‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Boss Breaks Down That Explosive Season 21 Finale Cliffhanger, Meredith’s Surprising Decision

Note: This story contains spoilers from “Grey’s Anatomy” Season 21, Episode 18.

“Grey’s Anatomy” ended Season 21 with a heart-stopping finale cliffhanger, leaving the fates of a good chunk of the Grey Sloan doctors hanging in the balance.

Episode 18, titled “How Do I Live,” followed the aftermath of Jo (Camilla Luddington) and Link’s (Chris Carmack) wedding. Tensions rose significantly after Jenna (Piper Perabo), the mother of a young patient of Amelia’s (Caterina Scorsone), sequestered her, Simone (Alexis Floyd) and Lucas (Niko Terho) in an OR and forced her to operate on her daughter while threatening to blow it up with a gas tank.

The hostage situation caught the attention of Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) — who was in the premises with the intention of selling off her shares of the hospital to fund her burgeoning Alzheimer’s research. In typical Meredith fashion, she ended up in the OR herself and helped diffuse the situation to get her coworkers and family to safety. On top of that, Amelia successfully operated on the child and Jenna revealed that the gas tank had been empty from the start, just as police went in to arrest her. Meredith then decided not to sell her shares, but instead return to Seattle as a general surgeon for the summer.

All seemed to be returning back to normal, until Jenna’s husband revealed the gas tank was indeed full and could still blow up any second. We last see Lucas running toward the OR floor to warn everyone, as Jules (Adelaide Kane), Monica (Natalie Morales) and Bailey (Chandra Wilson) get ready to perform surgeries. We also see Link — who had just learned Jo’s twins to come are girls — working on a surgery of his own before we find Meredith leaving the hospital, just in time for the gas tank to explode and leave a hole in the hospital for fans to think about all summer long.

“We like to throw everything at the wall and put everyone in danger. It’s really fun and torturous to the fans,” showrunner Meg Marinis told TheWrap of the cliffhanger. “There will definitely be consequences to this explosion, just to who and how will be determined when everyone tunes in [this fall.]”

Catastrophe aside, the episode also left us with plenty of romantic drama to watch unfold in Season 22. After performing medical history on Nora (Floriana Lima), Teddy (Kim Raver) decided to choose herself and leave Owen — at least for the moment. Earlier in the day, Ben (Jason George) learned Teddy was not going to recommend him to continue with the surgical program, and pulled off one more impressive save on what would have been his last day. But we last saw him running toward the building after the explosion, so who knows what his future holds next season.

For the interns-turned-residents, Jules confronted Winston (Anthony Hill) about him icing her out of his service. He admitted to having a crush on her, but she admonished him for letting that get in the way of her education (Marinis teased more of that will be explored next season). And after surviving the hostage situation, Simone and Lucas seemed determined to try their relationship again — but that was until Simone learned her hookup from the night before is one of the new class of interns (played by a charming Trevor Jackson).

Read below for more from Marinis about the eventful Season 21 finale, and what comes next. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

TheWrap: This felt like one of these huge “Grey’s” episodes where the stakes are high and people are really in danger. What inspired this tense ending for the season?

Meg Marinis: As someone who was helping run the show, it’s always a dream to come up with another one of those episodes. We’re also fans and everybody remembers those event-like episodes — the shooting, the plane crash, the bomb in the body cavity episode. We can’t do those all the time because then they wouldn’t feel as iconic and special, but to be able to say, “OK, we haven’t done it in a while, let’s do it.”

We have had this storyline of a hostage-like situation floating around the writers room for a few years now. And we decided to pair it up with the impossible cases that Amelia was taking on. And we wanted it to feel very spontaneous. This wasn’t something premeditated, because we didn’t want this woman to feel like a criminal. She’s doing something terrible, but we wanted it to come out of all of her emotion and her devastation and worry for her dying little girl.

Piper’s performance was amazing in this episode. Our goal was that we should feel sick when the police come in to arrest her. You’re so happy that the little girl might be OK, and you’re so happy that our doctors are OK. But I wanted it to feel heartbreaking to see that woman get handcuffed. She is a villain, but there’s a very complicated emotional dynamic going on there.

