In the Season 20 preview for Deadline, new Gray’s Anatomy Showrunner Meg Marinis called it “back to basics,” and the season premiere, which she wrote, demonstrated just that. In return to Gray In the early years, the episode ended with Billy taking back charge of the surgical trainees.
The opening match began with the interns facing off to music after getting themselves in trouble for questionable medical decisions in the Season 19 finale and Nick asking them a question: “Which one of you would I fire?”
Banned from performing any doctor duties, the group finds themselves in the middle of the action anyway. Simon and Lucas end up in the back of an ambulance trying to stabilize a patient with Billy and Meredith’s guidance while their parked car is hit by a wayward self-driving car every two minutes. (It is unclear why the ambulance was not moved away from the crashed car.) Cowan also participated in the event, saving the day by stopping the car when it slashed its tires.
In an attempt to save Teddy’s life, Owen makes the difficult decision to agree to a risky surgery and then holds his ex-wife Amelia’s hand while awaiting the result. After complications occur, Teddy is out of danger, and faces a long recovery.
While Katherine promises that she will return to the traditional approach to Alzheimer’s research to maintain its funding, Meredith secretly enlists Amelia to help her pursue the controversial new path she has been exploring.
Joe and Link feel guilty over the death of their patient Sam as they prepare to go public with their relationship, while Meredith and Nick’s relationship stays on track after their eventual reconciliation. Meanwhile, Richard tells Billy to step back so he can trust himself again when he rejoins AA after finally almost relapsing.
In an interview with Deadline, Marinis discusses the events in the premiere and how they will shape the characters’ arcs. For more information on Season 20, including the status of Ellen Pompeo, the return of Jessica Capshaw and Alex Lundi, the new character played by Natalie Morales and why Scott Speedman’s hair looks so different from last season’s finale, read Deadline’s preview.
Delivery time: Let’s start with Meredith. After her elevator conversation where Katherine says “I always win,” it appears she’s heading back to Boston. Is she and how will she reconcile official and confidential research?
Marines: Meredith, even though she’s still in Seattle at the end of the episode, will continue to do her job in Boston because that’s where her daughter goes to school, and her daughter was the main reason she moved to Boston. She’s still trying to manage work and family life. But undercover research is fun, and to be able to do it with her sister Amelia and keep that relationship alive as well, when we can’t see Meredith but we see Amelia. This is how we keep Meredith’s character alive, being able to know what she’s doing even when we don’t see her. And anything where Debbie Allen (who plays Katherine) is set to play the villain is great.
ABC/Anne Marie Fox
Delivery time: Scott Speedman’s Nick began the episode firmly in charge of the training program but ended it by stepping down. What is the future of his character who is not a regular series? Will we see him again this season?
Marines: Yes, he’s listed as a guest star. We’re so excited for Meredith and Nick to be together and for us to see him again. We will continue that relationship.
Delivery time: In another development, Nick has been replaced by Billy. This is your first season as showrunner, and one of the first major creative decisions you made was to reset season one and go back almost to season one with a bunch of interns and Billy in charge. What is the motivation behind this decision?
Marines: This decision came when I was initially thinking about Billie, about where Billie would go with her career after winning the Katherine Fox Award; In our world, this is the prize of all prizes. We saw Meredith win it and go through a career transition after winning it.
Although the work she was doing was in the field of reproductive care, the award was for teaching reproductive care. Billy is the teacher of all teachers. It has created surgeons like Meredith Gray, Cristina Young, Alex Karev, and Izzy and George. She doesn’t get the credit she deserves for all the teaching and mentoring she did, which sent all these surgeons to do amazing things.
I was also thinking about where we left the interns at the end of last season, a mess. So I thought, who’s going to bring them back from that, and I thought, oh, there’s only one person who can bring them back from that, and that’s Billy.
ABC/Anne Marie Fox
Delivery time: In the premiere, the trainees all suffer the repercussions of the finale. At the end of last season, their romance was forming very quickly but they all seemed to be pressing pause on that in the premiere. Are you resetting that as well, and trying to undo those relationships?
Marines: I think when you go through something like what happened at the end of last season, it’s hard to come back from that. I believe that of all five of these interns, Gray Sloan was the only program that took them in, and none of them wanted to ruin this last chance to become a surgical intern. And I think when that is compromised, you start to look around and think, how did I get here and who put me here and is this my fault or their fault? I think there are a lot of questions about who was at fault for what happened at the end of the final.
