‘Guiding Light’ Star Michelle Forbes Makes ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Debut in Dramatic New Episode

True Blood and Guiding Light star Michelle Forbes makes her Grey’s Anatomy debut in this week’s special episode focusing on Jo.

In “Silent All These Years,” Dr. Jo Karev (Camilla Luddington) is forced to face her past after a trauma patient arrives at Grey Sloan. In the preview, Jo is shown walking up to the home of Vicki Ann Rudin (Forbes) and says, “I think you’re my mother.”

“You can’t be,” Vicki replied.

Jo asked to have one conversation with Vicki at a nearby diner. “Tell me who my real father is,” Jo said in the promo. There are scenes of Jo crying, which hints that what Vicki has to tell her is not exactly what she wants to hear.

Jo knows nothing about her past. The character, whom Luddington has played since 2012, was left at a fire station when she was two weeks old and grew up in foster homes. She went on her own at 16 and recently took a DNA test to find out who her biological parents are. At the end of the March 14 episode “And Dream of Sheep,” Casey (Alex Blue Davis) gave Jo the green light to track down her mother. Casey also opened up her laptop, discovering the picture of Vicki, who lives in Pittsburgh.

During a panel at the Getty Center, Grey’s Anatomy showrunner Krista Vernoff called “Silent All These Years” the “most powerful hour of TV I’ve ever been a part of” in her career. She said she was inspired by Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony during Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings.

“With the Supreme Court situation that happened this year, I wrote the writers and I said, ‘We have to do something about consent. It hurts me too much. We have to do something.’ It was the only time I can point to where I came at them with an issue and the story evolved,” Vernoff explained, reports The Hollywood Reporter. “What these great writers brought to it is so much character and so much humanity and so much heart.”

Vernoff is a three-time Emmy nominee who has been working on Grey’s since 2005. She signed an overall deal with ABC Studios in January.

The Grey’s team has been hyping up the episode all week, with even Luddington getting in on the action.

“Okay everyone. Tonight is the night. I will be live tweeting with the west coast feed. I am so incredibly proud of this ep and allllll involved. Please tweet me your thoughts and feelings,” she wrote to fans on Twitter, adding a heart emoji.

Elsewhere in the new episode, Bailey (Chandra Wilson) and Ben (Jason George) talk to Tuck about dating.
New episodes of Grey’s Anatomy air on ABC Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET.

Photo credit: ABC