Grey’s Anatomy: Elisabeth Finch on Why Jo’s Story Changed and What’s Next for Meredith After That Shocking Finale [Exclusive Interview]

One of the highlights of this year’s ATX Television Festival was a Grey’s Anatomy screening and panel discussing the season’s most powerful episode, “Silent All These Years.” The panel included actors Camilla Luddington and Kim Raver as well as writer and co-executive producer Elisabeth Finch, who wrote the episode. (Finch also appeared in the episode as one of the nurses).

Ahead of the panel, I sat down with Elisabeth Finch to talk about the inspiration for the episode and how Jo’s arc changed because of it. We also discussed the Grey’s Anatomy Season 15 finale and Meredith’s shocking decision.

“I went to something known by the WGA that they call “The Story Tour,” and they took us through the UCLA Santa Monica Rape Treatment Center. They did it with the intention of saying, ‘Maybe you can find some authenticity to a project.'” Finch began, describing how the episode came to be.

“I just went because I thought maybe it would spark an idea, at some point, to see what our doctors would do in that kind of situation. And, I was so struck by what I learned there, and what their process was, and how they treat each victim that walks through,” she said. “I was just really impressed with how they tailored every single step of treatment to the individual patient that walked through their doors. So, I thought, we have to do a story on this. I would love to see our doctors figure out how to take care of a patient on the fly, where those protocols weren’t necessarily in place, and then see what they did.”

“Then Dr. Blasey Ford gave her testimony at the Kavanaugh hearings, and it just felt like — we have to do a story about consent, we have to talk about it. Krista Vernoff, the showrunner, was directing an episode at the time and was like, ‘We have to talk about it. We have to counter what’s being talked about everywhere else, as if consent is somehow irrelevant. We have to have that conversation.'”

Vernoff remembered hearing that Finch had an idea based on her experience at the Rape Treatment Center, and then asked her to write the episode, which does exactly that.

“Silent All These Years” focuses more on the treatment of the patient who comes to the hospital after being raped. It details the rape kit process and it shows why the character, Abby, (Khalilah Joi) is hesitant to come forward about what’s happened to her. And among the most emotional scenes of the episode is the “wall of women” who come together to support the patient.

“We show a tremendous amount of violence against women — and men, but far more women. We show women raped on TV all the time, and when do we ever show someone being taken care of; what the process is, what it’s about? You never have that conversation. It is very important to us to change that, to show that on TV, to show the detail of that, to be truthful and specific about it. And also talk about why survivors, in the moment, don’t necessarily want to do that,” Finch explained.

It was around the same time that Camilla Luddington had an idea for her own character on the show, and sent an email to Krista Vernoff, the showrunner, suggesting that Jo’s Birth mom had been raped. That storyline also became part of the episode, and we see Jo visit her mom only to learn that horrifying information.

“It was just one of those moments where there was a collective momentum with all of us watching this testimony being given and people placing this absurd amount of doubt about details and specifics as if she’d somehow forget it. And everyone was having this visceral reaction to it,” she recalled. “We have a really amazing platform to be able to communicate that and also have it not be an afterschool special, have it be truthful, and raw, and true, and powerful, without it being pedantic.”

That arc for Jo continued throughout the season as we watched her cope with learning such shocking news about who her father was. The season ended with her accepting that she needed help and making the difficult decision to get it.

“What we were really interested in is showing somebody asking for help and it not being a shameful thing, have it be something that was supported. She was in a bad place. We had a completely different plan for her arc for that season, and then this episode happened, and we thought, it’s just not realistic or truthful to have her just be fine in the next episode. It just changed the trajectory for the rest of the season,” Finch revealed.

As for what comes next, Finch has some hopes for Jo and for discussions of mental health. “I personally would love to use the opportunity to show people what mental healthcare really looks like, and how people are taken care of with trauma, and of course, I want her to be happy. I want her to have her life, but her life and her career are still waiting there for her. We haven’t gotten into the specifics of it, but I want to honor the reality of mental health because I don’t think we talk about it nearly enough and the show has a really great space to do that.”

The season finale had a few more bombshells, including Meredith dealing with the repercussions of her choice to commit insurance fraud in order to help a patient.

“I really respond to Meredith’s character breaking rules for the right reasons. And we see her really put herself and her career on the line,” she said. “We’ve seen her do it for her patients in a lot of different ways over the years, but she’s a grown-up, and the fact that she’s a grown woman and she is taking accountability and saying, ‘I made this choice. I stand by it because what I was trying to remedy was so much worse’ — I love that we get to speak to that.”

Though DeLuca tries to take the blame for her, Meredith turns herself in at the end of the episode.

“That’s not something that’s going to just magically disappear,” Finch noted. “I am excited to watch her navigate that too and see what her life looks like from taking a really big risk and making a really big problem for herself.”

The finale also ended with Bailey firing Meredith along with Richard and Alex because of the incident. “Yep. They’re fired. It’s exciting to me. I was a fan of Grey’s long before I got lucky enough to write for it, and finales were always my jaw-dropper,” Finch said. “They’re all fired and watching what that looks like is going to be, I think, a lot of fun.”

Finch has written several key episodes of Grey’s Anatomy and has served as a producer on the show since 2014. As we concluded our conversation, she talked a bit about why she loves working on the show.

“It’s really a remarkable show to get to write for because the medicine keeps evolving in life, so that’s fascinating to me,” Finch shared. “I am fascinated by the details and events and all of that. Getting to talk about what’s really going on in the world through the lens of all of these women and men on our show that we have known forever, it feels like a gift.”

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Grey’s Anatomy returns this Fall to ABC.

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