‘Grey’s Anatomy’: Who Broke up During Season 16 Premiere?

The Season 16 premiere of Grey’s Anatomy dealt some tough blows to fans, with multiple characters dealing with losing their jobs and still others breaking up.

Warning — spoilers ahead!

The episode saw Alexander Tamargo /Meredith (Ellen Pompeo), Karev (Justin Chambers), and Webber (James Pickens Jr.) all having been fired from Grey Sloan for their part in Meredith’s insurance fraud, while Jackson (Jesse Williams) and Maggie (Kelly McCreary) ultimately broke up after Maggie found Jackson alive after the Season 15 finale. Also, a time jump kicked off a relationship between Jackson and Vic (Barrett Doss), which Maggie isn’t too thrilled about.

Showrunner Krista Vernoff spoke to TV Guide to dish about the premiere, sharing that she was extremely excited about the change in direction for Jackson and Maggie.

“I realized, in watching it, how long it’s been since we’ve had a really contentious breakup and it excited me,” she said. “It felt exciting and really alive. There’s so much energy that runs between those two actors and when you go from loving someone to kind of hating someone, that’s not an easy thing to move through when you have to work with that person. I thought that was a really interesting story to tell.”

Fans on Twitter seemed to agree with Vernoff.

As for the relationship between Jackson and Vic, Vernoff explained that she doesn’t want the couple to take things too fast.

“It’s a little bit of a slow roll, for sure,” she said. “As they acknowledged, one of them is coming out of a difficult breakup. One of them is coming out of something even more difficult than a breakup. And yet, life happens. I love Vic’s acknowledgement that society really judges us if we don’t just feel miserable for as long as humanly possible, but there’s something there between them, and so it’ll be interesting to see how it unfolds.”

Meredith, whose medical license is currently in jeopardy, avoided serving jail time and was instead tasked with serving community service hours. In regards to what the season will bring without Meredith at Grey Sloan, Vernoff played coy.

“It’s hard to answer without giving away too much,” she said. “For sure, there’s a period of time, here, where Meredith can’t practice medicine, and… She’s got a lot of community service hours to work off.”

Photo Credit: ABC