We've posted an excerpt of the most relevant tidbits below:
Grey's Anatomy's executive producer Shonda Rhimes has confirmed to me exclusively that a beloved character will die in the ABC drama's May 17 season finale. "A lot of our writers were crying, which is a very rare thing," she says. "There's some really shocking, horrible moments."
It can't be worse than the bloodshed two years ago when a crazed gunman hunted the doctors like animals, can it? "Yeah, it is," says Rhimes. "People's mettle is going to be tested."
Writing the episode, she adds, was sheer "torture... I've been sitting with my head in my hands for days. I understand the choice I made, but it scares me how fans are going to react."
Fans began voicing their concern when Rhimes recently tweeted a quote from author Kurt Vonnegut: "Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them — in order that the reader may see what they are made of." Yikes! The ominous quote, Rhimes says, was just what she needed to give her "the courage to do what we're doing in the finale."
The heart-stopping drama begins in the May 10 episode with "a big case that takes a group of our people out of the hospital. It's sort of the medical case of their lives," says Rhimes, hinting that the patient could possibly be one of their own.
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Cristina will continue to struggle with the fact that she is "a gifted, talented surgeon first, before being Owen's wife," while Alex will struggle with a decision he's made. Adds, Rhimes, "We watch Alex have a really lovely moment where we discover how much he's grown up this season."
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And by the end of the finale, viewers may still not be entirely clear as to who will and won't return.
"We sort of end with our breaths held," she teases. "It's a great moment. We were joking in the writers' room that if this was the series finale we'd be good to go. But we've been told very clearly it's not."
After killing off T.R. Knight's George in 2009, she believes "there are certain characters on this show that you can't kill. It wouldn't be acceptable not only to the audience, but to me and my vision of what this show is. They can't die."
Yet, at least one will soon be eulogized. "The lives of our people should be a concern," Rhimes says. "A lot of choices are made in this episode that change people's futures forever."
Full interview here
But the question is, will the finale be able to live up to this grand build-up?
