DESTROYER WARNING: Do not read if you have not watched the crossover episodes of “Station 19” (“Train in Vain”) and “Grey’s Anatomy” (“Helplessly Hoping”) on March 11 ABC.
RIP, Andrew DeLuca: Surgical attendance at Gray Sloan Memorial Hospital, former boyfriend of Meredith Gray, brother of Carina DeLuca, and, as of ABC’s crossover episodes of ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ and ‘Station 19’ Thursday night, victim by hand an accomplice in a trade ring. Yes, DeLuca (Giacomo Gianniotti) was stabbed by one of the traffickers he and Carina (Stefania Spampinato) rushed through Seattle, and although he received care in his own hospital, he died. But his efforts were not in vain, we learn: the traders are all arrested.
It was the culmination of a “Grey’s Anatomy” story cut short by the COVID-19 production strike in March. In one of the last episodes of season 16, DeLuca suspected that a patient was being traded by her so-called ‘aunt’ who brought her to the hospital, but because he was in the middle of a manic episode, no one believed him not. In the mid-season finale of ‘Grey’s’ in December, DeLuca – drug for his bipolar disorder, well-rested and clear-eyed – spotted the dealer, Opal (Stephanie Kurtzuba), and this time he did not want to let her get away.
In an interview with Gianniotti, who has been on “Grey’s” for seven seasons, he said that when he heard how his character was going to die, he wanted to make sure it was clear that DeLuca – “a very brave and noble person, ”in Gianniotti’s words – goes out as “a pillar of representation for people struggling with mental health. ”
‘“It was not that he had any medicine and unrest, and that led him to put himself in a dangerous situation.” Gianniotti said. ‘Tit was the DeLuca thing DeLuca had ever done. ”
In the episode, while DeLuca hovered between life and death, he chatted with Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) on the beach where she spent most of this season, also in a liminal state, after COVID premiered in the season has decreased. There, Meredith hung out with Derek (Patrick Dempsey), her late husband, and George (TR Knight), her late friend, along with characters who are still alive.
Of his beach scenes with Meredith, Gianniotti said: ‘You see DeLuca happier and more relaxed than you have ever seen him in the program, because all those stressors are all gone. And he is with the person he loves, who makes them even more at peace. ”
“Grey’s Anatomy” – it’s now 17de ‘s season, and still the one most seen on television, is in limbo according to himself showrunner Krista Vernoff. With negotiations with Pompeo for an extension of the contract, Vernoff said Variety she has to ‘plan for both contingencies’ as she and the writers’ room portray the end of the season – or the series.
Although DeLuca is dead, Vernoff has revealed that we did not see the last of him – that’s what the beach is for. And Gianniotti, accompanied by ‘Gray’s executive director Debbie Allen, recently returned to direct an episode that airs in the spring. He will miss the fans, Gianniotti said: ‘I have never seen a show so beloved. To feel that love and felt that love during the seven seasons was truly remarkable. ”
As Vernoff said, “He’s still in the family.”
In an interview, Vernoff talked about how she conceived of DeLuca’s death, the problems of not knowing if the program would end, and how shooting during COVID ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ changed.
And what happens in God’s name on the beach!?!
You killed DeLuca.
I’m the worst.
How did this story originate?
Honestly, the story told itself to me. I went for a walk on the beach to come up with my standouts, and these episodes came like a face in a whole canvas. And I was like, ‘Oh, no! Really, is that the story? And it was. We knew when I posted it that it was the middle story final story.
Sometimes stories tell themselves to you, and just break your heart. You’re like, ‘This is not what I want the end of the story to be!’ But that’s so much of life this year.
Giacomo Gianniotti as Andrew DeLuca.
ABC
Can you talk about killing a main character this season and about the cause of death not BE GENDER?
It was born, I know for sure, of my psyche struggling with all the ongoing tragedies and traumas in the world that do not stop because of COVID. There is this feeling of injustice, like, no, COVID is enough. But sometimes you go through everything at once.
Can you talk about putting DeLuca on the beach with Meredith, and the greater significance of the beach this year as a storytelling device?
The beach was born out of the desire to escape the pandemic.
We almost everyone else came back. And the actors were scared, and no one really knew for sure that all the safety protocols would work. Doing the pandemic feels creative like the right thing to do, but it also feels like the thing that will make the actors feel safe to get back to work because they will all be able to be in masks. And if they were not, they would be outside. And once the decision was made to do COVID, and when the decision was made to give Meredith COVID, it felt like a way to get Meredith outside without a mask, and into a non-pandemic world.
