Grey’s Anatomy Stars Discuss Who They Think Died In Finale Explosion, And I Do Not Agree With Harry Shum Jr.’s Guess At All
Who's not coming back for Season 22?

With months still to go until Grey’s Anatomy returns to the 2025 TV schedule, fans have a lot of time to consider who they think died in the explosive Season 21 finale. But they’re not the only ones. The stars of the longtime ABC medical drama are in the dark as well and, after Camilla Luddington and Harry Shum Jr. gave their opinions, I just can’t get behind what Shum had to say.
Not to brag, but I pretty much called it that Piper Perabo’s character would go full Yellowstone when she joined Grey’s Anatomy. While she didn’t have to fight Beth Dutton or anything, her character, Jenna, did fashion a bomb and hold multiple surgeons hostage until they performed brain surgery on her 9-year-old daughter. Everyone had seemingly made it out safely, but in the final seconds of Season 21, the explosion occurred. Harry Shum Jr., aka Blue Kwan, gave US Weekly his way-too-optimistic wish for the upcoming Season 22 reveal, saying:
Hopefully [it is] not me. Then hopefully, it’s some weird thing where it’s in someone’s mind. I don’t know, but I don’t think that that’s the case. So we’ll see.
I think even Harry Shum Jr. knows how unlikely it is that the explosion happened in someone’s mind. Granted, Grey’s Anatomy hasn’t killed off a series regular since Andrew DeLuca in Season 17 — despite losing several cast members in other ways — but I think they’d be more likely to say the O.R. in question was empty than to say there was no explosion at all.
However, I do believe someone died; I just don’t know who. We were led to believe that Chris Carmack’s Link was the one to lose his life, alongside Nurse Linda — a theory that Carmack himself perpetuated by recreating a famous Friends scene. I bought that at first, especially given the idyllic life Link was leading up to that final moment.
Link and Jo Wilson got married in the penultimate episode, then celebrated a “hospital honeymoon” before Jo revealed to her husband that they were having twin girls. That kind of bliss is only ever rewarded with death, right? After some thought, though, I'm wondering if Link was a red herring. I'm so confused! I knew this finale would frustrate me!
If it is Link, though Camilla Luddington hasn’t been informed, but she admitted that it’s been on her mind. She said:
I have no idea. I have a text chain going on with so many cast members that are like, ‘What do you think?' And we — Nobody knows. No one knows, which is terrifying. … We’ve seen too much, and we know too much. There’s not a single season I’m not worried about.
Link’s death — or even serious injury — would be devastating for Jo as she gets closer to birthing their twins. I’m sure Camilla Luddington doesn’t want Jo to become a widowed mother of four. She continued:
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I just hope that my [onscreen] husband is OK. Because she’s gonna need that support and they need it from each other. So I think it’s gonna throw a wrench in things and it’s gonna be a lot. They have two kids and two kids on the way.
As of now, the only people who we know are safe are Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) and Ben Warren (Jason George), who were both in the parking lot when the explosion happened. Pompeo’s return for Season 22 has already been confirmed.
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I may not agree with Harry Shum Jr.’s hopes of a hallucinated explosion, but stranger things have been hallucinated on this show before, so who knows? Grey’s Anatomy is currently one of the best shows to binge on Netflix now, and all 21 seasons are also available to stream with a Hulu subscription or Disney+ subscription.
No premiere date has been announced for Grey’s Anatomy Season 22, but with the official cancellation of Doctor Odyssey, it’s possible we might see it shift back to its earlier Thursday timeslot this fall. Stay tuned for more details.

Heidi Venable is a Content Producer for CinemaBlend, a mom of two and a hard-core '90s kid. She started freelancing for CinemaBlend in 2020 and officially came on board in 2021. Her job entails writing news stories and TV reactions from some of her favorite prime-time shows like Grey's Anatomy and The Bachelor. She graduated from Louisiana Tech University with a degree in Journalism and worked in the newspaper industry for almost two decades in multiple roles including Sports Editor, Page Designer and Online Editor. Unprovoked, will quote Friends in any situation. Thrives on New Orleans Saints football, The West Wing and taco trucks.
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