‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Season 19 Finale Is ‘Quite Shocking,’ Warns Director Kevin McKidd

Get ready, Grey’s Anatomy fans, because the ABC drama’s Season 19 finale is going to be “a big one,” Kevin McKidd teased to TVLine at the show’s recent PaleyFest appearance. McKidd, who’s played Owen Hunt on the medical procedural since Season 5, revealed he’s directing the first hour of the season’s two-hour May 18 finale – and it’s “quite shocking.”

With Grey’s Anatomy OG Ellen Pompeo returning for her first appearance as Meredith Grey since exiting the series as a regular, McKidd said it will be a “celebratory” experience for fans, as “the place isn’t the same without her.” But on the other hand, he teased “it’s also quite shocking,” adding, “There are going to be some things in it that people are going to be kind of surprised and shocked at.”

Without giving too much away, McKidd said he’s thrilled that the finale is a supersized one. “Sometimes we do a two-hour finale, sometimes we don’t,” he explained. “I’ve directed the first hour of the two-hour finales before, so this isn’t a new feeling for me, but it’s always fun because I get to collaborate with the [other finale director] the legend Debbie Allen.” The actor and director continued, “Our episodes are connected. So we very much have to work together to get those episodes working in tandem and in concert with each other. So that’s a really fun side of a two-hour finale.”

Pompeo’s return has been enthusiastically anticipated since Meredith’s exit from Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital in February. When it came to the decision to take a step back from Grey’s, Pompeo explained on The Drew Barrymore Show last year that she just had to “mix it up a little bit” in her career. “I’m 53, my brain is like scrambled eggs,” she joked. “I gotta do something new or I’m literally gonna turn into like, you can’t do the New York Times crossword puzzle every single day.”

Grey’s Anatomy is also losing another series regular in Kelly McCreary, who announced in March she was leaving the show after nine seasons playing Maggie Pierce. McCreary told Entertainment Tonight recently that it was a “largely creative” decision to step away, saying, “I have lived with and loved Maggie Pierce for nine years. It’s a long time.”

“At the beginning of every season, I think about Maggie’s origins and I think about how she’s grown and how she’s transformed,” she continued. “I always think about the fact that she is of Ellis Grey stock and she’s got that hunger, that ambition. I always reflect on how that has transformed her and how that compares with the family she’s created, the community that she’s built… It’s about people coming there to grow up and move on.