'Grey's Anatomy' Producer Reveals How the Season Could've Ended a Little Differently

SPOILER ALERT – This post will contain some minor spoilers from the Grey’s Anatomy finale, so beware of reading any further.

The season 17 finale of Grey’s Anatomy just aired and it featured some great moments, including an engagement and milestones at the hospital.

One of the highlights of the episode was when Ellen Pompeo‘s character Meredith Grey finally received her “clap-out” from the hospital after defeating COVID-19. She previously escaped her clap-out, but the staff sneakily came up with a way to give her way after a surgery.

“I’m still alive,” she said in a voiceover after the moment.

Meg Marinis, an executive producer on Grey’s Anatomy who also co-wrote the episode, is explaining how the season almost ended a little differently.

“We initially wrote Meredith’s clap-out to be when she was discharged from the hospital, in Episode 1715,” she told Deadline. “But we quickly realized that moment seemed like the end of the season, so we came up with the brilliant idea of Meredith escaping her own clap-out, which felt very Meredith Grey to us. So many people had struggled with Covid, and she didn’t want to feel any different than anyone else. So we decided to clap Meredith out of the OR instead, which felt like the ultimate victory to her journey this season. That shot of Meredith, in the OR Corridor, surrounded by her people, laughing and smiling in her scrub cap… It gives me all the feels. It gives me hope after such a hard year.”

After leaving the show a couple weeks ago, Jesse Williams opened up about the possibility of a spin-off for his character.