Delivery time: There was also an uncanny similarity to what happened with Levi who had also lost a patient in a similar situation, putting him into a deep depression. With Lucas, he seemed to come out of it a little easier. Is the worst over for him, and will Levi and Simon help him cope with the loss of a patient?
Marines: You’ll be seeing Levi with these trainees a lot this season, using, from what you said, his past experiences to help guide them. I also think there was a difference from what happened with Levi. These interns had only been interns for five or six months, we were still in the middle of their training year, and he was a senior resident and blatantly did not listen to anything. So I think there are differences, but this story didn’t end with the first show.
ABC/Anne Marie Fox
Delivery time: There was that moment between Owen and Amelia while Teddy was in the operating room where they were holding hands. Owen was completely committed to his wife but that’s what it is grey’s anatomy, They are exes, so you never know. Are they in the friend zone or could something else be going on?
Marines: Yes, they are in the friend zone. But it’s a friendship that we find really interesting in the writers’ room, because they’re married. They’ve been through a lot together, and I think they feel comfortable with each other in that space. I think they also went through a lot with his relationship with Teddy.
Delivery time: As for Teddi, is the worst over, will we see her back and will her recovery be part of this season?
Marines: Yes, her recovery will definitely be part of her season arc. She didn’t quite come back right after the premiere.
Delivery time: For me, the first show was about guilt. The interns felt it because they lost a patient, Joe felt it because he wasn’t there to help, and Richard felt it because he almost gave in to temptation. Talk about it.
Marines: Absolutely. I think when things like this happen, you immediately go into this space of, how could I have prevented it and could have prevented it. It feels like we’re dealing with immediate guilt right now, but as we move forward, we’re going to see that a lot of our personalities are going to be reset in order to start from the beginning and make sure they don’t forget what they just went through or didn’t learn from, if that makes sense.
It’s interesting because a lot of what happened at the end of last year is still continuing throughout this season. We really don’t forget that. Everything is still weighing on everyone and how can they really move forward and not make the same mistakes again.
Delivery time: You mentioned Link and Joe who are preparing to go public with their relationship. Will there be bumps in the road for them? There are a lot of entanglements for each of them with the doctors at the hospital.
Marines: Absolutely. I feel like they’ve been together for two seasons, so I feel like it’s so deserving to see them happy for a second. I think that, like any relationship you’re in and you’re a parent and you have a romantic relationship and you work together, there’s always going to be challenges. We will just have to be able to watch, wait and see. Can they leave those challenges at work or take them home with them?
ABC/Anne Marie Fox
Delivery time: Eventually, Richard returned to Alcoholics Anonymous and told Billy he was going back to the hospital. How much will we see him suffer this season, and how much will Richard step back from his daily duties as he recovers?
Marines: I think the best way to express this is that he will simplify his duties at work and make sure that he focuses on his wellness at the same time. He will remain in the hospital but tells Billy at the end of the episode that he wants to be able to trust himself again. And so he needs to go back, make sure he trusts himself, make sure his mind is clear so he doesn’t slip either in his sobriety or at work.
Delivery time: Artificial intelligence is a big topic these days. You had a broken down self-driving car at the premiere. Why did you decide to engage with AI and will you do more about it? Gray?
Marines: Artificial intelligence for me, I think a lot of people don’t understand it, and I think it’s moving too fast. So I was interested to see that and also, you read about technology that’s not ready that’s being released, and I’m always interested in that.
And also, I think being a doctor where you’re a professional and you keep your emotions inside you when you’re dealing with a patient, but you also have to manage the compassionate side of being a human being. I think there’s a lot of interesting things for people in healthcare where all day long they have to take care of other people, and then at home it’s just a flood of emotions.
Honoring doctors is a big part of why I love this job, I think they have the hardest job in the world, and I think it’s getting harder. So that part of it was also interesting to me, when you use emotions to make decisions, and what the ramifications of that are. Because obviously Simon and Lucas had it, Blue had it with Maxine. It runs throughout the episode as well.
Delivery time: What is the overall theme of Season 20?
Marines: The theme of the season is back to basics. You see a lot of people getting busted at the premiere, and Billy won’t go easy on these trainees. It will be really fun to watch her put them through their paces.