A Major Grey's Character Quit In The Season 18 Finale, But Is She Gone For Good?
She can't just leave like that, can she!?
The Season 18 finale of Grey’s Anatomy threw out so many jaw dropping cliffhangers it was hard to keep up. Between that Japril kiss, the hospital shutting down its residency program, and Meredith deciding to stay in Seattle without Nick, one huge moment stood out. One of the show’s fan favorites and the absolute bedrock of the entire series, Miranda Bailey, quit the hospital, leaving fans shocked and worried that she may never return to the show. Here’s everything to know about Bailey’s departure from the hospital and whether she’ll be back for Season 19.
This doozy of a two-hour finale special marked Grey’s 400th episode, a wild milestone celebrated with lots of flashbacks to the early days when Meredith, George, Alex, Christina, and Izzie came under the tutelage of Miranda Bailey, queen attending of the hospital. Seeing everything that has changed in the 17 years since the show started only made fans’ heart grow fonder for Bailey, who has been there through it all.
At the end of the episode, though, distraught by the cancelling of the hospital’s residency program — the thing she loves the most about her job (even when she doesn’t show it) — Bailey quits. Quickly afterwards, Meredith is offered her job in the interim, and debates what it would mean for her and her family. But ultimately, she decides to take it.
But, is this goodbye forever with Bailey? Some fans speculated that Bailey might move over to Station 19 with her hubby Ben but an ABC press release tells a different story. In the January 2022 Season 19 renewal announcement, Chandra Wilson, who plays Bailey, was named as a returning actor in good company with Ellen Pompeo as Meredith and James Pickens Jr. as Richard Webber. Shonda Rhimes, the show’s creator, even added, “I couldn’t be more excited that we get to keep telling the stories of Meredith, Bailey, Richard.” So Bailey may have quit her job but it doesn’t seem like Wilson herself has quit yet. Maybe fans will get to see a new side of her character in Season 19, outside of the hospital.
Fans aren’t the only ones with a ton of questions about how this is all going to work, though. Sarah Drew, who plays April, spoke with Deadline prior to the finale to discuss what might come next but had just about as many questions as fans. She told Deadline, “There’s a lot of open ended questions at the end of this episode... Where do we go from here? How is the hospital going to recover? What is the next year gonna look like? So I think there are a million questions and a million possibilities.” At least fans can know for sure that one of those million possibilities is Bailey back on our screens.
