Patrick Dempsey Talks Life & Death on 'Grey's Anatomy'

The season finale of "Grey's Anatomy" was a two-hour shocker in which the irate husband of a patient who died at Seattle Grace Hospital returns with a gun and goes on a shooting rampage. As he searches out Dr. Derek "McDreamy" Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey), who is the target of his wrath, many familiar faces, including Alex Karev (Justin Chambers), Reed (Nora Zehetner) and Charles (Robert Baker) are shot and several die.

Derek is among those shot, and it takes all of Cristina Yang's (Sandra Oh) competence as a surgeon to try to save his life. Derek does survive the surgery, but the question still to be asked is: Will he completely recover?

"Hopefully, I'm not in a coma for all of next year," Patrick tells ET. "I hope I don't become Denny Duquette [Jeffrey Dean Morgan], where I come back as a ghost."