Another Grey’s Anatomy finale, another character leaving the show. Sara Ramirez, who portrayed Callie Torres on the show since the second season, confirmed she was leaving after 10 years, according to Entertainment Weekly.
Rest assured, Grey’s fans, Shonda Rhimes didn’t kill her off. So that’s a good thing, right?
This article does contain spoilers, so read at your own risk.
Ramirez leaving the show seemed possible throughout the last few episodes of the season as her new girlfriend, Penny Blake, accepted a job offer in New York to do research. Ramirez’s character seemed set on going with her and taking her daughter, Sofia, with her. This upset Callie’s ex-wife, Arizona, and the two entered into a custody battle, where Arizona was ultimately awarded sole custody.
But in the finale episode that aired on May 19, Arizona had a change of heart and gave Callie plane tickets to go to New York with Sofia. Arizona said she wanted Sofia at Christmas that year and every other school year and that this is how the two of them should have worked out a custody agreement in the first place instead of going straight to lawyers.
When the episode finished, Ramirez sent out a tweet, thanking fans for the 10 years she’d been on the show and thanking Rhimes for allowing her to play the character.
Rhimes also tweeted out a note, thanking Ramirez for her work she’s done on the show.
Of course, Ramirez leaving Grey’s Anatomy isn’t the first high profile exit the show has seen in its 12 season run. At the end of season three, Isaiah Washington was fired from the show after an on-set altercation with Patrick Dempsey and reported using a homophobic slur to refer to T.R. Knight. T.R. Knight left the show in the fifth season and his character, George O’Malley, was killed off. In the middle of the sixth season, Katherine Heigl left the show and hasn’t returned since, something Rhimes probably won’t let happen due to Heigl’s rumored diva behavior.
Fans were shocked in the season eight finale when Lexie Grey (Chyler Leigh) was killed off in the plane crash episode and when Mark Sloan (Eric Dane) was killed off in the season nine premiere of the show.
In the season 10 finale, fans bid a fond farewell to Cristina Yang, who left Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital to go work at a hospital in Switzerland.
And just last year, fans were shocked at the death of Patrick Dempsey’s character, Derek Shepherd (or McDreamy to the millions of fans who watch the show), who was killed when his character was hit by a car as Dempsey wanted let out of his contract a year earlier.
Grey’s Anatomy will have its 13th season premiere in the fall, where it will air in the leadoff TGIT slot as it has done for the past two season.