Grey's Anatomy will be celebrating when it returns on March 14 in the United States: it will be its 20th uninterrupted season in primetime, a huge achievement for a medical drama that, despite having its patients of the week, is also a romantic soap opera. And how do you plan to celebrate it? With the return of a veteran doctor who has not walked (or skated) through the hallways of Gray Sloan Memorial Hospital for six years.
We are referring to Jessica Capshaw, who played pediatric surgeon Arizona Robbins in 224 episodes of Grey's Anatomy, between 2009 and 2018. During that time, she fell in love and started a family with Callie Torres (Sara Ramírez), in what was considered a lesbian wedding that helped normalize sexual diversity, and her leg had to be amputated after crashing into a plane along with other hospital medical staff.
According to TVLine, Capshaw will not be joining the cast as a regular character again but will be a guest actress in the upcoming season, which will only have 10 episodes due to the writers' and actors' strike that delayed both the writers' room and the actors' strike. the start of the recordings.
It is not an exceptional situation. You just have to see that in the last two seasons, for example, Kate Walsh became a recurring guest actress in the last two seasons broadcast as Dr. Addison Montgomery: she was in three episodes of season 18 and 5 of season 19, participations that arrived after spending a decade without making an appearance.
Capshaw won't be the only familiar face returning: Alex Landi, better known as trauma doctor Nico Kim, will also participate in the new season. Let us remember that, in his case, he joined at the beginning of season 15 in 2018 and, over time, became the partner of Levi Schmitt (Jake Borelli), saying goodbye to the series in 2022 during season 18.
If there is one thing that can be confirmed, it is that, for now, this season 20 will not come with the idea of serving as a farewell. In a television where the rising costs of veteran productions mean the cancellation of many of them (remember the recent cases of the Anatomy spin-off, Station 19, or Young Sheldon, Blue bloods or The good doctor), the series created by Shonda Rhimes remains a stronghold for Disney.
The president of Disney Television Group, Craig Erwich, explained to the press that Grey's Anatomy is "creatively strong" and that it is both an important asset for the ABC channel's live audience in the US and for the streaming platform. Hulu, where it contributes to growth, just as they hope it will generate many hours of viewing when the 20 seasons soon arrive at Disney.
The trailer for season 20 makes it clear what the current creative direction of the series is: giving more prominence to the new residents of Gray Sloan Memorial, who contribute to rejuvenate both the cast, the audience and the plots, and who form Niko Terho, Adelaide Kane, Midori Francis, Harry Shum Jr, and Alexis Floyd. At the same time, a sector of veterans such as Jo Wilson (Camilla Luddington), Miranda Bailey (Chandra Wilson), Richard Webber (James Pickens Jr), Owen Hunt (Kevin McKidd) and Teddy Altman (Kim Raver) keep the public wearing two decades pending the messes in the operating rooms and serve as mentors to the new generations.
Ellen Pompeo, furthermore, has not completely emancipated herself from the series: Meredith Gray is expected to be present in four episodes of the next season after abandoning her leading role during season 19. In the new chapters, it will be the first time she works with writer and executive producer Meg Marinis as showrunner, as Marinis replaces Krista Vernoff in the series' top creative position.
Marinis is not exactly a newcomer: she joined the series in 2006 on the production team and has been working in the writers' room since 2010, signing her first episode during the sixth season, when Mark Sloan's daughter was in labor in Hook , line and sinner.
At the moment, we already have a trailer for season 20 and it promises a possible relapse of Weber and also an atmosphere of tension between the residents, as problematic as the batch of Grey, Stevens, Yang, Karev and O'Malley:
