Grey's Anatomy Season 12 spoilers, plot news: Ellen Pompeo defends latest attack on 'Grey's' character Meredith

When fans of ABC's long-running medical drama "Grey's Anatomy" found out that one of their beloved characters, Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo), would be the victim of another attack during the show's midseason premiere, many felt that the series was rehashing a tired old formula. The unfortunate Dr. Grey had, after all, already been through several lifetimes' worth of maladies over the show's 12-year run.

In season 3, viewers watched as Mer lost her mother, the brilliant but emotionally-handicapped Dr. Ellis Grey (Kate Burton). And just last season, she lost her long-time love, Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey), in a freak car accident. Meredith has also suffered through a traumatizing childhood, a near-drowning, a plane crash, a miscarriage, a C-section during a power outage, a gunman in the hospital, and the deaths of many of her family members and close friends.

It was thus no surprise that some fans felt that "Grey's Anatomy" needed to give Meredith a break. But Pompeo herself has defended the latest brutal attack on her "Grey's" character and said that it is possible for one person to experience multiple unfortunate events in a lifetime.

Speaking with "Grey's Anatomy" executive producer Betsy Beers on the Shondaland Revealed podcast, the actress said: "You don't think you're going to have to come up with 12 years of devastating things happening to one character. However, I look at the news every day and read newspapers online, and people have had some pretty unfortunate series of events happen to them in life."

"Things that you never think would happen. People being at two different mass shootings. Random, weird things do happen. Earth is quite an interesting place. So we can always suspend our disbelief enough to be able to tell some story and learn some lessons," she explained.

"Grey's Anatomy" airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.