I also didn’t want to have a gun. It felt too similar to the shooting episode. And also, I just don’t love seeing it on TV in a type of show where you don’t see it all the time.

Will everyone come out alive from this cliffhanger?

We don’t know, and when I say, “We don’t know.” I mean y’all don’t know.

Obviously, [the gas tank] didn’t take the whole hospital down. But it did blow a hole on the side of the hospital. It was a big explosion … there will definitely be consequences to this explosion, just to who and how will be determined when everyone tunes in [this fall.]

The episode saw Meredith come back with plans to sell her shares of the hospital to fund her research. But then she decides to double down on her time at Grey Sloan after getting involved in the hostage situation. What does this mean for Ellen and Meredith for Season 22?

We’re still very invested in the storyline about her Alzheimer’s research, because it’s what’s canon to the show — the disease and her relationship with it, especially with where we took it this year with the discrepancy (in research between male and female test subjects), who gets research dollars and where it’s directed to — so we’ll continue to explore that.

But also, I was missing seeing her in the operating room and seeing her interact with patients and their family members — which specifically came out after the finale and the Lena Waithe storyline. Those interactions help inspire and motivate Meredith to keep going with her research, so we’ll continue to go into that more.

I miss seeing Mer teach, and we’ve got this great class of residents that we’re invested in, and she’s the one who chose them. So hoping to see her involved in more things like that. Then also we’ll check in on Boston a couple of times, and hopefully continue that great relationship between her and Nick as well.

Before the explosion and after making medical history, Teddy decides she’s officially done with Owen and seems to walk away from the marriage after a tumultuous few years. Are they officially done or will that carousel keep turning next season?

It’s hard, when you’ve got children between them, that anything is ever officially done. But I think we are interested in rediscovering who those characters are after maybe spending a little time apart.

What we saw in the finale is, there’s a lot of fear to be able to walk away from a marriage like this — they have children together, she’s his boss and that’s complicated, and they’ve been through war together. I don’t think they ever thought that they couldn’t figure out how to wade through these troubled waters. But I think when she saw that she could do the impossible with Nora’s surgery, I think she was like, “I’m going to be OK. I think I could do this too.”

So we’ll see the way that leaves them and, especially, we’ll see how the explosion changes that dynamic. There’s a lot of pain there to be explored.

Simone and Lucas end the season with a breakup and trauma, but seem to be willing to try again with their relationship. Until Simone realizes her hookup from the night before is a new intern played by Trevor Jackson. How does that set up things for next season, especially knowing Lucas was running toward the bomb?

That’s probably the first priority. That first thread that will need to be picked up is, where was Lucas when the explosion occurred?

Trevor Jackson is so great. He didn’t have that much to do in 17 and 18, but the little that he did was just perfect. That look that Simone has on her face in the locker room when she sees him walk in: priceless. And the arrogance that he responds with is even better.

He’s clearly not a scared intern. He’s coming here to play and he’s ready, I don’t think he cares at all about any drama that he’s caused. He feels like he deserves to be here and I don’t think he’s going to hide from any mess. We’ll definitely see him again.

Do you expect any more cast exits ahead Season 22?

We’re getting back into the writers room in a week, so that’s when we’re going to dive into the story. But that’s what’s so great about this show, things can always change. People go, they come back. Talk about a 22-season show. There’s a whole pool of people that can come visit, and it’s nice to bring them back for episodes, and we love who’s there every day too.

You juggled a lot of storylines this season, but it felt like everyone got their chance to shine in the OR and out. Which character are you excited to dive more into in Season 22?

I’m excited for all of them that I can’t pick one of my characters, they’re all great. I think it’s just going to really depend on what happens with this explosion, and who was directly and physically impacted. I’m also interested in the fact there’s a big hole in the hospital, and it clearly came from the OR floor. Surgery is such a huge part of our every day here at this hospital, so I’m interested in seeing the effect of that. How the hospital continues to function with a hole in it.

Will we return to the immediate aftermath of the finale or will there be a time jump?

We’re still in talks. However we do it, we’ll be able to see what happened in the immediate aftermath.

“Grey’s Anatomy” will return for Season 22 this fall on ABC.

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