‘Station 19’ Star Alberto Frezza Reveals Why He Felt He Was Ready for His Surprising Show Exit

After a shocking cliffhanger last week, Station 19 has revealed what happened to Ryan, played by Alberto Frezza. The character ended up with an unexpected babysitting job, and after a serene conversation with Andy, played by Jaina Lee Ortiz. In the middle of the scene, one of the kids wanders in holding a gun, and shoots Ryan in the chest in the episode’s closing seconds.

Tonight’s episode flashed forward to his funeral, with all the characters deeply in mourning. All but Andy, who Ryan had just confessed his love to days earlier. Now, as fans are forced to cope with this unexpected turn of events, Frezza spoke with Entertainment Tonight about the finale.

“I thought that the story was beautiful,” Frezza said, though he admitted he had conflicted feelings about his character being killed off.

“Once you get the call and you’ve been working with the same people for so long and you’ve built really cool relationships with everybody, it’s kind of like … It’s weird in show business,” Frezza revealed. So that’s one thing that I was also battling with was how am I going to navigate all the friendships that I’ve built throughout these years? Am I going to see anybody anymore? That was a little sad.”

However, despite the friendships with co-workers he’ll have to work a little harder to maintain, he admitted he was “very okay with the way the storyline of the show was going to go.”

“I know that [showrunner Krista Vernoff] had a very different vision of what the show was going to be from the past two seasons, and she needed to create a lot of conflict, a lot of drama and a lot of difficult situations for Andy. Once she brought up the idea of how Ryan was going to go out, I was actually very happy with the message, the intention and the storyline.”

At the end of the episode, Frezza appeared to make a public service announcement about children living with unsecured firearms. The clip also included a link to EndFamilyFire.org.

Last week’s episode followed an epic crossover between Grey’s Anatomy and Station 19, which is a spinoff of the long-running medical drama. The series, which focuses on the lives of Seattle firefighters, premiered on ABC in March of 2018. It was renewed for a third season just last month.

New episodes of Station 19 air on Thursdays on ABC at 8 p.m. EST.