Summary

• Grey's Anatomy fans initially hated April Kepner but grew to love her through the show's strong character development.
• April's relationship with Jackson Avery was key in shifting fan perception of her character.
• The impactful storylines about April's pregnancy and crisis of faith helped fans see her in a new, relatable light.

Grey's Anatomy has a 20-season track record of building nuanced characters that fans love -- and love to hate. The show is also great at changing the minds of its viewers. Alex Karev (Justin Chambers), Mark Sloan (Eric Dane), Callie Torres (Sara Ramirez), and Lexie Grey (Chyler Leigh) are just some of the characters that viewers didn't love at first, and there were a number of characters that fans loved who were hated by the end of their time on the show. New and unexpected storylines and strong character development can change the way a viewer sees a character -- for better or worse.

April Kepner (Sarah Drew) was easily the most despised character on Grey's Anatomy for several seasons, beginning with her arrival on the show in Season 6. Fans seemed to hate her immediately and as much, if not more, than the characters on the show. But by the time she left the show at the end of Season 14, Kepner had changed so much that some fans found it impossible not to love her.

Who is April Kepner?

April Kepner first appeared on Grey's Anatomy in Season 6, Episode 5, "Invasion." Seattle Grace (the original name of the hospital) had recently merged with Mercy West, and Kepner was one of the transferring residents. Part perky nightmare and part condescending know-it-all, Kepner immediately irritated her colleagues more than any of the other interns clad in carrot orange. Audiences felt the same way, and some viewers were thrilled to see Kepner be let go from the hospital in Season 6, Episode 6, "I Saw What I Saw," after a simple mistake led to the death of her patient. Her return in Season 6, Episode 13, "State of Love and Trust," was a disappointment to fans and characters alike.

Kepner's return didn't stay a disappointment for long, though. While it took viewers time to come around, the show began making changes to how Kepner related to her fellow doctors right away. She spent time working directly with Shepherd and developed a crush on him, which led her to be nearby when he was shot in Season 6, Episode 23, "Sanctuary." In Season 7, Kepner and Jackson Avery (Jesse Williams) move into Meredith's home, and her relationships with Meredith, Cristina, and the other interns become much stronger.

Grey's Anatomy Took Kepner From Hate to Love

• Before Grey's Anatomy, Sarah Drew starred as Hannah Rogers on The WB's Everwood.

On any television show, fans are bound to find characters that they don't connect with. But when it came to April Kepner, the character seemed to be universally disliked, no matter when viewers started watching the show. As part of the new team from Mercy West, April was immediately considered in competition with the interns that audiences had grown to love. The writers pitted Kepner and the other new interns against Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) and her friends, which made them easy targets. Kepner, though, had a way of rubbing everyone the wrong way, and a patient even helped Lexie Grey taunt Kepner on her first day. But when Kepner lost her job for forgetting to check a patient's airway in Season 6, Episode 6, "I Saw What I Saw," Cristina Yang (Sandra Oh) was the first to defend her to their peers.

Having Cristina Yang jump to Kepner's defense was a strategic move by the writers. As Grey's bestie and the best surgeon of the bunch, hearing Yang remind them that any of them could have made the mistake Kepner made was an important learning moment for the residents, and it gave the audience a new perspective. Kepner's mistake was awful, and she felt terrible about it, but hearing that Yang might have made it herself made Kepner's mistake feel less like her fault and more a product of the situation at hand and their relative newness to the job. When Kepner came back, courtesy of Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey) in Season 6, Episode 13, "State of Love and Trust," the writers showed audiences that she was already a different doctor than the one who started at Seattle Grace Mercy West in "Invasion." Her new cautiousness kept her working with Shepherd on administrative work, which led directly to the first big turning point for the character.

