‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Showrunner Drops Hints About Jo’s Recovery And Relationship With Alex

Krista Vernoff, showrunner of ABC’s longest running medical drama, Grey’s Anatomy, is already dropping hints about the show’s upcoming season, according to a report from TV Line.

Season 15 was a bit of a rollercoaster for many of the doctors at Grey Sloan Memorial, including Dr. Jo Karev, played by Camilla Luddington, and her husband Dr. Alex Karev, played by Justin Chambers. Since her introduction on the series, the writers made it clear that Jo has had a troubled past. She was abandoned by her birth mother at a fire station and later moved from foster home to foster home until the age of 16.

While in school, she worked hard and graduated at the top of her class from Harvard Medical School. It was also revealed that she had changed her name upon arriving to Seattle, in an attempt to hide from her abusive ex-husband, Paul Stadler, played by Glee alum Matthew Morrison.

Eventually, things settled down for Jo and she married Alex, but their honeymoon period was short-lived after Jo made the decision to find her birth mother.

During the last few episodes of Season 15, viewers watched as Jo located and traveled to meet her mother, Vicki Ann Rudin, played by Michelle Forbes. Their reunion was not what Jo expected and she learned that she was the product of her mother’s rape and that she looked just like her now-deceased father. Jo has since been having a difficult time processing this new information and even threatened to leave her husband, but it seems that recovery and reconciliation might be closer than she thinks.

“I hope therapy brings her back to herself and Alex,” Vernoff said, before noting that she hopes “he gets to heal that wound that keeps repeating, where he chooses women who go into mental-health crises. I’d like to see that story complete for him, with Jo returning to him in a way that’s beautiful.”

“They were pretty great together,” she continued, “and then Jo suffered a very real trauma in discovering her birth story and experiencing the complexity of that rejection by her mother.”

Vernoff also added that the writers are currently on vacation and haven’t actually started penning Season 16, so there are no additional details to share.

It’s possible Season 16 will pick up right where the previous season left off to give viewers a peek inside Jo’s therapy sessions and her journey to healing, or there could be a significant time jump with bits and pieces of her story being revealed in flashbacks.

Grey’s Anatomy is expected to return to ABC later this year.