Jesse Williams's 'Grey's' send-off: 5 of Jackson Avery's best moments

Thursday's emotional hour began with a flashback—and there were flashbacks throughout—to the first time Jackson boarded the elevator in his orange scrubs to contrast with the present-day plastic surgeon riding the elevator en route to hand in his resignation at Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital, so he can finally fulfill what he feels is his long-elusive purpose: to run the Catherine Fox Foundation—formerly known as the Harper Avery Foundation—from Boston and serve oppressed groups of people from inside the system.

Jackson's emotional goodbye with Dr. Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) was particularly goosebump-y.

"I win," Meredith said. "I'm the last man standing. It was you and me from our residency class. Everyone else has either abandoned me or died. We were the only two left."

To make matters even soppier, Jackson provided a wheelchair getaway for Meredith. Usually when patients are discharged, the hospital staff lines up and "claps them out" in celebration. Meredith wasn't having that—never one to follow tradition—so she had Jackson sneak her out and drive her home.

Renaming the hospital

No matter how hard he tried, Jackson could never quite escape nepotism. That was never more apparent than in the aftermath of the devastating plane crash that killed off Dr. Lexie Grey (Chyler Leigh) and Dr. Mark Sloan (Eric Dane). 

The surviving doctors—Meredith, Dr. Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey), Dr. Arizona Robbins (Jessica Capshaw) and Cristina Yang (Sandra Oh)—sued the hospital and won, and the payout from the lawsuit threw the hospital into bankruptcy. Jackson's mother, Catherine Fox (Debbie Allen) saved the day by purchasing the hospital, but that turned all of his fellow doctors and new board members against him because he was placed in a position of power over them.

Long story short, Jackson won them over by proposing the rename the hospital in Lexie and Mark's honor.

Objecting at April's wedding so they could run off together

The story of Japril—fans' cute couple name for Jackson and Dr. April Kepner (Sarah Drew)—was as epic as any other love arc in Grey's Anatomy history. They began as acquaintances only because they were in the same class in the Mercy West surgical program but grew friendly.
Their romance truly kicked off the night before their medical board exams when they slept together—Jackson taking April's well-publicized virginity—and then kept sleeping together in secret before April had a pregnancy scare. That ended their romance, and April committed to "re-virginizing," then got engaged to another devout Christian—EMT Matthew Taylor (Justin Bruening).

We're skipping several plot points here—this Japril timeline should help—but ultimately, Jackson can't stand it anymore and objects at April and Matthew's wedding. They run off together and elope. It's magical.
It was not happily ever after, though. April does get pregnant, and they're thrilled, only for their unborn son to be diagnosed with osteogenesis imperfecta Type 2 and die shortly after birth. This understandably destroyed their marriage, leading to a nasty divorce. Then April gets pregnant again with Harriet, who effectively brings them back together as co-parents and friends.

Then there was that whole bit where April was basically dead in Season 14's penultimate, which converted a previously agnostic Jackson into a praying man. April was written off in the finale by quitting the hospital to do God's work and marrying Matthew.

In last week's episode ("Look Up Child") Drew reprised her role of April to set up Jackson's send-off. April, Jackson and Harriet are all relocating to Boston, and we can all just choose to believe that they will fall in love all over again and live as one big happy, filthy rich family.

Falling in love with Lexie, then letting her go

Jackson immediately stood out among his invading Mercy West peers because of his last name. He was the grandson of Harper Avery, and the Harper Avery Award was the most coveted achievement in all of medicine before Harper was exposed as a chronic sexual assaulter. 

Anyway, at the time, everybody sort of disliked Jackson because they assumed he hadn't earned anything on his own merit. He was also undeniably gorgeous, so it was gratifying when Cristina was completely uninterested when he kissed her and admitted to having a schoolboy crush on her.

It was his relationship with Lexie that did wonders in humanizing him, and it was even more endearing when he loved her enough to let her go after realizing she was still in love with Mark.

Saving Derek from the vengeful mass shooter

Just 18 episodes into his run on Grey's, Jackson stepped up in a massive way. The final two episodes of Season 6 brought a mass shooter to what was then Seattle Grace Hospital. Mr. Clark was searching for Derek, whom he felt was responsible for his wife's death earlier in the season, so he could kill him as revenge.

After senselessly murdering a slew of other people, Mr. Clark did find Derek and shot him. Derek was taken to emergency surgery. Cristina nervously stepped in to operate, with Jackson by her side. Mr. Clark found them and held a gun to Cristina's head—demanding she stop operating and let him die. 

Meredith burst in and told Mr. Clark to shoot her instead, and while she was doing so, Jackson slyly unplugged Derek's machines as to trick Mr. Clark into believing Derek had bled out and died.

As a result, Derek went on to live for five more years before tragically dying from complications after getting hit by a truck in the 21st episode of Season 11 in April 2015. 

It must be mentioned that Jackson also heroically saved a child from a burning bus in the Season 9 finale, but saving Derek from a raging gunman won out for a position on this list.

Ironically, the season in which Dempsey reprised his McDreamy role is the one that bid Jackson farewell. 

It's been a brutal year for Meredith, as Dr. Andrew DeLuca (Giacomo Gianniotti) was murdered in the spring premiere while she was teetering between life and death with a severe COVID-19 case. Not to mention, she lost Dr. Alex Karev (Justin Chambers) last season. 

Pompeo, Wilson and Pickens Jr. are the only remaining original cast members as Grey's wraps Season 17 with two more episodes before voyaging into Season 18.