Ellen Pompeo in the season 22 premiere of 'Grey's Anatomy,' "Only the Strong Survive." Disney/Anne Marie Fox Share on Facebook Share on X Share to Flipboard Send an Email Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Print the Article Post a Comment Logo text [This story contains spoilers from the season 22 premiere of Grey's Anatomy, "Only the Strong Survive."] Grey's Anatomy ended its 21st season with one of its biggest hospital explosions in recent memory when the operating floor of Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital went up in flames after a highly flammable acetylene tank was brought into the hospital. Only star Ellen Pompeo's Meredith Grey and a handful of other doctors were shown after the blast - everyone else could have potentially been killed off when the hit show returned. Related Stories TV Jessica Capshaw Moves on From 'Grey's Anatomy' With '9-1-1: Nashville' TV Eric Dane Explains Why He Was Absent at Emmys Despite Planned 'Grey's Anatomy's' Tribute Now, after a summer break, Grey's has returned with its season 22 premiere and showrunner Meg Marinis and her writers revealed the fates for the doctors of the long-running ABC medical drama. Fan-favorite Dr. Atticus Lincoln aka "Link" (Chris Carmack) barely survived - and has quite a recovery ahead of him - but it was ultimately Dr. Monica Beltran, played by Natalie Morales, who is the sole casualty. She was crushed by hospital machinery, but stayed alive long enough to help instruct surgical intern-now resident Jules (Adelaide Kane) to help save a child on the operating table. Below, Marinis brings The Hollywood Reporter into the writers room to reveal how they make decisions on who lives and who dies on Grey's Anatomy, as she teases the effect that Beltran's death will have on both Jules and Dr. Amelia Shepherd (Caterina Scorsone), why Grey's most optimistic doctor now has a hard road ahead, and what to expect from Pompeo as Meredith Grey in season 22. *** After the season 21 cliffhanger finale, you said you had some ideas about how you would handle the fates of your up-in-the-air characters, but that you weren't set in stone until you got back into the writers room. What were you thinking coming out of the finale about where you wanted to go? I didn't want to kill anyone. I didn't want to kill anyone! Even when we were choosing the VFX for the finale, post was like, "If you choose this one, there has to be someone who is dead. This is a huge explosion." I said, "It's going to be fine. We're going to save everybody!" And then I sat down in the writers room and I was like, "We can't save everybody. We just can't. It doesn't have as much of an impact if everyone is saved." Can you take me inside the debates you had in the room about who would die, and how heated do you guys get? We're a pretty nice, kind writers room. So if it's heated, it's heated with fun, right? We had that small group of people on the OR floor. You go through the chain reaction: If you kill this person, what story? If you kill this person, what story? We can't kill that person! You go: If this, then what? We really look at the impact of each character's death and what that does for the show, what that does for other characters and what stories can be told from that death. Then one morning, I woke up and went to the writers room and I said, "It's Monica." Why? I wanted to see someone die selflessly saving someone's else's life, and she was not only was saving that little kid on the table, she was saving Jules. It really speaks to the kind of character Monica was. I didn't want to. It was very difficult. It was very painful. I cried on that phone call. I love working with Natalie Morales. She is an exquisite performer, an amazing actor who brings so much to the table. I've already pledged that I will work with her again one day! She's a writer's dream. But also, just going through the impact and consequences on Jules and Amelia, that is where we landed. How did Natalie take it if you cried, did she cry as well? No, she's a professional - unlike me! She loved being on the show, but she understands story. She's a writer and director herself, so she understands storytelling. We see Jules and Amelia are both devastated by her death; Jules was there in the room with her, and Amelia has recently been in a romantic relationship with Monica. Why did you want to focus on these two characters after this loss? In particular with those two characters, I want to launch a different aspect of Jules' career journey. She was dying for that solo surgery at the end of last season - all cardio, singularly focused. And the solo surgery she got was a pediatric surgery under duress, and she doesn't even like kids. So that was really interesting to us. And while Amelia was so centered in that storyline at the end of last season with Piper [Perabo]'s character and with the child [in the finale], I wanted for us to believe that everything w