‘Grey’s Anatomy’: Camilla Luddington on the ‘Terrifying’ Midseason Finale Cliffhanger

The Grey’s Anatomy fall finale on Thursday left off on a pretty big cliffhanger.

In Season 22, Episode 6, “When I Crash,” Camilla Luddington’s Jo Wilson had complications as she neared the birth of her twins.

Jo struggled with heart problems and was in heart failure. While she was going to get a procedure to try to give her twins more time to develop before the birth, the babies showed signs of distress in the O.R., leading Dr. Winston Ndugu (Anthony Hill) to perform a C-section, something he hasn’t done since he was in med school. The episode ended just as Winston made the first incision, so fans don’t know the outcome.

“This is what we do best, these horrifying, terrifying midseason finales,” Luddington told TheWrap. “The script was written so well, and that being the last thing that we see, I was like, ‘Oh my god.’ The writers are just incredible. This is a situation where everything hangs in the balance, and survival is not guaranteed for a lot of us involved. The cost of a mistake could be everything. Emotionally prepare, because the next episode… it’s worse, to be honest.”

Grey’s Anatomy has proven to be unpredictable over these 22 seasons, and just because it kicked off the season on a tragedy doesn’t mean that another one won’t happen later. It can be assumed that the winter premiere, airing on Jan. 8, will kick off immediately where the fall finale ended, but it’s unknown where that storyline will go. Whatever happens, though, will greatly impact Jo and Link (Chris Carmack), as well as the babies, assuming they survive. Then there’s the fact that Winston is doing a C-section for the first time in years. Who knows what will go down and what the aftermath will be.

Meanwhile, Luddington, who has been on Grey’s since Season 9, admitted she’d “heard some whisperings that something was going to happen that was really big [for Jo]” in the fall finale. “And then when I got the script, I just knew I was going to have to really emotionally prepare myself, because it gets dark. This one and then the next episode after this… it’s really dark.”

Grey’s Anatomy returns on Thursday, Jan. 8 at 10 p.m. ET on ABC with the winter premiere, but until then, Luddington urges fans to sit on the word “brutal.” She said, “Emotionally prepare because the next episode coming up after this, it is worse, to be honest. So yeah, just drink a lot of wine and try to compartmentalize this is not happening on Grey’s Anatomy until January.”