{"id":474177,"date":"2026-05-08T04:13:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T04:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/474177\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T04:13:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T04:13:11","slug":"greys-anatomy-season-finale-how-teddy-and-owen-leave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/474177\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Season Finale: How Teddy and Owen Leave"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSPOILER ALERT: <\/strong>This interview contains major spoilers from \u201cBridge Over Troubled Water,\u201d the Season 22 finale of ABC\u2019s \u201cGrey\u2019s Anatomy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDoctors Owen Hunt (Kevin McKidd) and Teddy Altman (Kim Raver) have finally clocked out of Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the Season 22 finale of the ABC medical drama, Owen survives a bridge collapse on his way to work and, true to form, springs into action to save all four members of a family who were also caught in the wreckage. After being unable to reach Owen, who was unable to find a cell connection, Teddy begins to fear the worst, especially when the fire department found his truck abandoned in the water under the bridge.<\/p>\n

\n\tConfiding in Richard (James Pickens Jr.), Teddy laments that her final conversation with Owen may have been a disagreement over whether she should take a new job offer in Paris. But while overseeing Blue\u2019s (Harry Shum Jr.) care of a patient in the ER, Teddy notices that a key chain matching Owen\u2019s own was used to perform a cricothyrotomy in the field, giving her a glimmer of hope that Owen had made it out alive. After operating on that patient with Kwan, Teddy walks into the OR next door and finds Owen working to save the father of the family he was treating.<\/p>\n

\n\tOnce they save him, Teddy tells Owen in the scrub room that she will turn down the job because he is \u201cthe only thing that makes me feel like home.\u201d Owen tells her that she will take the job \u2014 because he and their kids will move to Paris for her. \u201cWe wanted to tell this story that beautifully answered what Teddy had done at the end of last season [by choosing herself],\u201d showrunner Meg Marinis<\/a> tells Variety. \u201cShe was presented with an opportunity, and for once, Owen follows Teddy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDisney<\/p>\n

\n\tThe finale \u2014 helmed by McKidd, who holds the record for directing most \u201cGrey\u2019s\u201d episodes, at 49 \u2014 is filled with \u201ca lot of Easter eggs\u201d that \u201cmaybe only the most diehard Teddy\/Owen fans will catch,\u201d Marinis adds. \u201cWe really studied how each of their characters came onto the show, and what they came onto the show searching for, and we gave them the best ending that we could at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOwen was introduced in Season 5 as a rogue Army trauma surgeon who was honorably discharged following the death of his entire platoon. The following season, Owen enlisted his close friend Teddy, a cardiothoracic surgeon, to act as the new mentor of his love interest, Cristina Yang (Sandra Oh). This led to the first of multiple love triangles involving Owen and Teddy, with Owen marrying Cristina in Season 7 and Teddy departing at the end of Season 8 following the tragic death of her husband Henry (Scott Foley).<\/p>\n

\n\tShortly after Teddy returned in Season 14, she became pregnant with Owen\u2019s child amid his separation from his second wife, Amelia Shepherd (Caterina Scorsone). Since then, Teddy and Owen found themselves in another love triangle with Tom Koracick (Greg Germann), got married and became parents to two children, and then grew apart after a failed attempt at an open marriage. But now, they will ride off into the sunset together. (For an interview with Kevin McKidd and Kim Raver, read this<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a wide-ranging chat, Marinis opens up below about the \u201cpainful\u201d experience of saying goodbye to two characters who remain inextricably linked with the \u201cGrey\u2019s\u201d legacy. She also unpacks protagonist Meredith Grey\u2019s (Ellen Pompeo) surprising admission after nearly losing her partner Nick Marsh (Scott Speedman) in the same bridge collapse, and teases what to expect from the 23rd season. Despite reports that the show\u2019s renewal in March will come with a significant budget cut or a reduced order, Marinis says that the exact number of episodes next season is still being worked out.<\/p>\n

