‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Boss Explains Painful Season 22 Premiere Casualty: “I Cried on That Phone Call”

[This story contains spoilers from the season 22 premiere of Grey’s Anatomy, “Only the Strong Survive.”]

Grey’s Anatomy ended its 21st season with one of its biggest hospital explosions in recent memory when the operating floor of Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital went up in flames after a highly flammable acetylene tankwas brought into the hospital. Only star Ellen Pompeo‘s Meredith Grey and a handful of other doctors were shown after the blast — everyone else could have potentially been killed off when the hit show returned.

Now, after a summer break, Grey’s has returned with its season 22 premiere and showrunner Meg Marinis and her writers revealed the fates for the doctors of the long-running ABC medical drama. Fan-favorite Dr. Atticus Lincoln aka “Link” (Chris Carmack) barely survived — and has quite a recovery ahead of him — but it was ultimately Dr. Monica Beltran, played by Natalie Morales, who is the sole casualty. She was crushed by hospital machinery, but stayed alive long enough to help instruct surgical intern-now resident Jules (Adelaide Kane) to help save a child on the operating table.

Below, Marinis brings The Hollywood Reporter into the writers room to reveal how they make decisions on who lives and who dies on Grey’s Anatomy, as she teases the effect that Beltran’s death will have on both Jules and Dr. Amelia Shepherd (Caterina Scorsone), why Grey’s most optimistic doctor now has a hard road ahead, and what to expect from Pompeo as Meredith Grey in season 22.

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After the season 21 cliffhanger finale, you said you had some ideas about how you would handle the fates of your up-in-the-air characters, but that you weren’t set in stone until you got back into the writers room. What were you thinking coming out of the finale about where you wanted to go?

I didn’t want to kill anyone. I didn’t want to kill anyone! Even when we were choosing the VFX for the finale, post was like, “If you choose this one, there has to be someone who is dead. This is a huge explosion.” I said, “It’s going to be fine. We’re going to save everybody!” And then I sat down in the writers room and I was like, “We can’t save everybody. We just can’t. It doesn’t have as much of an impact if everyone is saved.”

Can you take me inside the debates you had in the room about who would die, and how heated do you guys get?

We’re a pretty nice, kind writers room. So if it’s heated, it’s heated with fun, right? We had that small group of people on the OR floor. You go through the chain reaction: If you kill this person, what story? If you kill this person, what story? We can’t kill that person! You go: If this, then what? We really look at the impact of each character’s death and what that does for the show, what that does for other characters and what stories can be told from that death. Then one morning, I woke up and went to the writers room and I said, “It’s Monica.”

Why?

I wanted to see someone die selflessly saving someone’s else’s life, and she was not only was saving that little kid on the table, she was saving Jules. It really speaks to the kind of character Monica was. I didn’t want to. It was very difficult. It was very painful. I cried on that phone call. I love working with Natalie Morales. She is an exquisite performer, an amazing actor who brings so much to the table. I’ve already pledged that I will work with her again one day! She’s a writer’s dream. But also, just going through the impact and consequences on Jules and Amelia, that is where we landed.

How did Natalie take it if you cried, did she cry as well?

No, she’s a professional — unlike me! She loved being on the show, but she understands story. She’s a writer and director herself, so she understands storytelling.

We see Jules and Amelia are both devastated by her death; Jules was there in the room with her, and Amelia has recently been in a romantic relationship with Monica. Why did you want to focus on these two characters after this loss?

In particular with those two characters, I want to launch a different aspect of Jules’ career journey. She was dying for that solo surgery at the end of last season — all cardio, singularly focused. And the solo surgery she got was a pediatric surgery under duress, and she doesn’t even like kids. So that was really interesting to us. And while Amelia was so centered in that storyline at the end of last season with Piper [Perabo]’s character and with the child [in the finale], I wanted for us to believe that everything was kind of OK for Amelia after we saved Link’s life. I also really wanted to deliver consequences of Amelia taking on all these impossible surgeries.

It’s a double whammy for Amelia with Link also. How close did you come to killing off Link?

Well, I feel like we got pretty close because he flatlined in the stairwell! We definitely talked about it. And we felt like we love the character of Link, we love Chris. But we thought: This couple has been through so much that we were not ready to go there yet. As Amelia mentions in the episode, she lost her father at a very young age and that really propelled the way her life went.

You didn’t give Jo and Link too much time of wedded bliss. When you plotted their wedding last season, did you know where you were going to be taking their story next with Link’s recovery ahead now?

Yes, we intentionally made that big wedding story right before.

How relieved was Chris to hear that Link survives? Was he worried when he first got the phone call?

Oh, yeah. When he read the last scene [of the finale] in the table read he was like, “Um, OK, is it me or nurse Linda?!” Linda [Marguerite Moreau] is OK; but she was right next to him.

What recovery journey will you be exploring with Link, and how will you challenge Grey’s most optimistic character?

I just want to shout out Chris’ performance because he is usually this very positive, jovial character on our show, and this is a side of the character we’ve never seen. He really brought it with the stairwell scenes. I mean, the poor guy had to get carried down the stairs! But the emotional performance that he delivers just kills me every time. We’re going to see more of that as the episodes go on. It’s so amazing to see performances you haven’t seen from characters you’ve known for so long, because we haven’t put them through an injury like this. Also, because that’s his character, this is going to be really hard for him. He is not a sit-in-a-bed kind of guy, but he has to because he’s really injured. And also, his wife is very pregnant with twins, so not being able to be there for her is going to be very difficult for him.

