In the Season 22 finale of the ABC medical drama, Owen survives a bridge collapse on his way to work and, true to form, springs into action to save all four members of a family who were also caught in the wreckage. After being unable to reach Owen, who was unable to find a cell connection, Teddy begins to fear the worst, especially when the fire department found his truck abandoned in the water under the bridge.
Confiding in Richard (James Pickens Jr.), Teddy laments that her final conversation with Owen may have been a disagreement over whether she should take a new job offer in Paris. But while overseeing Blue’s (Harry Shum Jr.) care of a patient in the ER, Teddy notices that a key chain matching Owen’s own was used to perform a cricothyrotomy in the field, giving her a glimmer of hope that Owen had made it out alive. After operating on that patient with Kwan, Teddy walks into the OR next door and finds Owen working to save the father of the family he was treating.
Once they save him, Teddy tells Owen in the scrub room that she will turn down the job because he is “the only thing that makes me feel like home.” Owen tells her that she will take the job — because he and their kids will move to Paris for her. “We wanted to tell this story that beautifully answered what Teddy had done at the end of last season [by choosing herself],” showrunner Meg Marinis tells Variety. “She was presented with an opportunity, and for once, Owen follows Teddy.” 
The finale — helmed by McKidd, who holds the record for directing most “Grey’s” episodes, at 49 — is filled with “a lot of Easter eggs” that “maybe only the most diehard Teddy/Owen fans will catch,” Marinis adds. “We really studied how each of their characters came onto the show, and what they came onto the show searching for, and we gave them the best ending that we could at this time.”
Owen was introduced in Season 5 as a rogue Army trauma surgeon who was honorably discharged following the death of his entire platoon. The following season, Owen enlisted his close friend Teddy, a cardiothoracic surgeon, to act as the new mentor of his love interest, Cristina Yang (Sandra Oh). This led to the first of multiple love triangles involving Owen and Teddy, with Owen marrying Cristina in Season 7 and Teddy departing at the end of Season 8 following the tragic death of her husband Henry (Scott Foley).
Shortly after Teddy returned in Season 14, she became pregnant with Owen’s child amid his separation from his second wife, Amelia Shepherd (Caterina Scorsone). Since then, Teddy and Owen found themselves in another love triangle with Tom Koracick (Greg Germann), got married and became parents to two children, and then grew apart after a failed attempt at an open marriage. But now, they will ride off into the sunset together.
In a wide-ranging chat, Marinis opens up below about the “painful” experience of saying goodbye to two characters who remain inextricably linked with the “Grey’s” legacy. She also unpacks protagonist Meredith Grey’s (Ellen Pompeo) surprising admission after nearly losing her partner Nick Marsh (Scott Speedman) in the same bridge collapse, and teases what to expect from the 23rd season. Despite reports that the show’s renewal in March will come with a significant budget cut or a reduced order, Marinis says that the exact number of episodes next season is still being worked out.
Can you walk me through your decision to write off Teddy and Owen this season?
It was a super painful decision, from the bottom of my heart. I’m very close to both of those characters and those actors. Kevin has directed double digits of episodes that I’ve written. So it was a very difficult episode to write, and it surprised me how difficult it was to even watch. But when we were faced with needing to exit [someone], it made the most sense for where their characters were in their lives. It felt like it was time. After the ups and downs of their relationship this season, I knew I wanted them to exit together. I thought they finally deserved to be happy, and it became clear to me that maybe they can’t be happy in Seattle — and that’s where the decision was made.
When did you make that decision?
Shortly after the new year. It’s no secret what’s happening with network shows, and we’re not an exception, unfortunately.
You have found some creative ways to keep “Grey’s” on the air for the last few years while facing the financial realities of the TV business — like not using every series regular in every episode — but it sounds like you reached a point where you had to let someone go.
Obviously, even though we do go through all of these budget conversations, we try to let the creative dictate the story. Some of our characters, even if they aren’t still married, have children together, so it’s very tricky how to exit characters and what the impact is going to be to the other. It is pretty tough to maintain a large ensemble, especially for 22 years, in today’s financial climate in the industry. If it were up to me solely, I wouldn’t be writing anybody off ever, but I have to see where the story goes and follow the story. Again, I can’t express how these have been some painful few months for the “Grey’s” family.
You once revealed that you, Kim and Kevin have a table at Joe’s Bar where you have story conversations while filming “Grey’s.” Was that also the case with their exits? Did you speak with them together?
Those conversations were all had separately. I didn’t want to have those as a group of three. It was important to me that the characters were also seen as separate characters, with their individual contributions to the show, and we all have separate relationships with each other. So those initial conversations were had between Kevin, [creator] Shonda [Rhimes] and I, and then Kim, Shonda and I. They were difficult conversations from the very beginning, because all of us love the characters so much, and it’s been such a long journey and it’s hard to say goodbye. But the nice thing on this show is that we always have room for people to come back and visit.
How involved was Shonda in their departures?
I pitched her the storylines of how to do it. Anything that is big, I pitch it to her first. It’s her show. She deserves to know big moves like that. But she was involved in those initial conversations with Kim and Kevin.
You mentioned that you and your writers thought about what Owen and Teddy were each searching for when they arrived at this hospital. What were they searching for?
I think that Owen was searching for a home. After he lost his entire squad in war and he had that PTSD of what it is like to be the sole survivor, he came to Seattle looking for connection and for a home. He found that through Grey Sloan and the people that work there.
Teddy came to Seattle for Owen. He called her, and she thought she was coming to be with him and it was a surprise that he was with Cristina. In that first episode, she says, “Oh, I misread this.” So when she says that in the scrub room, that’s a callback. Owen quickly corrects her in this finale and says, “No, no, no, I’m coming with you.” So there are little things like that that we snuck in there and that Kevin was fully aware of as the director. There’s even some musical cues in there that, again, unless you’re a diehard Teddy/Owen fan, you might not catch. But for those of us who work on the show and love those characters, it was very meaningful to us.
For two characters who spent so much of their lives at this hospital, Teddy and Owen leave Grey Sloan pretty abruptly. Did you ever write any scenes of them saying goodbye to colleagues?
Well, they don’t make their decision until very late in the episode. I wanted to celebrate them, and sometimes when you have a bunch of goodbyes, it also becomes about the other characters and it feels like you’re not really concentrating on the character that you’re trying to write the exit for. Even though they were leaving together, I really wanted to celebrate the two of them individually, so it was very important to me also to show their [montages] separately.
I was personally surprised to hear how open Meredith is to the idea of getting married again, especially since Derek (Patrick Dempsey) was the first true love of her life. How did she reach the conclusion that she was actually willing to take that next step with Nick, whom she even calls her husband in the ER?
This was something that we planned out from the beginning of the season. I told Ellen that I wanted to end with a proposal. She wanted to see how it played out, but in that middle episode in the season this year when his sister came to visit, we learned more about Nick — and so did Meredith. Meredith learned that he had had this dream of having this marriage and this happy home life, and it got taken away from him.