\n\tCan you walk me through your decision to write off Teddy and Owen this season?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tIt was a super painful decision, from the bottom of my heart. I\u2019m very close to both of those characters and those actors. Kevin has directed double digits of episodes that I\u2019ve written. So it was a very difficult episode to write, and it surprised me how difficult it was to even watch. But when we were faced with needing to exit [someone], it made the most sense for where their characters were in their lives. It felt like it was time. After the ups and downs of their relationship this season, I knew I wanted them to exit together. I thought they finally deserved to be happy, and it became clear to me that maybe they can\u2019t be happy in Seattle \u2014 and that\u2019s where the decision was made.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen did you make that decision?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tShortly after the new year. It\u2019s no secret what\u2019s happening with network shows, and we\u2019re not an exception, unfortunately.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Disney\/Anne Marie Fox<\/p>\n

\n\tYou have found some creative ways to keep \u201cGrey\u2019s\u201d on the air for the last few years while facing the financial realities of the TV business \u2014 like not using every series regular in every episode \u2014 but it sounds like you reached a point where you had to let someone go.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tObviously, even though we do go through all of these budget conversations, we try to let the creative dictate the story. Some of our characters, even if they aren\u2019t still married, have children together, so it\u2019s very tricky how to exit characters and what the impact is going to be to the other. It is pretty tough to maintain a large ensemble, especially for 22 years, in today\u2019s financial climate in the industry. If it were up to me solely, I wouldn\u2019t be writing anybody off ever, but I have to see where the story goes and follow the story. Again, I can\u2019t express how these have been some painful few months for the \u201cGrey\u2019s\u201d family.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou once revealed that you, Kim and Kevin have a table at Joe\u2019s Bar where you have story conversations while filming \u201cGrey\u2019s.\u201d Was that also the case with their exits? Did you speak with them together?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tThose conversations were all had separately. I didn\u2019t want to have those as a group of three. It was important to me that the characters were also seen as separate characters, with their individual contributions to the show, and we all have separate relationships with each other. So those initial conversations were had between Kevin, [creator] Shonda [Rhimes] and I, and then Kim, Shonda and I. They were difficult conversations from the very beginning, because all of us love the characters so much, and it\u2019s been such a long journey and it\u2019s hard to say goodbye. But the nice thing on this show is that we always have room for people to come back and visit.<\/p>\n

\n\tHow involved was Shonda in their departures?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tI pitched her the storylines of how to do it. Anything that is big, I pitch it to her first. It\u2019s her show. She deserves to know big moves like that. But she was involved in those initial conversations with Kim and Kevin.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou mentioned that you and your writers thought about what Owen and Teddy were each searching for when they arrived at this hospital. What <\/strong>were<\/strong> they searching for?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tI think that Owen was searching for a home. After he lost his entire squad in war and he had that PTSD of what it is like to be the sole survivor, he came to Seattle looking for connection and for a home. He found that through Grey Sloan and the people that work there.<\/p>\n

\n\tTeddy came to Seattle for Owen. He called her, and she thought she was coming to be with him and it was a surprise that he was with Cristina. In that first episode, she says, \u201cOh, I misread this.\u201d So when she says that in the scrub room, that\u2019s a callback. Owen quickly corrects her in this finale and says, \u201cNo, no, no, I\u2019m coming with you.\u201d So there are little things like that that we snuck in there and that Kevin was fully aware of as the director. There\u2019s even some musical cues in there that, again, unless you\u2019re a diehard Teddy\/Owen fan, you might not catch. But for those of us who work on the show and love those characters, it was very meaningful to us.<\/p>\n

