Grey’s Anatomy Boss on What Would’ve Happened in the Original (and Now Scrapped) Season 16 Finale

Grey’s Anatomy boss Krista Vernoff is not revealing what would’ve happened in the ABC drama’s original, now-jettisoned-due-to-COVID-19 Season 16 finale, but clues — if not outright spoilers — are about to leak. And you’ll never guess where. (Or maybe you will!)

As Vernoff tells TVLine, hints about the ill-fated Grey’s finale will be embedded in this season’s final two episodes of companion series Station 19, set to air in early May. Unlike Grey’s, which shut down production with four episodes left to shoot, Station 19 was able to complete its current season before the coronavirus pandemic brought scripted television to a standstill.

“Ironically, when fans watch Episode 15 and 16 of Station 19, they will probably have a feeling of some of what we had planned for [the original Grey’s finale],” says Vernoff, who runs both shows. In an effort to minimize the spoilage, and also protect those Grey’s storylines that will be folded into Season 17, Vernoff adds that she edited a little bit of the Grey’s content out of Station 19.

“This is the strangest thing any of us have ever experienced in our lifetimes,” she says of the COVID-19 crisis. “And, creatively, it is presenting unique challenges, for sure.”

Luckily, the cliffhanger-rich Episode 21 — aka the makeshift finale that aired Thursday night (read recap) and the last installment that the show was able to shoot before the work stoppage — functioned well as a season-ender. “From the minute we read the script for 21,” Vernoff notes, “it — coincidentally — felt like a season finale.”