The co-showrunners of “Station 19” share what the future would have looked like had the fire station’s doors stayed open.
Dr. Carina DeLuca (Stefania Spampinato) would be doing what? Sean Beckett (Josh Randall) would be into whom?!
Station 19 fans were very vocal about their feelings when it was announced that the Grey’s Anatomy spinoff would end after its seventh season. After all, Andy Herrera (Jaina Lee Ortiz) was just finding her footing as captain!
So, in honor of 20 years of Shondaland, Entertainment Weekly spoke to co-showrunners Peter Paige and Zoanne Clack about what season 8 would have looked like, from a planned trip aboard, to a surprising one-sided love story, and more.
Vic still would have headed east
Station 19 would not have sent Travis Montgomery (Jay Hayden) to DC alongside his bestie Victoria “Vic” Hughes (Barrett Doss) to take Crisis One national in a season finale, but Vic still would have left town. “We might have set Vic off on an adventure before she came back, realizing how much she missed her family and how much she needed to be back with everyone in Seattle,” Paige tells EW.
One of the arcs that was condensed when season 7 became a 10-episode final season was the fallout of Vic’s public embarrassment of the mayor. The 100th episode saw her take a public stance against the mayor for threatening to end Crisis One. “She would have lived in that for a little while longer for sure,” says Clack.
Beckett’s surprising love connection
Beckett developed a crush on Natasha’s sister (played by Yunjin Kim) during her visit, but the Station 19 bosses had an even more surprising love interest in mind for him: Vic! “We had some good unrequited love stuff for him,” Paige reveals. Getting sober was a rough journey for the at-times surly firefighter and Vic was a huge part in helping him work his way through it. “When you get help from a person, you put your feelings on that person,” Clack says, “He and Vic were getting really close and she literally saved his life.” If their trip to his family funeral is any indication, we missed out on a lot of good, awkward fun.
Carina’s new professional adventure
Carina got to suit up in the series finale when she went out into the wildfire on a call with Dr. Ben Warren (Jason George). If the show had continued, that would have only been the start of her getting in on the action. The plan was to have the spirited OB-GYN begin an EMT fellowship and become “the mayor’s kind of right hand in charge of all emergency medicine,” Clack explains. “We really wanted to make her more integral to the show, so we wouldn’t have her just delivering babies at every turn.”
The career move would have caused some complications in her loving marriage to Maya Bishop (Danielle Savre). “In some ways, she would’ve been [Maya’s] boss too,” Paige says, “Maya has always thought of herself as the smartest firefighter in any room, so to have her wife, who is a doctor, suddenly have this position of authority over her could have been really delicious.”
The Bishop siblings try again
Mason Bishop’s (Cameron Cowperthwaite) homophobia was one thing his sister couldn’t overlook when the siblings saw each other in the final season. “We would have liked to have [Mason] come back in some way,” Clack shares. The issues the pair had were too big to get addressed further or resolved in the flash-forwards in the series finale. But there would have been more heated conversation in their future.
Next stop: Korea?
Station 19 almost went to Korea for its 100th episode, but the co-showrunners both said it would’ve been a great way to start a new season. “We have two characters on the show who are half Korean and we thought that gave us some interesting personal storytelling opportunities. It would have been a fun couple-episode arc or something, taking everyone overseas for some training,” Paige says.
Jack’s next act
Viewers saw the physical and mental toll of being a first responder and the showrunners hoped to take that a step further through Jack Gibson (Grey Damon). Early in the final season, Jack’s injuries result in him leaving his life as a firefighter behind and working as an 911 operator. “There were so many firefighters we talked to that have so much mental and physical stress that we really wanted to explore what was beyond firefighting,” Clack explains. Paige adds going back to school or helping kids in foster care are stories that could have been explored.
Travis brings it all together
Travis’s next chapter would’ve been about integrating the many facets of his life. “There was his mixed-Korean-family life then his gay life then his firefighting life. He wasn’t closeted or anything like that, but he kept them all separate,” Paige explains. The shortened final season saw him reconnect and reconcile with his father who came out himself and had a new DJ boyfriend, but we never got to see the parts of his life come together before he left with Vic.
All that self work would have prepared Travis to meet the love of his life. Enter Dominic (Johnny Sibilly)? “We would have developed [Dominic] a lot more and a lot more slowly. It would have gone much more slowly and it would have been quite beautiful,” Clack says.