\n\tFor two characters who spent so much of their lives at this hospital, Teddy and Owen leave Grey Sloan pretty abruptly. Did you ever write any scenes of them saying goodbye to colleagues?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tWell, they don\u2019t make their decision until very late in the episode. I wanted to celebrate them, and sometimes when you have a bunch of goodbyes, it also becomes about the other characters and it feels like you\u2019re not really concentrating on the character that you\u2019re trying to write the exit for. Even though they were leaving together, I really wanted to celebrate the two of them individually, so it was very important to me also to show their [montages] separately.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Disney<\/p>\n

\n\tI was personally surprised to hear how open Meredith is to the idea of getting married again, especially since Derek (Patrick Dempsey) was the first true love of her life. How did she reach the conclusion that she was actually willing to take that next step with Nick, whom she even calls her husband in the ER?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tThis was something that we planned out from the beginning of the season. I told Ellen that I wanted to end with a proposal. She wanted to see how it played out, but in that middle episode in the season this year when his sister came to visit, we learned more about Nick \u2014 and so did Meredith. Meredith learned that he had had this dream of having this marriage and this happy home life, and it got taken away from him.<\/p>\n

\n\tObviously, she\u2019s always had a complicated relationship with marriage, even with Derek. She didn\u2019t want to get married in the traditional sense. And after losing her husband in such a horrific way, she was like, \u201cNo way am I going to go through that again.\u201d And when it almost happens again, she realizes, \u201cOh, it doesn\u2019t matter if we\u2019re married or not. It still hurts. So why not do this thing that I know that he wants?\u201d He\u2019s done so much for her. He\u2019s moved multiple times. When she makes these big career decisions, he is still by her side. This is her trying to show him the love is the same from her. She loves him; she doesn\u2019t want to live without him. She doesn\u2019t have to get married and he won\u2019t make her get married. But she\u2019s going to, because why not give it to him if it doesn\u2019t make a difference based on what she just went through?<\/p>\n

\n\tWill Meredith and Nick\u2019s wedding happen on screen next season, or are they going to elope between seasons?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tI don\u2019t know, because I don\u2019t know if he\u2019ll be \u201cRJ Decker\u201d again or not. [The fate of Speedman\u2019s ABC P.I. drama has not yet been announced.] But I don\u2019t think Meredith is a big traditional wedding girl. She kind of said as much, but we\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n

\n\tWill Ellen\u2019s involvement with the show remain the same next season?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tWe still haven\u2019t quite figured that out yet, but ideally, yes.<\/p>\n

\n\tJo (Camilla Luddington) admits to Link (Chris Carmack) that she did not take the OB exam she was studying for, and she confides in him that she doesn\u2019t know if she wants to be an OB or even a doctor anymore. What exactly is going through her head at this point for her to reach that conclusion?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tShe\u2019s going through a little bit of a postpartum emotional journey based on what she went through midseason. There\u2019s so many characters on this show who have gone through health scares that pretty quickly recover, and two episodes later, they\u2019re back to normal. That is not the case with women who have difficult deliveries and almost lose their lives and their babies\u2019 lives. I didn\u2019t want to just brush everything under the rug. I thought that was a disservice to the reality.<\/p>\n

\n\tWe have a maternal mortality crisis in our country right now. Everyone thinks it\u2019s a happy ending when the mother and the baby survive, but it\u2019s much more complicated than that, and we really wanted to tell that story. We\u2019ve gotten so much feedback on how powerful women find this story and that they\u2019re seeing their own stories in Jo. The difference for Jo \u2014 the reason that it\u2019s related and mixed in with her career \u2014 is because her actual career is her trigger right now. She\u2019s having to watch women go through this over and over again before her eyes as their doctor. It\u2019s [about] whether or not she can get the help that she needs to be able to return to that \u2014 or is it better not to return to it? That\u2019s what she\u2019s looking at right now.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Disney\/Anne Marie Fox<\/p>\n

