The Grey’s Anatomy season 22 premiere almost didn’t have a shocking death scene.
“I didn’t want to kill off another doctor. It was a very difficult decision,” showrunner Meg Marinis told Deadline in an interview published after the Thursday, October 9, episode. “I think that as we ended the finale last season, and we saw the size of the explosion, in particular that fireball that Meredith sees coming out, it was just more and more realistic that we would have to lose one of our own.”
Marinis added, “Moving forward, we wanted to have a very strong impact on our other characters [after] this tragic event.”
At the end of last season, Ellen Pompeo’s Meredith Grey was outside Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital when she saw an explosion on the OR floor. It was revealed that several of the main characters — including Atticus Lincoln (Chris Carmack), Miranda Bailey (Chandra Wilson) and several interns — were all near the blast site.
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While Link’s life hung in the balance for the majority of Thursday’s episode, he ultimately pulled through after a risky surgery. Just as Link woke up from emergency surgery, it was revealed that pediatric surgeon Monica Beltran (Natalie Morales) succumbed to her own injuries after being trapped by medical equipment in a separate operating room. (Beltran had been in the OR with second-year resident Jules Millin, played by Adelaide Kane.)
Marinis further told Deadline that the writers didn’t decide to kill off Monica “that long ago.”
“The decision on who we were going to kill off, we knew it was going to be one out of that group of people that was on the OR floor,” Marinis told the outlet. “I really struggled with making the decision to kill someone off, I didn’t want to kill someone off. I left last season thinking, ‘No, we’re not killing anyone off.’ But then I was in the writers’ room and I rewatched the finale, it became clear to me, ‘Oh, this is where the story is leading.’”
Morales, 40, had also been understanding about her character’s fate.
“Oh yeah, she’s an absolute professional; it’s so hard to make those phone calls. She’s such an incredible performer [and] incredible actor,” Marinis said. “I loved working with her, and I hope to work with her again one day. She’s just a delight, and the things that she brings on screen. Sitting at the monitors during those scenes when we were filming in the OR, I cried even when she wasn’t on camera.”
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After Beltran’s onscreen death, Jules and Amelia Shepherd (Caterina Scorsone) were particularly overwhelmed with grief.
“I didn’t want to lose the character. It’s where the story was going,” Marinis told Variety on Thursday, touching on the will-they-won’t-they chemistry between Monica and Amelia. “Unfortunately, that relationship will not pan out, but it will have an effect on Amelia, and we will be honoring the character. Her death is not just over in episode 1. We’ll also continue to honor that character and honor that community by continuing to have those kinds of relationships depicted on the show.”
Grey’s Anatomy airs on ABC Thursdays at 10 p.m. ET.
