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Grey's Anatomy's Caterina Scorsone on How the Arrival of Another Shepherd Will Shake Up the Hospital

Plus, more burning questions from the Season 19 premiere answered

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Megan Vick

[Warning: The following contains spoilers from the Season 19 premiere of Grey's Anatomy. Read at your own risk!] 

There are new faces at Grey Sloan this season onGrey's Anatomy, but one of them comes with a familiar name. The medical drama returned for Season 19 and included a six-month time jump in the premiere. A new crop of interns arrived at Grey Sloan, each of whom are a bit of a mess in their own way. In the premiere episode, it was Lucas (Niko Terho) who screwed up the most when he told the wrong mother that her son was dead and almost denied the correct mother the chance to say goodbye to her son before Nick (Scott Speedman) and Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) took his organs for a triple transplant. The grieving mother pushed Amelia (Caterina Scorsone) to run another full round of tests, almost costing the viability of the organs and thus the once-in-a-lifetime surgery. 

In the end, Blue (Harry Shum Jr.) was able to convince the mother to donate her son's organs and Meredith's patient was saved. Lucas was even allowed to scrub in thanks to a gracious Nick, and when he started the surgery by saying, "It's a beautiful day to save lives," Meredith and Amelia confirmed that he's actually a Shepherd. He's Amelia's nephew, and when she questioned Meredith about whether she chose him for the program because he reminded her of Derek, Meredith pointed out he's a mess and a black sheep. She chose him because he's a next-generation Amelia. 

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"She always did well academically and her medicine was always top-tier, but her personal life was in shambles. She has tons of empathy at this point, has wrestled her demons to the ground, and is now in a position of excellence in her field," Scorsone said of Amelia's inability to see the similarities between her former self and her nephew. "It's definitely triggering for her, but ultimately she's got this mama bear instinct about whipping him into shape so that he can do the thing." 

Of course, Lucas is feeling the pressure most of all to be at the hospital his beloved uncle helped found, and learning from his two aunts, who are brilliant surgeons in their own right. Being the one to massively mess up on his first day is not doing him any favors, either. 

"It doesn't help. It does not help, I can tell you." Terho teased to TV Guide.  "He's got a lot of making up to do and I think it pushes him further. It drives him more and maybe he picks himself up, who knows. There's a lot to live up to with the name alone. You can see why he tries to hide it. He has a lot to live up to and he's going to do his best, but it is an uphill battle."

Lucas' identity reveal wasn't the only major development in the Season 19 premiere. TV Guide spoke to several members of the Grey's cast to get burning premiere questions answered, including what's up with Jo (Camilla Luddington) and Link (Chris Carmack), how is Bailey (Chandra Wilson) going to react to Hunt (Kevin McKidd) and Teddy (Kim Raver) being back, and do we trust Levi (Jake Borelli) as Chief Resident?  See what they had to say below.  

Niko Terho, Grey's Anatomy

Niko Terho, Grey's Anatomy

ABC

What is Jo and Link's relationship status and is Jo really okay with Link sleeping around?
Jo and Link appear to have gotten their friendship back on track in the premiere, but those romantic feelings are still lingering – at least for Jo. "They do live together," Luddington confirmed. "[Jo] is doing a really good job of compartmentalizing this relationship. I think in the moment she's like, 'Yeah! My best friend is sleeping with other people!' But I think if she really examined her feelings on it, I don't think she would be so breezy. We'll have to see how that plays out but I know it's a very interesting dynamic they both have right now."

Should Levi be Chief Resident after almost having a nervous breakdown in Season 18? 
"It's going to be great," Borelli assured us, though he might be a lot more confident than we are. "It's been a long time coming. Six years and Levi's finally getting some power and being able to control some people. We're going to have to wait and see whether he's good at that…He's had a lot of really awesome, powerful, strong, mentors. It's going to be fun to see him try, but I don't think anyone can touch Bailey['s chief resident authority from Season 1]. 

How will Bailey react when she sees Teddy and Hunt have returned and are working in the hospital? 
Hunt and Teddy returned from wherever they ran off to in the Season 18 finale. They spent their life savings on a lawyer who got all criminal charges against Hunt, who was helping terminally ill soldiers end their suffering, dropped. He's returning to work at Grey Sloan with a suspended license, but his confession about what he had done was a big part in pushing Bailey to go on her sabatical and she's going to have some feelings about the couple's return.
"Miranda is never subtle. She's got comments, but that is gonna take a minute," Chandra Wilson explained. "The audience will be used to it and adjusted to it before they have to deal with Bailey. What's really important to Bailey is work-life balance, which we never really talked about on the show because it's all about being the best, getting the most surgeries, cutting, and so forth. Bailey is a surgeon and an attending that wants to find that balance." 

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What is Weber's role going to be with the interns if he is not officially Residency Director? 
"His focus will be on getting this hospital back on track and being one of the premiere hospitals in the Pacific Northwest," James Pickens Jr. said. "To do that, he needs to get the interns ready, whatever that's going to look like. He's going to need Bailey, hopefully, and the others to help him do that. Title or not, his main purpose is to get these young people ready to take on their role as the new residents." 

When do we get to see Harry Shum Jr. dance?
Grey's has done musical episodes before and we have to imagine that when the creative team decided to cast Harry Shum Jr. as one of the new interns this season, they were already plotting how to use his impeccablewell-documented dance skills to the test.

"I think they will [find a way for me to dance]," the actor teased. "How do you put dancing in a medical show? What's beautiful is that you have someone like Debbie Allen who directs, produces, and also stars in the show. If anybody can, maybe she can find a way to make that happen." 

We can't wait! 

Grey's Anatomy continues Thursdays at 9/8c on ABC.