How long is he bedridden?

He’s not in bed the whole season. In the next episode, he’s in the hospital. But I would say the first part of the season is his recovery, but this baby has to be born pretty soon!

Why was this is time to give Chris some more challenging material and focus on Link this season?

There’s never a reason why it’s time for one character to go through it more than the others, but to talk about filling some of it, I mean, he was put through it. He had to lay on that floor in the OR for so long with that thing on top of him. I also want to shout out our art department. The sets of those ORs were amazing. It looked so real; it was so dusty, there was so much debris and there was fake fire, and Chris is just happy go lucky laying on the floor for hours. He’s also a big, muscular guy and our actors had to carry him down a real stairwell. There was a lot of physical stuff, a lot required in filming this episode and nobody complained. Everybody was so up for it. The performances in this episode, across the board, were breathtaking.

Were there any characters you came close to killing that you abandoned?

I mean, everyone on that OR floor was a discussion. But I don’t know if I want to divulge!

How does this high-tense, high-stakes premiere set the tone for what you are tackling this season? And now that this is your third season as showrunner, how do you compare how year three feels?

I’d like to say it gets easier, but it doesn’t! There’s always the pressure of the show being on for so long — how do you continue to keep it fresh and keep it going and keep eyeballs on it? This premiere delivered an old-school, high-stakes Grey’s disaster episode, but we’re still going to have quieter emotional episodes as well. The second episode is the 450th episode, and there’s some high stakes in there, but also some beautiful, emotional storylines to pay off the impact of what happened with the explosion, but also emotional storylines that have a little bit of a nostalgic quality, too.

What are some of the real-world storylines that have seeped into this season’s stories?

One of the real-world themes that has come into this season is the theme, which is hope. No matter where you stand on anything, things have been happening one after the other, and in particular, that’s what we felt this summer. We thought, “How can we write our feelings out in this season of television?” And that is through the theme of hope. Who gives you hope; who helps you find it after you’ve lost it; what gives you hope; and, how can you be hope for somebody else? How do we rise from what happened?

Ellen Pompeo said she’s not going anywhere and that she’ll be on screen similar to how much she was on the show last year. Has any of that changed?

No. Same. We are so happy to have her whenever we can, same thing with Scott [Speedman]. His schedule is going to be a little bit different moving forward [with his other work], but we’ll see Meredith a lot at the beginning of the season.

You previously said that Ellen typically films in chunks for her schedule. Since we saw her in the premiere, what can you tease about her arc in the next couple of episodes? Obviously, you have a hospital floor to rebuild. Will that be a big part of her storyline?

Yes, it will be, as well as being a source of strength for her sister who just experienced a huge loss.

Any characters you are bringing back or any nostalgic surprises you can tease?

We’ll definitely have a couple of visits from old characters. I will say, Meredith will interact with some of those planned visits, and you might get to see Meredith in her old house. Something else I will tease that is exciting to me is the character of Ben [Warren, played by Jason George] being back and not being on probation with Teddy [Kim Raver] anymore, and really getting to see him come into his own rather than him being behind. We’re going to be looking at stories about Ben moving forward and catching up. We weren’t always planning to do reveal that in the first episode, but it felt most organic to do it then. We’re going to see Bailey [Chandra Wilson] seeing him as a leader. We also might not be finished with Nora [Floriana Lima], even though you saw her transferred. The separation of Teddy and Owen [Kevin McKidd] will be part of the season, for sure.

With Lucas (Niko Tehro) and Simone (Alexis Floyd), you also didn’t wait long before Simone confessed to him that she slept with someone else [new intern played by Trevor Jackson]. Where is that relationship headed this season?

As hard as it was, I don’t think Simona knew she was going to tell Lucas. My intent in that scene is that the reason she tells him is because it’s the only way to communicate to him that they shouldn’t be together. It wasn’t like, “I have to get this off my chest because I feel so guilty about it.” That he will not take “no” for any answer unless I tell him this. That’s why there was the blurt in that moment and also, it’s really fun to play that conflict within that group of four.

What can you tease about the new interns?

Well, West [Jackson] is extremely confident, even though he hasn’t been there for that long, he thinks he knows it all. We’ll get to be more of that in episode two. Simone is going to try to deny that attraction, but it’s clearly still there. And new intern Danny — sweet Danny! — she’s going to need a new first day. (Laughs.) Now we have to see these residents be teachers, and it’s always fun to see people who still make mistakes be in charge of teaching people. And also, our attendings having to let them teach is a little nerve-wracking. So it’s switching up the dynamic that way. Now there’s a new class of interns to make mistakes, and it’s also going to be on them when they make mistakes, which really sucks.

Also, have you spoken to or heard from former Grey’s star Eric Dane at all since his ALS diagnosis?

My second script he wasn’t in, because his character [McSteamy] had already died. But my first script he was in, and I was a researcher at the time. So I knew him, but I didn’t know him as well as I know the cast now. But it is just the saddest news, it’s awful. I know that other people at the show have spoken to him.

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Grey’s Anatomy releases new episodes Thursdays at 10 p.m. on ABC. streaming next day on Hulu.