Grey’s Anatomy finale preview: Meredith reacts and we speculate

When Shonda Rhimes promised the Grey’s Anatomy season finale would be “on fire,” we knew we were in for a wild ride. Check out a preview of the finale below!

Grey’s Anatomy and its fans take season finales seriously. Furthermore, they like to take it to 100 when it comes to drama. We’ve had shootings, drownings, near-death experiences, plane crashes, car crashes, boat crashes — you name it, we’ve probably seen it already. The intensity feels so real that real creators pen obituaries for fictional characters. Catastrophes come in spades at Grey Sloan. But what changes is the impact on the characters.

For this season finale, “True Colors” ended with the horrifying moment when one of the hospital floors went up in flames with Dr. Stephanie Edwards (Jerrika Hinton) and a little girl named Erin trapped inside. As we saw, Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) witnessed the explosion from outside the building, and the sneak peek below shows us just how she reacts.

Check it out:

As you can see, Meredith springs into action quickly and her focus is taken away from why she was at the hospital to begin with: To tell Nathan Riggs (Martin Henderson) that Megan is still alive. Obviously, there are a lot of pieces we need to consider going into this finale.

So let’s break it down the big ones:

How will we say goodbye to Edwards?

• Since Jerrika Hinton plans to leave Grey’s Anatomy, we know the show must write her out one way or another. Will they kill the character? Will she sacrifice herself heroically? Is the fire just to throw us off and she survives, only to feel the burn (forgive me) of the trauma and put Grey Sloan behind her?

How will Riggs take the news?

• Megan is alive. Of course, this impacts Owen (Kevin McKidd) the most. But it also means that Riggs needs to face the fact (again) that he cheated on Megan and can be considered the reason she was on the helicopter in the first place.
• Will the news impact his relationship with Meredith? They took so long to get together, she was just about to introduce him to her kids, and now this. Did Grey’s Anatomy force us to watch Meredith “fall in love” with someone who isn’t Derek, just to break them up?
• Will we ever see Megan? (I am waiting on the edge of my seat for casting news. Bridget Regan again? I don’t know. I mean, why introduce her in “The Room Where It Happens” if not.)
• More importantly, where does that leave Owen?

Alex (Justin Chambers) met Jo’s ex, Dr. Stadler. Now what?

• Last week, we met Dr. Stadler, played by Matthew Morrison. He did okay, but nothing really happened. We watched several of Alex’s fantasies play out only to watch Dr. Stadler leave in a taxi to who knows where. We know he’s not a good guy and that we’ll see him again, but how will Grey’s Anatomy set up their second meeting?

Will the finale set up the Grey’s Anatomy spin-off?

• Yesterday, news broke that ABC ordered a Grey’s Anatomy spin-off straight to series. Interesting enough, the spin-off will focus on firefighters — a line of work that will be imperative in Thursday’s finale.
• We saw Ben (Jason George) in the promo grab some gear and look like he wanted to save Steph, so it’ll be interesting if this turns into something else. I think he’d make a great firefighter and the perfect person to spin into another series.

So how will Grey’s Anatomy end season 13? Do you think a major character will die or are the previews trying to trick us? Sound off in the comments below.

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The Grey’s Anatomy season finale “Ring of Fire” airs on Thursday at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.