The season 22 premiere of Grey’s Anatomy hinted that Meredith Grey plans to stick around, but how much will the actress appear on screen?
“We’ll have both of them as much as we can. I think it’s mainly about scheduling,” showrunner Meg Marinis told Deadline in an interview published after the Thursday, October 9, episode, acknowledging that Scott Speedman recently booked the RJ Decker pilot. “It depends on where Scott’s show takes place and where he’s filming it. I think we’re lucky that it’s with the same studio, and so we’ll be able to collaborate more easily than with other places.”
Ellen Pompeo has starred as Meredith Grey since the first season of the ABC medical drama premiered in 2005. Her character is now in a relationship with Speedman’s Nick Marsh, and they live in Boston with Meredith’s three children.
Pompeo, 55, appeared solo in Thursday’s season premiere, working with resident Simone Griffith (Alexis Floyd) and the new class of interns (including Trevor Jackson and Jade Pettyjohn) in the aftermath of a devastating explosion. At the end of the episode, Meredith and mentor Richard Webber (James Pickens Jr.) surveyed the damage from the blast, hinting at potential plans to “rebuild” Grey Sloan Memorial.
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“Meredith is not in every episode. We have her a lot in the beginning of the season, the character will be in Seattle for the beginning of the season,” Marinis told the outlet of Pompeo’s onscreen appearances. “But we will still pick up her research, that won’t go away, because that is a very important piece of her character in her life right now. So that will still come into play.”
Pompeo had stepped back from her duties as a series regular in 2022 in order to tackle other projects without fully leaving the hallowed halls of GSM. Meredith has made frequent cameos in the seasons since and Pompeo, an executive producer on the show, also provides voiceover narration for each episode.
As Meredith moved from Seattle to Boston, she started a new research project with sister-in-law Amelia Shepherd (Caterina Scorsone) in an attempt to cure Alzheimer’s disease. In addition to her work, Meredith has also been in a happy relationship with trauma surgeon Nick.
“We’re definitely still going to see [Nick] this season,” Marinis teased to the outlet on Thursday. “We see him pretty soon, early in the season.”
According to Marinis, other former Grey’s stars will also make appearances in season 22 like Kelly McCreary, who played Maggie Pierce. McCreary, 44, left the show in 2023 and was briefly spotted in the trailer for next week’s episode.
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In the teaser footage, Maggie arrived from Chicago to help Meredith support Amelia after — spoiler alert! — colleague Monica Beltran (Natalie Morales) died in the explosion and Atticus Lincoln (Chris Carmack) suffered severe injuries. (Amelia and Link, who is married to Camilla Luddington’s Jo, share a son.)
“Can you just give up on me?” Amelia asked her sisters, to which Meredith said, “That’s not what we do.”
Marinis further told Deadline that Amelia and the rest of the GSM team will be grappling with Monica’s death for most of the upcoming season.
Grey’s Anatomy airs on ABC Thursdays at 10 p.m. ET.
