Private Practice

Private Practice began within the two-part (two hour) Grey’s Anatomy Season Three finale. The title of the episode “The Other Side of This Life,” served as the perfect send off to get our dear Addison on her way to Los Angeles. She didn’t just decide to move out there right away, but she did need some time to clear her lovely red head.

Were you ever at a place in your life like Addison was? (Without the kick-ass job and the hot men chasing you probably… but still.) Where you decide you’re just going to visit an old friend, but the whole time you’re there you fantasize about staying? Because it’s fresh. And new. And no one there really knows all the mistakes you’ve made and how you’ve embarassed yourself. It’s a fresh start.

Here’s what Grey’s Anatomy Writer/Producer/Creator/Headhoncho Shonda Rhimes described on how the whole thing got started:

I was sitting in the editing room one day watching Mer and Burktina and the gang doing all the stuff they do. I love the editing room – it’s like this cocoon where I’m alone with the characters (and the editor) and it’s where I get a lot of my ideas. And for the first time ever since working on this show, I got an idea that was Grey’s Anatomy but…not Grey’s Anatomy. It was something else. It was Addison driving down the freeway with her hair blowing all over her face. So I started writing it down, this not Grey’s Anatomy idea. I started writing it down in secret because I knew Betsy and Shoots With No Script would very gently explain that I had lost my mind and then send in the guys with the strait jackets. Because we are very busy here at Greys. We don’t have time for non-Grey’s ideas. We are a hard-working people.

Except I had this idea and it had already worked its way under my skin and I had to write it down. Or else I’d get in one of those moods. Things happen when I’m in those moods. Things like Meredith drowning. And I love Mer and wanted to keep her away from the water. So I wrote it down. And I gave it to the studio and the network.

It became something. A script that was part-Grey’s, part something else. And then it became news around town and suddenly my tiny little written down something was being paid a lot of attention by the outside world. Next thing you know, they’re calling it a spinoff.

I love that she came up with the whole thing by imagining Addison “driving down the freeway with her hair blowing all over her face.” It’s a VISUAL. Even though I’m not in the head of Shonda Rhimes (there’s no way I could be, Ms. Rhimes has way too many plots and ideas and creativity in there)… even so… when she said she could picture Addison in the car I could picture it too. A redhead in a red car just driving away from the troubles in her life.

This video has that scene, and the Craig David music in the background suits it perfectly:

“I’m walking away from the troubles in my life
I’m walking away oh to find a better day”

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