining trait that undermined his judgment in front of others. DeLuca perfectly channeled the loneliness and sense of loss that a person feels when they’re no longer considered sound or “normal” enough to deal with stressful situations. The events leading to DeLuca’s death were particularly gut-wrenching, especially when everyone later realized that he was right. When a patient named Cindy was brought to the ER, DeLuca suspected that her “aunt” Opal was actually a human trafficker. He was convinced to the point where he tried to take things into his own hands, but no one believed him. Everyone, including his sister, thought this was another one of his manic episodes because he failed to provide substantial evidence.
Soon after, DeLuca quit his job but later returned to not only save Richard Webber’s life but to prove that he was also correct about Cindy, aka Erin Banks, being trafficked. However, by the time he achieved those things, he had gone into another depressive episode that seemed to get worse by the day. During that time, he encountered Opal again, and this time, he chased her around Seattle to get her arrested but got stabbed by her accomplice instead. Although he was immediately rushed to the hospital and survived the initial surgery, DeLuca later suffered a cardiac tamponade and flatlined. His last moments on Grey’s Anatomy were of being on the beach in Meredith’s dream, where he walked away with his deceased mother.
DeLuca’s Death Also Involved Station 19
Giacomo Gianniotti Appeared in Both Series
While DeLuca officially dies in Grey’s Anatomy Season 17, Episode 7, “Helplessly Hoping,” his death is due to a fatal injury he sustained in Station 19. In a Season 4 episode of Station 19 (Episode 6, “Train in Vain”), DeLuca teams up with his sister, Carina, and several other Station 19 firefighters to track down Opal. It’s in this pursuit that DeLuca gets fatally stabbed.
Carina is the one who finds DeLuca after he’s wounded. After he dies, she is overwhelmed with guilt for not being there to save him. This guilt and the grief she struggles with are explored in the following few episodes of Station 19.
DeLuca’s Exit, Surprisingly, Didn’t Stem From Controversy
His Death Was Purely Because of His Character’s Storyline
Andrew DeLuca’s exit from Grey’s Anatomy was purely for the sake of plot progression. Showrunner Krista Vernoff expressed on several instances that DeLuca’s death wasn’t deliberate or because of any behind-the-scene issue. It was solely for storytelling and not because DeLuca’s character had to be written off because of his spiraling mental issues. Vernoff insisted that that’s how the story panned out in her head, and that direction seemed to be the most befitting for the character. Andrew DeLuca’s demise seemed important for many characters’ growth and development—including his sister. It also paved the way for the long-awaited Teddy/Owen arc and allowed the other doctors to have a moment to think about the impact of what happened to DeLuca.
It’s safe to say that DeLuca’s death wasn’t because he had a disorder, and that was important for the way he was written off. He was like that: brave, chaotic, intuitive, and kind. He put himself on the line, knowing that it might be dangerous and that this was who he was. It was not because he was having a manic attack but because he had this powerful sense of serving and saving people. To put it simply, DeLuca’s story wasn’t all about mental illness; rather, it was one part of his character. It could’ve been refreshing to see Grey’s Anatomy showing someone like DeLuca dealing with the onset of his condition, but that has been done so many times. Instead, the series decided to deliver one of Grey’s Anatomy’s best character exits of all time.
His death seemed a more befitting conclusion to the enigma that he was, especially when it came to protecting his patients. DeLuca went that extra mile, and that’s exactly what his last moments and act were all about. It was crushing, heartbreaking, and downright cruel, but that’s how Grey’s Anatomy has always been. DeLuca’s exit would be memorable and powerful in the show’s history for not being controversial and elevating the story’s impact.
What Has Giacomo Gianniotti Done Since Leaving Grey’s Anatomy?
The Actor Has Taken on Many Diverse Roles
Giacomo Gianniotti has endeavored to expand his career since leaving Grey’s Anatomy in 2021. The actor has added several films, television series, and video games to his filmography in recent years, doing a great job diversifying his career after playing the same role for six years. The same year he left Grey’s Anatomy, Gianniotti made a cameo appearance in the excellent Pixar movie Luca, lending his voice to the hit animated movie for a small role. Later, he continued his voice acting career in the 2022 video game Horizon Forbidden West, in which he played Drakka, the hotheaded but heroic leader of the Desert Clan.
Gianniotti has also played the titular hero in the Italian crime thriller Diabolik and its 2023 sequel. In more recent years, the Grey’s Anatomy alum has taken to starring in other television series, appearing in Murdoch Mysteries as Leslie Garland and Wilds Cards as Cole Ellis. He has several other projects in the works, where audiences can continue to observe his journey as a rising actor. While Giacomo Gianniotti’s exit from Grey’s Anatomy may have been heartbreaking to many fans of Andrew DeLuca, the actor parted with the series on good terms. Now, Gianniotti strives to add new projects to his resume that force him to play different roles than audiences are used to seeing.