Okieriete Onaodowan, an original cast member of “Station 19,” left the ABC drama on Thursday, in a crossover episode of “Grey’s Anatomy” that featured the death of his character, Dean Miller.

Onaodowan stars as Dean in “Station 19,” which is currently in its fifth season since the spinoff show “Grey’s Anatomy” launched in 2018.

Here’s the official description for the hour of “Station 19,” titled “Things We Lost in the Fire”: When Theo and Vic reach a milestone in their relationship, Vic is forced to consider her feelings about the ‘commitment. Andy takes refuge with Dean and helps care for Pruitt, while Dean considers a potential new career opportunity. Meanwhile, an explosion tears through a neighborhood and changes the lives of our firefighters forever.

It turns out that Dean was killed from injuries he sustained in that disaster (which we find out on the crossover’s “Grey’s Anatomy” time), a death that will most certainly change the lives of the remaining 19 OGs. of “Station” forever.

“It’s been a pleasure being Dean. I have Shonda Rhimes, Stacy McKee, Krista Vernoff, Paris Barclay and ABC to thank for allowing me to bring it to life,” Onaodowan said in a statement provided to TheWrap. “I am grateful to have been able to work with the most loving, kind and dedicated team on network television. And most importantly, thank you to the fans for showing Dean so much love. I hope he inspired to change your world for the better. Be the change!”

“Station 19” showrunner Krista Vernoff added in a statement, “I am a better artist and human being to have had the opportunity to work with Okieriete Onaodowan. I am heartbroken over the loss of Dean Miller and that I can no longer write for Oak. Oak has an expansive spirit and was ready and eager for new artistic horizons – and I really can’t wait to see what he does next. It will be powerful, it will be deep and it will be brave because Oak is all of that.

‘Grey’s Anatomy’ creator Shonda Rhimes tweeted after the episode on Thursday, “What a pleasure it has been to go from seeing you gracing the Broadway stage to seeing Dean in action on screen. Wishing you all the best! “

Onaodowan replied with a quote-tweet: “@shondarhimes Thank you for taking a chance and giving me the opportunity. Thank you very much. You changed my life.”

• “Grey’s Anatomy” aired a two-part hospital shoot episode for its season six finale.

• “I had nightmares and panic attacks while filming,” star Sarah Drew says in a new book.

• “It scares me,” recalls Michael O’Neill, who played the shooter, telling Shonda Rhimes.

“Grey’s Anatomy” actress Sarah Drew had just wrapped up her first season on the hit medical drama in 2010 when the show filmed one of its most terrifying finales: the hospital shooting in season six, “Sanctuary” and “Death and All His Friends”.

In the two-part episode, a grieving widower named Gary Clark (Michael O’Neill) enters the hospital with a loaded gun, seeking revenge against Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey) and a group of doctors who he blames for the death of his wife.

Drew’s character, April Kepner, is part of the team targeted by Clark, and she has two particularly traumatic scenes in the finale. First, April slips on some blood and finds the corpse of her friend Reed (Nora Zehetner) in a medical supply closet.

Then, when she comes face to face with Clark in the hospital hallway, she must fight for her life at gunpoint by telling him intimate details of her life. “No one has loved me yet. Please, please!” April begs in the scene. Thus, Clark turns his gun on Derek again and injures him with a near-fatal blow.

Drew has revealed how psychologically traumatic the filming experience was for her in the revealing new book ‘How to Save a Life: The Inside Story of Grey’s Anatomy’ by Entertainment Weekly editor Lynette Rice.

“I had nightmares and panic attacks while we were shooting this, even for several days after we finished,” she said.

“It was very intense and scary and difficult to go to these places and then leave them at the door and then come home and be like, ‘I’m fine, I’m fine. Nobody’s trying to kill me, I didn’t. I didn’t just watch my best friend die, I didn’t just get covered in her blood,” she continued.

The story continues

Drew explained that, from his perspective, when an actor has to get into the mindset to film trauma, it “does something to your body because your body doesn’t know it’s do not happens” in real life.

According to the book, O’Neill said he almost didn’t play the shooter because a family member was murdered. “I know what happens to families when someone is shot,” he said. “You never really get over it.”

O’Neill also reminded Rice of how he told “Grey’s Anatomy” creator and then-showrunner Shonda Rhimes “it scares me” regarding the disturbing scenes.

According to O’Neill, Rhimes told him “that scares me too”. He said his wife eventually convinced him to play the role, and he did so on the condition that his character “didn’t point a gun at a child and the character end his life at the hospital”.

“How to Save a Life: The Inside Story of Grey’s Anatomy” is now available.

Read the original Insider article

• Kate Walsh returned to “Grey’s Anatomy” Thursday night.

• In an emotional elevator scene, her character Addison Montgomery expresses a range of emotions.

• Episode writer Jamie Denbo told Insider that when she saw the scene, “even I cried.”

Kate Walsh returned to “Grey’s Anatomy” as Dr. Addison Forbes Montgomery on Thursday night in an episode titled “Hotter than Hell.”

While the presence of the world’s OBGYN and maternal-fetal medicine specialist in the halls of Grey-Sloan might have intimidated residents, fans of the medical drama recalled that while at the famed hospital in Seattle, no one escapes an epic elevator meltdown at some point.

Addison’s emotionally uplifting moment comes after she completes uterine transplant surgery on one of her clinical trial patients. After laughing with residents Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) who had been frantically whispering gossip about women all day, Dr. Montgomery suddenly breaks down crying because she doesn’t sense Derek Shepherd’s presence at the hospital that he loved as much as she expected. at.

In an interview after the episode aired, writer Jamie Denbo told Insider that while she wrote the words to the scene and knew what was to come, seeing the moment come to life was emotional for her. “Even I cried when I saw it and I knew what the scene was like,” she said, “to see it come to life was really, really, really spectacular to me.”

Denbo told Insider that she personally believes Addison returned to Seattle because she felt that so long after her ex-husband Derek’s death, “the chapter is closed” and that she would feel his presence in such a way. positive to Grey-Sloan because “he died in the town he loved with the people he loved.”

But Addison breaks down in the elevator because she’s never felt this kind of positive closure. “I think she came back and instead felt the absence and not the presence,” Denbo said.

The story continues

The writer credits ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ showrunner Krista Vernoff with helping create the scene, as Denbo said Vernoff “wanted to make sure Kate handled the full range of emotions” that would come with the return to Seattle for the first time after Derek’s death. “We knew Kate and Ellen could really handle this kind of emotional roller coaster,” she added.

Denbo was on set when the scene was filmed and said the episode’s director Chandra Wilson was “the perfect director for this” because she “nurtured” and helped Walsh and Pompeo feel all the necessary emotions “on the moment”.

She added that on a long-running show like “Grey’s Anatomy” with such a large cast, “there’s something great about doing a little one-act mini-play in an elevator,” because the ability to explore raw emotions like this can be rare.

Denbo couldn’t divulge details about Addison’s potential future in Seattle, but as to why the surgeon waited so long to return, the writer mused, “When Addison heard of Derek, she probably went to the beach alone, cried, and stared at the ocean “remembering her time with him instead of going to a funeral and “causing more pain.”

“Grey’s Anatomy” airs Thursday nights at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.

Read the original Insider article