A long-running TV drama rarely gives its audience a quiet season finale, and the latest first-look images of Grey’s Anatomy‘s Season 22 capper suggest there’s another brutal night ahead for Meredith and her fellow doctors. The newly released stills tease a large-scale emergency, a hospital in crisis, and the emotional fallout that could hit some of our faves particularly hard.
The finale is set to air on Thursday, May 7, and the episode centers on a massive bridge collapse that sends a wave of critically injured patients to Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital, forcing the staff into full-on disaster-response mode. The victims won’t all be strangers, either. The official logline says that doctors will be racing to save “one of their own,” while teaser footage shows Owen Hunt (Kevin McKidd) unconscious inside a cat that’s rapidly filling with water. This is a show that’s never been shy about putting its doctors through extreme situations, but that’s still a particularly grim image to give fans just days before the finale airs. You can check out the Grey’s Anatomy Season 22 finale first look photos below:
These new photos lean heavily into the potential emotions in the finale, with Teddy Altman (Kim Raver) appearing devastated and Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) looking shaken. The character has been absent for much of the season, spending much of this era of the show off-screen in Boston, so Meredith’s presence alone suggests that this may be more than a routine disaster episode. When Grey’s brings its namesake back into the center of the chaos, it usually means something major is due to happen.
It’s hard to ignore what we know about cast departures, either, and the season 22 finale is set to be the final episode for veterans Kim Raver and Kevin McKidd as series regulars. Even if the show isn’t setting them up for tragedy, someone clearly wants fans to feel the weight of their possible ending.
This finale arrives after a season that’s been filled with instability. Teddy and Owen’s marriage has been unraveling, Richard Webber was diagnosed with cancer in the midseason finale, and Benson “Blue” Kwan was abruptly fired ahead of the finale. Jo Wilson is also being teased as being at a life-altering crossroads, and Nick Marsh may be yet another victim of the bridge collapse.
There’s reason to hope if any of your favorite characters are in peril, though, as showrunner Meg Marinis has teased a bittersweet but fitting ending for Owen and Teddy, suggesting a farewell that may not be entirely tragic. That’s good for long-time fans, who have been following their story since Season 5 and Season 6, respectively. Together, it’s a love story fans have been following for 17 years.
Grey’s Anatomy has already been renewed by ABC for Season 23, so “Bridge Over Troubled Water” isn’t the end for the series itself. It does, however, look like the kind of finale that will reset the board for some of the show’s most enduring characters.
- Release Date
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March 27, 2005
- Network
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ABC
- Directors
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Rob Corn, Kevin McKidd, Debbie Allen, Chandra Wilson, Allison Liddi-Brown, Jeannot Szwarc, Tony Phelan
- Writers
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Shonda Rhimes, Julie Wong, Jen Klein, Tameson Duffy, Meg Marinis
