‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Star Breaks Silence on Series Exit

After Grey’s Anatomy said goodbye to Jake Borelli, the medical drama said goodbye to yet another star in the fall finale, who is speaking out about her decision to leave. In this week’s episode, “Drop It Like It’s Hot,” Midori Francis’ Mika Yasuda decided to leave Grey Sloan Memorial following the death of her sister, realizing she returned to work too soon and everything at the hospital reminds her of her sister.

Francis joined Grey’s as part of the new crop of interns in Season 19, making her exit announcement earlier this year surprising. She told Deadline the reason for walking away from the series, pointing out that not only did she “love the show, I watched the show when I was in middle school. I can still remember watching it with my friends and my mom and just being like, Oh my God, this is TV. Obviously, they were older than me, and I just thought that the characters were so cool and interesting.”

“So when I joined this new group of interns, it was so surreal and awesome to be a part of that. I had a full-hearted, full-throated, wild, beautiful ride that I am so grateful for,” Francis continued. “Creatively, it’s about coming together to find the right story, the right moment for Mika’s exit that could fit into the larger season and arc, and I think that the writers did such a good job. Because when I think about Mika, she’s so ambitious and she’s so competitive, so what would cause her to leave Grey Sloan? And boy, did they set that up well.”

When it came time to discussing bringing on Mika’s family, Francis shared that having Mika be an older sister gave her the chance to be in a leadership role. Additionally, Mika’s sister Chloe had cancer, making the storyline all the more perfect to dig more into her family dynamics and the aftermath all the more heartbreaking. “I worked pretty close with Meg Marinis, our incredible, kind showrunner,” Francis said. “We talked about sister stuff, got very into it because Meg is a younger sister, and I’m an older sister, and the writers came to me and said, you’re getting a sister, and she’s younger.”

“It was really interesting because I thought she might be older, but the fact that she was younger put Mika in this kind of leadership position and made her more mature, in a way,” she explained. “And then, when they did what they did to Chloe. Oh, my God. I think they called themselves monsters in the most loving way.” Even despite the heartbreaking ending for Mika, Midori Francis is as grateful as ever for having the opportunity to star on Grey’s Anatomy, and for her, it was the only way to say goodbye.

“But what it did is it made for a freaking great episode and so iconically Grey’s, which is a very full circle moment for me, because I started with watching Grey’s,” Francis said. “I just felt like the only way Mika would leave the hospital is something really bad happening. And boy, they created something so incredible for me to play. I honestly had such a great time this season.”