Grey’s Anatomy Boss Talks Season 21 Premiere Slap

Note: This story contains spoilers from the “Grey’s Anatomy” Season 21 premiere.

“Grey’s Anatomy” left plenty of chaos to be resolved with its landmark Season 21 premiere, and promised plenty more to come.

In her second season as showrunner, Meg Marinis said the focus for the premiere was tying up loose ends and getting the train back up and running for these doctors. After Season 20 was trimmed down to 10 episodes following the writers’ and actors’ strikes, she is also relishing getting back into the regular “Grey’s” groove with an 18-episode 21st season in its new 10 p.m. Thursday timeslot.

“We’ll always be pushing our boundaries as much as we can [and] people will find us no matter where we are, and we’re still going to be the powerhouse that we are,” Marinis told TheWrap.

Thursday’s premiere, titled “If Walls Could Talk,” followed the aftermath of the ABC medical drama’s Season 20 finale, in which Dr. Catherine Fox (Debbie Allen) fired most of Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital’s beloved doctors after learning of Meredith’s (Ellen Pompeo) clandestine Alzheimer’s research and an intern uprising that got some surprise support from Dr. Miranda Bailey (Chandra Wilson).

After a dream sequence showing Bailey (some would way deservedly) slapping Catherine for her recent behavior, we learn that Bailey was indeed fired for taking a stand — with Sydney Heron (Kali Rocha, returning to the show after 17 years) coming back to take point as residency director. Bailey has been working at the clinic next door for the moment with her husband Ben (Jason George), who’s back in doctor’s scrubs after giving up firefighting following the end of “Station 19.”

Meanwhile, Meredith and Amelia (Caterina Scorsone) have been working to find more funding for their research, but keep getting roadblocked by cease and desists from Catherine. A visit from Jackson Avery (Jesse Williams), who also felt betrayed by Meredith’s secret, inspires her to visit Catherine in person to make amends. But Catherine collapses just as Meredith arrives, prompting her to go into doctor mode. The medical emergency leads to Meredith learning that Catherine’s cancer has progressed for the worst — which she has been keeping from Richard (James Pickens Jr.) and Jackson for some time now. Catherine agrees to let Meredith treat her without surgery, in exchange for her continued silence.

The deal also leads to Meredith getting Amelia, Owen (Kevin McKidd) and Teddy (Kim Raver) their jobs back, but the titular Grey and her research project will stay outside of the hospital — at least for now (Pompeo is set to appear in at least seven episodes this season).

Elsewhere, Jo (Camilla Luddington) finally told Link (Chris Carmack) about being pregnant, after Levi (Jake Borelli) almost spilled the beans several times. Blue (Harry Shum Jr.) came face to face with his ex-fiancée — who seemingly forgot about him after being involved in a car accident. Lucas (Niko Terho) opted not to move to Chicago and instead retake his intern year — after Catherine refused to change her mind on his punishment despite stellar test scores — and got back together with Simone (Alexis Floyd), as Jules (Adelaide Kane) and Mika (Midori Francis) shared a passionate kiss in the locker rooms.

Below, Marinis breaks down the premiere’s biggest moments, and hints at how the show will handle the expected exits of Borelli and Francis.

Audiences shared some frustrations with Catherine’s behavior in the finale, and even Bailey was manifesting that frustration with that slapping dream. How much of her decision-making is being driven by her health concerns?

Marinis: I feel like we all have those moments where we want to say all the things to someone. We write the speech in our head and say it in our imagination. I feel like there’s a lot of things that a lot of people would want to say to Catherine Fox. And so I thought, “Let’s just start with a jaw-dropping scene where Bailey just lets her have it.” She’s the one person that we’ve ever really seen let Catherine have it. But obviously, because Bailey is Bailey and she’s respectful of her boss, as much as she doesn’t like it, she’s not really going to say those things. So we crafted it as a dream.

I think that Debbie and Chandra were so game with the slap. Chandra was a little nervous about it, but we made it work with movie magic … the reactions on the interns’ faces kind of speak to the audience.

As for Catherine’s decision-making, I don’t feel like her illness is physically causing her to make bad decisions. But I do think that when you stare at your future through the lens of being sick with something that you know is not easily treated, you do take stock of what your mark will be.

Meredith and Catherine come to an agreement of sorts for her to get most of the doctors their jobs back, but now Meredith’s keeping Catherine’s secret from Richard and Jackson and she doesn’t come back to the foundation. Where does their relationship go from here?

Their relationship is so complicated and it’s so fun to work with that. I think Ellen and Debbie just have this ability to play off one another really well. Both Meredith and Catherine have this pride that they’re not going to give in on. Meredith is super proud and she has a lot of her mother, and she’s also a doctor and loves Richard and she knows that Richard loves Catherine.