After April, Cristina, and Meredith witness Derek Shepherd being shot in "Sanctuary," April is the one who sits on the scrub room floor with Meredith while Cristina operates on Derek. When the shooter tries to stop Cristina from saving Derek and shoots Owen in the process, April helps Meredith with that surgery -- and so it is April, of all people, who is with Meredith when she miscarries in the OR. This is the moment that the writers begin to change Kepner's relationship with Meredith, which is necessary for Kepner's trajectory on the show. Meredith is central to the hospital's orbit, so if her opinion about Kepner changes, so will others. April and Jackson (Jesse Williams) move into Meredith's house at the beginning of Season 7, becoming even closer to Cristina, Meredith, and Alex. The writers effectively replaced George O'Malley (T.R. Knight) and Izzie Stevens (Katherine Heigl), who left in Season 5 and Season 6, respectively, with April and Jackson, creating a new set of five interns for audiences to fall in love with.

April Kepner's Love for Jackson Avery Changed Everything

The Best Japril Episodes

Grey's Anatomy, beyond being a medical show, often focused on love -- or at least sex. So, when Kepner revealed she was saving sex for marriage, her virginity became a core component of her identity, as did her religious beliefs. Kepner briefly dated Alex Karev, nearly losing her virginity to him, and spent some time with Robert Stark (Peter MacNicol) in Season 7, though she didn't want to date him as much as he wanted to date her. In Season 8, Episode 21, "Moment of Truth," Grey, Yang, Karev, Avery, and Kepner finally reached the end of their residencies and flew to San Francisco for their oral boards. It was in San Francisco that Kepner, worried about her exam, had sex for the first time with Jackson Avery. The next morning, while spiraling about her relationship with Jesus, Kepner tanked her exam.

The decision to get April and Jackson together was another shift in how audiences saw April. Though there were some viewers who weren't necessarily fans of Jackson and April -- often referred to as "Japril" -- they became one of Grey's Anatomy's most unforgettable love stories. Though their relationship began as a casual one, which only Jackson seemed to hope would turn serious, they eventually found themselves running away from April's wedding to paramedic Matthew Taylor (Justin Bruening) to elope in Season 10, Episode 12, "Get Up, Stand Up." April believed that love would conquer all, but things got much more difficult for her and Jackson.

April Kepner Became Someone with Whom Fans Could Identify

• Kepner was unsure what kind of surgeon she wanted to be, but Owen Hunt took her under his wing when he discovered how well she handled trauma cases. Eventually, Kepner was an attending trauma surgeon at Grey-Sloan Memorial.

In Season 10, Episode 21, "Change of Heart," April tells Jackson she is pregnant. Further along in the pregnancy, they learn that the baby has Osteogenesis Imperfecta Type 2, an illness that causes the baby's bones to break, even while in utero. When they choose to have the baby at 24 weeks instead of terminating the pregnancy, it is devastating for both of them, and April handles it by joining Owen as a trauma surgeon with the army for three months. When she extends her stay multiple times, it changes her relationship with Jackson forever. They end up getting divorced in Season 12, Episode 11, "Unbreak My Heart," but not before April becomes pregnant with their daughter, Harriet, whom they eventually co-parent.

Many viewers credit April's response to the loss of their son as one of the moments where they really changed their minds about her because they'd either experienced something similar or saw April as more human. The other moment comes in Season 14, Kepner's final season, when she has a significant crisis of faith after losing three patients in rapid succession, one of them being the wife of Matthew, April's ex-fiance, in Season 14, Episode 10, "Personal Jesus." For several episodes, April is a completely different person, one that even Jackson doesn't recognize. It is an interaction with a Rabbi in Season 14, Episode 17, "One Day Like This," that helps April to reaffirm her faith. Fans saw a new side of April during the episodes in Season 17, one that allowed them to identify with her differently. By the time she left at the end of Season 14, she was a fan favorite, and her surprise returns in Season 17, Episode 14, "Look Up Child," and Season 18, Episode 20, "You Are the Blood," were well-received. The Grey's Anatomy writers made several powerful choices regarding April Kepner, each of which impacted the character's ultimate development. Without the writing that opened Kepner up to viewers, she might have been a temporary character hated by fans instead of one of Grey's Anatomy's most beloved characters.