Grey’s Anatomy, which chronicles the delicious misery of romance and all its attendant baggage, could easily be called a love story. From another angle, Grey’s is a meditation on life and death, reminding us of a bleak reality: that each day might well be our last. Nearly every week, someone—or several someones—dies.

But what if we peel back those layers, ignoring the steamy on-call-room trysts and emergency surgeries and even the epic dreaminess of Dr. Derek Shepherd? Underneath, the show is really about family.

Yup. I said family.

Granted, this isn’t the likeliest interpretation. After all, the surgical interns-the five people we care about even when their actions infuriate us-are all somehow estranged from their families. Leading the pack is Meredith Grey, whose mother’s Alzheimer’s disease makes communication impossible. Not that Ellis Grey was warm and fuzzy to begin with. In the rare moments she recognizes Meredith, her face sours into a mask of disdain. And Meredith barely knows her father, Thatcher Grey, who exited her life decades ago after Ellis cheated on then divorced him. Making matters worse, the half-sisters Meredith accidentally discovered in the second season don’t know she exists. Dad never saw fit to mention her to them.

For Izzie Stevens and Alex Karev, childhood was even uglier. Each walked away from a destructive family at an early age, and they’re probably better off  …