Grey's Anatomy Season 20 Is Making One Huge Change, According To The Showrunner

In a conversation with Deadline, "Grey's Anatomy" showrunner Meg Marinis — who's helming the long-running series in former showrunner Krista Vernoff's absence — told the outlet that there's one clear subject Season 20 will explore. "A theme for the season is back to basics," she said. "You see a lot of people reset in the premiere, and [Miranda] Bailey's (Chandra Wilson) not going to go easy on these interns. It'll be really fun to watch her put them through their paces."

This is probably a huge relief for a lot of "Grey's Anatomy" fans who have had to trudge through multiple seasons that just ... weren't very good. From Meredith Grey's (Ellen Pompeo) COVID-19 coma to the departure of long-running "Grey's" cast members like Justin Chambers and the loss of Pompeo herself, the series has suffered in recent years. While it kicked off with five original interns — including Meredith and Chambers' Alex Karev — led by Miranda Bailey, all of them have left the show.

Now, Bailey will mentor a brand new group and bring the medical drama back to its roots. Marinis knew the key to the show's evolution, 20 seasons in, came down to Miranda Bailey; she's the best teacher in the history of "Grey's Anatomy," and this season, she'll get to prove it.

Based on what happened at the end of Season 19, Meg Marinis told TVLine that it makes perfect sense for Miranda Bailey to teach again. In the years since the show started, Bailey has risen from a resident to chief resident to an attending in general surgery to the chief of surgery at Grey Sloan Memorial, though the last title was so stressful that she ended up experiencing a cardiac event. As Marinis put it, because Bailey won the Catherine Fox Award in the Season 19 finale for her work teaching interns and residents about reproductive healthcare for women — during a time both on and off-screen where that exact type of healthcare is at risk in the United States — it just made sense to put her back in a teaching role. "Where do you go once you've hit the top?" Marinis asked rhetorically.

As the showrunner put it, Bailey's storyline can see the doctor becoming an even better teacher by going back to square one. "Has Bailey been in that teaching role before? Yes," Marinis said. "But now she has 20 years of experience and 20 years of life that she's lived, so it'll be an evolved version."

Plus, as far as the basics go, Marinis said Bailey won't be the only "Grey's Anatomy" character experiencing a return to form. "That's a theme that's coming across in a bunch of stories. You'll not only see it with Bailey but with others, too."

Like so many other film and TV projects, the landmark 20th season of "Grey's Anatomy" was seriously delayed by the joint WGA and SAG-AFTRA strike that went on for most of the back half of 2023. Luckily, the guilds were able to reach deals with studios, and production resumed. Meg Marinis told Parade that she's glad the show was able to pick up where it left off. Not only that, but she told the outlet that there might be some big surprises in store for longtime fans this season.

"I'm so excited for us to be on the air again," Marinis said. "It's a season that feels very 'Grey's.' It's honoring what fans love about the show and there's going to be a lot of Easter egg moments that fans who have been with us for the long run are going to pick up on, and it's going to be so fun."

As was previously mentioned, it's been a rough go for the series lately, and the idea of hidden references to earlier seasons sounds like an absolute delight. The show has dabbled in Easter eggs before; "Grey's Anatomy's" 300th episode, titled "Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story," saw Meredith Grey and Alex Karev treating three young surgical interns who eerily resembled their former colleagues and friends Cristina Yang (Sandra Oh), George O'Malley (T.R. Knight), and Izzie Stevens (Katherine Heigl). We can't wait to see what Marinis and her team have in mind for Season 20, but "very 'Grey's'" sounds pretty promising.

"Grey's Anatomy" airs every Thursday at 9 P.M. EST on ABC.