Was George Really A Nice Guy?
George O’Malley often complained about being a maligned underdog, but… was the world really out to get him, or was it mostly all in his head? George is a beloved character — he was Miranda’s favorite of the interns, Izzie’s best friend, and was mourned by everyone after his heroic death. However, this nice guy image doesn’t always hold up, and after revisiting his story it’s clear George isn’t quite the lovable hero many view him as. This is a man who had an affair straight after getting married. Who never stuck up for his wife despite his friends making fun of her. And whose tendency to see himself as the victim often blinded him to what was really going on. Tellingly, Alex never truly buys into the George hero-worship like his colleagues do. So in death, did all his failings — both personal and professional — get swept under the rug? Here’s our take on George O’Malley, and how his “nice guy” act actually caused him to act like a pretty bad guy for a lot of the show.
George’s Worst Moments
George O’Malley initially feels like the nice guy in his cohort of interns. He’s less confident than Meredith and Christina, not as brash and bullish as Alex, less striking than Izzie, but arguably a better doctor than all of them — so we’re inclined to root for him because we want him to believe in himself in the way that everybody else does. And he sees himself as the nice guy too, in contrast to the arrogance of alpha males like Alex Karev and Dr Shepherd. When he finds out Meredith is dating Dr. Shepherd, he takes it upon himself to object to the relationship on the grounds that, in his mind, Shepherd is taking advantage of his position. When everyone is making fun of Izzie’s history as a model, it’s George who tries to step in and shield her. Similarly, as a doctor, he prides himself on kindness and reassurance, with those qualities coming naturally to him in a way that they don’t with his colleagues.
But in relationships, George routinely undercuts any real nice guy persona. When he’s dating Nurse Harper, he effectively ends that relationship because of an STD she was given by Alex before they started dating. When he eventually does break it off, after Nurse Harper almost forces him to make a decision, he ends things a pretty cold way. The way he treats Meredith is similarly selfish. After pining over her for almost the entire duration of their friendship when they do eventually sleep together, it’s when Meredith is at her most vulnerable. As she takes on the weight of the world, what she needs is a friend, and instead, George uses that opportunity to shoot his shot. When these feelings come to the surface while they’re sleeping together, with Meredith bursting into tears, George takes it personally. Despite literally saying that he’d never hurt her, he completely invalidates Meredith’s feelings and makes himself the victim. Even in the aftermath, he continues to lash out at her, making assumptions that she’s told everyone about what happened, and failing to recognize who really needs the most support at that time.
Perhaps this behavior would be more forgivable if George learned from it, or acknowledged that he was in the wrong. However, he never really does and continues to treat women badly. At first, it feels exciting to George that Callie takes an interest in him. Ironically, George does to Callie the exact thing he criticized Meredith for doing to him. He never stops to think whether or not he actually likes Callie or just the idea of Callie, instead seeing her as a kind of rebound from Meredith. When he and Callie do get together, George never seems fully invested in the relationship in the way that she is, prioritizing his friendships with Izzie and Meredith over her. And again, it would be easier to look past this if he accepted he was in the wrong and broke the relationship off, but he doubles down. Despite clearly being uncertain about the relationship, and being hung up on both Meredith and Izzie simultaneously, he marries Callie in a shotgun wedding. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he almost immediately cheats on her with Izzie — something which feels doubly cruel considering that Callie had already told George that Izzie had feelings for him, which he dismissed out of hand and the fact that Izzie is openly mean to Callie, often in front of George, for no real reason. It may be hard to admit given the tragedy surrounding his death, but George is the one in the wrong in all of his relationships — and he never seems to get that.
The Inferiority Complex At The Root
A lot of George’s mistakes — particularly the romantic ones — could be credited to an inferiority complex. His belief that Izzie could never have feelings for him gets projected onto Callie in that moment. Similarly, everything he says to Meredith immediately before they sleep together is a statement of inferiority.
When we meet George’s family, it’s pretty clear where that complex comes from. His father and brothers are tough and hyper-masculine and they tease George for not being able to fit in. As a result, he lashes out at them. Early on in his career, this inferiority complex impacts his ability as a doctor, too. Despite his multiple letters of recommendation — more than any of the other interns — he doesn’t have the confidence in himself to prove himself when he’s thrown in at the deep end.
And this complex never really goes away. After George understandably fails his intern exam and has to repeat the year due to a whirlwind of drama in his personal life, he’s so embarrassed that despite being respected by his peers, he lies to them. In reality, George has enough wins in his time at Seattle Grace that he should be able to really believe that he’s the kind of guy everyone else thinks he is. But it never really clicks. He always sees himself as the victim or the loser.
George’s Impulse, For Good and For Bad
What underpins a lot of George’s bad romantic decisions is a tendency not to look before he leaps. Sleeping with Meredith, sleeping with Izzie, marrying Callie, even punching Alex when he finds out that Alex had once slept with Nurse Harper — all these actions had negative consequences and could have been avoided had he thought about the situation for a second longer. All this impulsiveness can also at times impact his abilities as a doctor. It causes him to lose focus on the task at hand, and instead allow himself to be pulled in all different directions, to where he thinks he’s needed.
Even George’s ending feels driven by impulse. Throughout the seasons George struggles to pick a specialty and only chooses trauma on Owen’s suggestion, despite having never previously shown an interest in it — in fact, when soon after he starts trauma surgery he asks to be pulled off the service because he can’t cope with the amount of people dying on his watch. Yet almost immediately following that, after treating a soldier home from Iraq, he not only decides on trauma but also decides to join the army right there and then. But there’s an irony to this decision. One of the most crucial things Owen tells George about trauma is how collaborative it is, and how sometimes you have to accept people dying on your watch if it means that another doctor can save someone else’s life. But despite this assertion of the need for trauma surgeons to be selfless, George’s decision to join the army and go into trauma feels motivated by a selfish desire to be the hero.
It’s hard to totally hold this trait against George, though. It’s possible that this urgency to become a hero is a response to his perpetual feelings of inadequacy. And sometimes, his impulsiveness manifests as quick thinking and an ability to leap into action at the drop of a hat, like when he successfully performs heart surgery in an elevator, making himself a hospital legend in the process. Or even in his tragic end, with him sacrificing himself to save the life of a complete stranger. In his mind, he always wants to do the right thing. Except, he doesn’t always seem to know what the right thing is. Ultimately though, it feels like a sign of immaturity. Instead of truly reflecting on situations, and his role in them, he jumps in head first, like he feels the need to prove something. But we know that his colleagues and friends already think highly of him — so really, the only person he’s trying to convince is himself.
Conclusion
George is, for the most part, incredibly kind and compassionate — both to his patients and his friends. But he’s never able to extend that compassion and kindness to himself, and so due to his own neuroses and insecurities, he harms those closest to him, especially his partners. The saddest thing about George’s untimely death is that he never really got the chance to live up to his full potential. Even though it was an impulsive decision, the bravery it took for him to leave behind the safety net of Seattle Grace and join the army may have been an important next chapter in his life. That experience could have been the thing to help the young doctor finally shed his feelings of inferiority. But instead, he remains a person of unfulfilled potential, someone with so much more growing to do, lessons to learn, and roles to play.