Well, that was a nice while it lasted. News that Grey's Anatomy powerkvetchers Katherine Heigl and T.R. Knight had left the show—Heigl off to various slumcom pursuits, Knight to, um—appears to have been premature.

Approached at last night's NAACP awards, showrunner-despot Shonda Rhimes shot down the recent allegations made by James Pickens that both actors would soon appear in an episode entitled A Farewell To Izzy and George, in which the beloved characters would be graphically and permanently disposed of via a series of fatal electrocutions, freak drowning deaths, and at least one grisly caribou-goring.

From People:

"That was a very interesting rumor," Rhimes said Thursday night at the 40th NAACP Image Awards in Los Angeles. "And it's not true."

"That was absolutely taken out of context," said Rhimes. "Things happen, and … I think rumors become fact very easily. And you know I don't like to tell you what's going to happen on the show - but that is a rumor," she emphasized.

For his part, Pickens says he meant to wish the pair well in general.

"We've been living with these rumors for a long time," he said before the NAACP's awards show. "When the question was posed to me, I was more trying to congratulate Katie and T.R. on whatever they were going to do. But yeah, I don't have any special info about it either way."

Hmm. Yes. We see. Just so long as we're getting straight answers out of you all. Did you check out McSteamy on Ellen? His pupils were spiraling. It's enough to make you wonder if there's some kind of McDreamy Candidate plot at play, a vast ABC network conspiracy that will reveal itself to an audience of millions when Patrick Dempsey takes the Oscar podium, sees the trigger words "STAR OF THE QUEEN, DAME HELEN MIRREN" on the teleprompter, and proceeds to blindly hijack an Oscar cannon and dispose of the troublesome team-members with two strategically placed golden torpedoes.