If you’re a magical thinker like me, the beach is a great place in between. But if you are not, if you are not a believer in magical things – if you are an atheist, a scientist, and whatever, my stepsons do not believe in a magical place – we have it very much carefully designed so that it too can be just a dream. So when someone is on the beach with Meredith, they’re in her room too, so she can hear their voice from her hospital bed.
When DeLuca visits her on the beach, it’s for me DeLuca between life and death. For my stepsons, Meredith heard in her hospital room that something had happened to DeLuca. Now she dreams of DeLuca! I really wanted the motif to work, no matter what you believe.
It just feels to me like whatever you believe, that’s right.
DeLuca has been on the program for a long time. What did you want his last episode to say about him?
I think he went out as a hero. I think he went out to fight for what he believed in. And he was through his mental health crisis. He became a very productive member of the hospital staff. And he’s not going to let this woman walk away again.
How was it when you told Giacomo Gianniotti what was going to happen to DeLuca?
He was so relieved that I did not want to kill himself or go out in a mania frenzy. And he was excited to play it. He actually appears this season in a few more episodes. And he’s directing an episode.
I’m going to assume Meredith wakes up and finds out he’s dead. Do you see the beach as a place she will have an awareness or memory of in any way?
Yes.
OK!
I do not have too much more to say about it, because I do not want to spoil too much. And also: Sometimes I change my mind. But at the moment, yes.
It’s been such a tough season for both ‘Grey’s’ and ‘Station 19’, which the world currently reflects. But I know this is not necessarily where your heart is as a storyteller. Can you talk about where you think of the sequel to ‘Grey’s Anatomy’?
If you experience a pandemic and come back in the middle of a pandemic, and you decide to do the pandemic, the nature of the storytelling becomes a little darker. And so for this moment, this is where my heart is.
And I also feel like my heart as a storyteller, my sense of light, and my sense of hope and beauty and joy that most of what I do is expressed through that beach. The joy, the shared joy for all of us to see Derek Shepherd again, to see George O’Malley again, to get out of the hospital and get on the beach and see Meredith’s relief there – I know we’re I worried about her, but there is joy too.
And in terms of whether it’s the last season of ‘Grey’s Anatomy’, I do not know. And that’s the truth. I wish I knew. This is a source of frustration at this point. And it doubles my job, my workload, because I have to plan for both contingencies. But I am. And if God wills, I will know soon.
It can not end like this! Can you reveal how many episodes will be in this season of “Grey’s Anatomy”?
17.
It is very.
It is very. Yes, it’s a lot, consider what we are navigating.
Is anyone else going to join Meredith on the beach?
Yes! But I will not tell you.
Returning members or current?
There are some surprises in the offing.
Now that you’ve shot more than half the season during COVID, can you talk about what you learned over the course of the year?
The crew is exhausted because they sit behind masks and visors all day. The masks and visors are dehydrating and astonishing, and consequently you need more breaks. You have to send everyone off stage to take off their masks and visors to hydrate. You can not ask everyone to be there 12 or 13 hours. So we shoot 10-hour days. And this is a very important change in what we can achieve and shoot.
What I have learned and still learn is how to write the program in a way that makes it producible – we can not have scenes with so many characters. And we can not have so many scenes. And we can not have so many places! Because we can not have so many company shifts. It all has to get smaller, and it changes the stories we tell. If you usually have five or six people in a scene, and now usually have two people in a scene, the whole cast is sometimes not in the episode. You’re watching an episode and you’re like, ‘Where’s Amelia?’ Well, she’s home with the kids! We did not move the company.
I think there are silver linings: deeper, longer richer scenes are sometimes really nice things. But they differ from ‘Grey’s Anatomy’.
Do you see a light at the end of the tunnel, for these fictional characters and for all of us?
Yes I do! I feel like we are all now living out the light at the end of the tunnel as our parents and grandparents are vaccinated. And as we hopefully start coming out of this year cocoon. I feel like we live in a little light, and I see a light at the end of the tunnel for these characters, whether it’s the end of the series or the end of the season.
So much is coming! I know this one is going to be devastating for the fans. And I feel it too. I cried harder to watch this episode, this track, than I have cried since I watched the episode where George O’Malley died. And it’s a very powerful tribute to the character we built and to the actor.
This interview has been edited and summarized.