\n\tLink will support whatever decision Jo makes, but he is also not-so-secretly taking pills to treat the shoulder injury that he suffered in last season\u2019s hospital explosion. Does Link have a pill-popping problem now? Are you going to be exploring addiction through him next season?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tWe will in a more nuanced way than the stereotypical thing of seeing someone popping pills every five minutes. What he\u2019s grappling with right now is \u2014 Link is a traditional guy, in that he doesn\u2019t want to show any weakness and he wants to take care of his wife and children. He sees that she\u2019s going through this, so in his mind, it\u2019s like, \u201cI can\u2019t go through something that she\u2019s going through. I got to be there for her. I got to take care of her.\u201d He\u2019s going to have to figure out: Is he going to tell her, or is he going to power through? There might be a little bit of powering through before he says something to her, so we\u2019ll have to see where that takes him.<\/p>\n

\n\tBlue is officially fired for injecting a patient with an unapproved drug, and in a devastating twist, he is humiliated by and forced to give his badge back to Richard in front of Catherine (Debbie Allen). Is this the last we have seen of Blue?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tWe will have to see, but I am glad that it was devastating because that was the intent. We\u2019ve always seen Richard soften, but we wanted to show a different story this time. If you look at Catherine\u2019s face, she has this face of, \u201cWas that the right decision that Richard just made?\u201d So we\u2019ll definitely pick that up when we return.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Disney\/Anne Marie Fox<\/p>\n

\n\tWhy was Richard harder on Blue here? Bailey (Chandra Wilson) injected a patient with an unapproved drug over a decade ago, and Richard was more forgiving.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tRichard\u2019s lost the residency program before, and that is not that far back into the past. We don\u2019t really talk about this so much on the show, but this residency program has essentially just gotten back on its feet with the class of Simone [Alexis Floyd], Lucas [Niko Terho], Blue and everyone. So he\u2019s trying to protect the residency program \u2014 that\u2019s where it\u2019s coming from. It comes out much sterner, but we\u2019ll get more into that when we return.<\/p>\n

\n\tBailey will likely fight for Blue\u2019s reinstatement, but for now, she has just made the decision to pursue a masters in public health. Why was that the next step you wanted to take in her evolution?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tI was interested in what it would look like if Bailey \u2014 the teacher of all teachers \u2014 became a student again. I also think that it\u2019s nice to see her take a little page out of Ben\u2019s [Jason George] book that you can do things at any point in your career. It\u2019s OK to want more. So it\u2019s nice to see those roles reversed, and we\u2019re just going to have to see: Does she have the bandwidth to be the student at the same time as being the teacher, and what kind of obstacles come from that?<\/p>\n

\n\tSpeaking of Ben, he was just accepted into a new plastics fellowship with new attending Toni Wright (Jen Landon). What did you want to accomplish with his arc this season, and what does this promotion mean for him going forward?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tPutting Ben in navy scrubs was in my season pitch to Shonda and the studio\/network at the beginning of this year. It was really important to me to see that character grow and be at the level where he deserves to be, especially out of the shadow of Bailey. [I wanted] to see him really stand on his two feet as a surgeon and be looked at as someone who could potentially have a leadership role in the hospital.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn doing that, we introduced this mentor for him, and I love their dynamic. She is someone who doesn\u2019t know his history at the hospital. So it\u2019s allowing him to be free and shed all of those past mistakes or things that he\u2019s done and just concentrate on the medicine and on the patient care and really stand up for what he believes in. The moment when she tells him about the fellowship in the episode that aired last week \u2014 it\u2019s one of my favorite moments in the season. That look on his face is great! She says, \u201cWelcome to the team,\u201d and then you see him in the navy scrubs, and it\u2019s well-deserved. It was a long time coming.<\/p>\n

\n\tI love plastic surgery cases. I love that it\u2019s a specialty where we see a lot of healing and repair and transforming to feel more like the person they are on the inside. The stories can be harrowing, hopeful, devastating. We haven\u2019t done a lot of them since Jackson [Jesse Williams] was on the show, so I\u2019m really excited to show Ben in that aspect and, now that he\u2019s a fellow, to see him more on the same playing field as a lot of our attendings.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cGrey\u2019s\u201d being \u201cGrey\u2019s,\u201d you have a lot of romantic entanglements to untangle at the start of next season. Let\u2019s start with unpacking the Simone-Lucas-Wes (Trevor Jackson) love triangle.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tLast season, we left a lot of people in physical danger. This season, my goal was we would know that people were physically OK, but all of their emotional lives would be like a different kind of explosion. We saw Lucas have a lot of character growth this season in his taking care of Katie [a patient who died due to the cancellation of her clinical trial amid medical research funding cuts]. Nico had some of the best performances too, and going through that made him realize what is important in his life.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe and Simone sleeping together was a mistake. It was a drunk mistake. But over the course of the day, he\u2019s realizing, \u201cDoes it have to be? I\u2019m in a different place. She\u2019s in a different place.\u201d I don\u2019t think Simone thought it was an option. I also don\u2019t think she thought Wes being more than something casual was an option. She just thought she had an ex over here that she had drunk sex with, and someone that she is sleeping with on this [other] side. I don\u2019t think she had any idea that both of these guys were going to come to her at the end of this episode expressing that they wanted more.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou wanted to explore a different kind of subordinate-superior relationship with Winston (Anthony Hill) and Jules (Adelaide Kane), but now they have truly crossed that professional line into personal territory. They have done a decent job of hiding the fact that they\u2019re sleeping together\u2026 until the end of the finale.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tI know that some people want them to be together, some people don\u2019t want them to be together. I find that their chemistry is great. I find them so charming together. He resisted for two seasons, because he was so scared of what the power dynamic would do to their careers and each other. And finally, he decided to follow his heart. And now what he\u2019s scared of could possibly happen, because Ben definitely saw them \u2014 and Ben is definitely going to tell his wife!<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Courtesy of Disney\/Anne Marie Fox<\/p>\n

\n\tToni shows up at Amelia\u2019s (Caterina Scorsone) front door and confesses that she has fallen for her \u2014 only for Toni to realize that Amelia just hooked up with Cass (Sophia Bush). Are you trying to set up <\/strong>another<\/strong> love triangle here? Or was Amelia\u2019s hook-up with Cass more of a one-night stand?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tWe\u2019ll always have to wait and see. But, for me, Amelia truly believed that Toni was going back to her wife, and she was brokenhearted about it and trying to make herself feel better. We know Cass is in a happy marriage, but it\u2019s an open marriage. So I think that after being in Amelia\u2019s orbit today with the Meredith and Nick of it all and having a difficult day at work with the bridge collapse, [Cass] was also looking to feel a little bit better, and they went and had coffee that we didn\u2019t see, and it turned into something else. I think Toni is just devastated. We\u2019re going to have to figure out: Can Amelia dig her way out of this hole? I think she wants to be with Toni; she just thought it wasn\u2019t an option.<\/p>\n

\n\tLastly, I loved getting to see some old clips of Cristina in those final montages, because she was such a key part of Teddy and Owen\u2019s arcs back in the day. Assuming that Cristina is still in Switzerland, do you think that she would meet up with Teddy and Owen again in Europe?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tOf course! Call me to write that show! I\u2019m a diehard \u201cGrey\u2019s\u201d fan. Any kind of scene with Cristina Yang \u2014 again, I would love to. I don\u2019t know what the future holds, but the door is always open for returning characters here to come visit and have those episodes. We\u2019ve done it with others, and we\u2019ll do it again.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis interview has been edited and condensed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SPOILER ALERT: This interview contains major spoilers from \u201cBridge Over Troubled Water,\u201d the Season 22 finale of ABC\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":474178,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[265],"tags":[18,117,40211,19,17,203421,128],"class_list":{"0":"post-474177","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-greys-anatomy","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-meg-marinis","14":"tag-tv"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116537013971865294","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474177\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/474178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}