I think she’s going to put her weapon down, frankly, because treating the patient comes first for Meredith. That’s the only thing that she’ll put her ego aside for, to help another human being and get them the treatment they need. We’re going to see a vulnerable side to Catherine this season that she only shows to a few people. We’re going to take this relationship to unexpected ways this season. It’s going to have all the intensity from last year, but with another layer, if that makes sense.

The nostalgia vibes were strong in the premiere with Sydney Heron and Jackson both coming back in this episode, and both seem to have significant roles to play moving forward. What can you tease about both their journeys this season? How much will we see them?

Jackson has always been a very prominent member of the “Grey’s” family. Not just because he’s Jackson, but obviously he’s running the Fox foundation that Meredith is revolting against. He wasn’t in Season 20 and we felt like we really owe this point of view on this battle between Meredith and Catherine, especially because in Season 19, he was the one who helped encourage Meredith to take this position there and to work on Alzheimer’s research. So he doesn’t just see this as a professional betrayal. He sees this as a personal betrayal that Meredith is no longer wanting to do this in conjunction with him. And also, it’s always just lovely to see Jackson. He has this thing that lights up the screen.

With Sydney, she has been pitched for several years now by the writers. She’s a fan-favorite in our writers’ room. I feel like people would be very surprised to know how many people are pitched back and forth. We can’t bring back old faces all the time, but this one felt really right. And it’s been 17 years. I think that’s the longest time that someone has gone from the show and come back. But it’s a delight. She came in and from the second she started speaking at the table read, I was like, “This was the best decision.”

Blue gave more details about his surprise fiancée and the pair reunited before the end episode was done, and she really wants to reconnect with him. What were you excited to explore about Blue with this storyline?

Well, we’re really excited about Dianne (Doan, who plays Molly), she’s fantastic. And they just kind of have this electricity between them that we discovered when she came in for the finale. We thought, “Oh wow, we have to pick up the story for sure.” Also, Blue is historically such a mysterious, serious character who has sometimes shown a snarky and sarcastic attitude. He looks down to the other interns, particularly Lucas, and we thought, “How amazing would it be to see his softer side and the root of some of this pain.” We’ve spoken a little bit about the death of his mother, but we’ve never spoken about his relationship history. This kind of helps explain some of the storylines that he’s had with Jules in the past, and why he may be reluctant to dive deep into a new relationship with someone.

And of course the other interns had big love moments as Jules and Mika had a passionate first kiss, and Lucas and Simone seem to be giving things another try. What can you tease about what’s ahead for those couples?

Simone and Lucas are going to give their relationship an actual shot. Anytime that they’ve gotten together in the past, it’s been ripped apart really quickly because of drama happening elsewhere on the show. But I think it’s going to be nice, he essentially is giving up a pretty big opportunity to stay in Seattle. Part of that decision-making is because of Simone and this family that he’s developed here. He still has to remediate his intern year — Catherine has not changed her mind — so obviously that will be a challenge for their relationship. But hopefully we’re going to see them give it a shot.

As for Jules and Mika, that’s a surprising attraction for both characters, and it’s very different from anything we’ve seen from either of them on the show. It’s going to be tricky, because they were friends first and it’s very tenuous at first. But Addie and Midori are amazing actors and they bring so much fun to their characters. They’re fun to watch.

Mika seems entrenched in the storyline as of now, while Levi seems to be reevaluating his future. And we know that Midori Francis and Jake Borelli will be stepping back as series regulars this season. How did that impact how you approached their stories?

I don’t want to share anything particular about their upcoming storylines for spoiler purposes, but what I can say is that these characters are rich, stellar characters, and they will not get an exit that’s not deserving of their character. We’re going to honor where they started and where they are now. Also, they’re important members of our “Grey’s” family. Once you’re family, you’re always family. We’ve seen in 21 years that people can come and go here.

Season 20 was all about going back to basics and the interns falling in love with medicine again. What is your big theme for Season 21?

My theme is resilience. We had a lot of lows at the end of Season 20, so the first half of the season is going to be about, “Can our characters come back? And if they can, how?” And then, you know, we’ll throw something else at them and you’ll see it in the second half.

How is it to get back to a full season order this year after the strike reduction?

10 was hard. I know that sounds silly because I know so many other shows do 10 as a normal season. But when you’re used to doing more and you’ve got such a large cast, it is really hard to stick with 10. I think it allowed us to do a couple of creative things last year that we typically don’t do and I’m grateful for that, but I’m so much happier.

I mean, with 18 we have so many stories that we didn’t get to tell last year that we get to tell this year. And I feel like everybody will now have much richer character arcs again, because with 10 episodes, that’s fewer episodes than series regulars on the show.

“Grey’s Anatomy” airs Thursdays at 10 p.m. ET/PT on ABC and streams the next day on Hulu.