Times Are A Changin'

EW's Michael Ausiello talks to Grey's Anatomy creator, Shonda Rhimes, about the new season and how T.R. Knight leaving the show and Ellen Pompeo going on maternety leave, will affect things.

Question: Hey, do you have any Grey's Anatomy news that doesn't involve George or Izzie? --Salma

Ausiello: Yes -- the entire cast will be following T.R. Knight out the door. At least series creator Shonda Rhimes is braced for them to. Eventually. She got to thinking about it both because of Knight's exit and Ellen Pompeo's impending maternity leave.

“It's going to be tricky,” Rhimes acknowledges. “Ellen is incredibly optimistic and somehow thinks she'll be back and ready to rock 'n' roll. [But] I have a child, so I know that that's not true. [So] we have a lovely story [on deck] that will take us into her maternity leave. And we have plans for some really interesting stand-alone episodes for [while she's gone].

But we're heading towards the future of the show and eventually, unless we're really lucky, everybody's going to go. That's what the end of season 5 taught me. So we're looking at, How do we mess with that structure now while we have everybody and figure out ways in which, 'What would we do without Ellen? What would we do if we had an episode without Patrick Dempsey?' So season 6 is important. A lot of shows don't make it through season 6 because they don't know how to transition."

Can Rhimes envision Grey's someday going on with Pompeo (and Mer) completely out of the picture?! "I don't know" she hedges. "I clearly want Mer Grey on the show for as long as Ellen Pompeo wants to be on the show; that's not even a question. But I think that there's a possibility of [her leaving for good at some point]. I haven't even thought that far. That's the one blank spot I have in my head.

I can't really picture Mer Grey not on the show. But [at least] we have Lexie Grey. There is another Grey if we really needed one."

But would anyone watch Lexie Grey's Anatomy? Would you?

Chances are good that we'll be seeing more of Sandra and Cristina Yang this season than what we usually do.

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