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Spoiler alert! Big spoilers for the Grey’s Anatomy Season 22 finale ahead. If you missed the May 7 episode, you can stream it now with a Hulu subscription.
Grey’s Anatomy wrapped up its 22nd season with plenty of surprises popping up with the bridge collapse. Sophia Bush’s return as Dr. Cass Beckman was one delightful twist — the bridge disaster was an “all hands on deck” situation, after all, and Cass’ hands were on the right side of the carnage. She ended up being instrumental in one of the finale’s more shocking and unexpected cliffhangers, but Bush said another part of her storyline initially gave her pause.
Sophia Bush has now appeared in seven Grey’s Anatomy episodes, mostly as a potential love interest to Teddy Altman (Kim Raver), but in “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” she had the much more serious job of saving Nick Marsh’s life. The One Tree Hill alum understood the weight of that situation, telling EW:
I immediately was like, ‘You better tell me this man is going to be okay.’ As a Meredith Grey fan, I was like, ‘I am not going to wear that around my neck, you guys.’
As we all remember, Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) lost Derek Shepherd to improperly trained surgeons, and it sounds like Sophia Bush had no interest in becoming “Perfect Penny” Part 2 by killing off Nick (Scott Speedman). Cass smartly refused to let Meredith into the operating room with her, instead calling on Chandra Wilson’s Miranda. Seeing that in the script made Bush feel better, as she said:
I was like, ‘Bring it on. Bring me Miranda Bailey.’ I liked the team that they built to do this work, which when I saw that, I was like, ‘Okay, good. They’re not going to make me kill Meredith’s husband.’ Thank God!
Yes, Sophie Bush said “Meredith’s husband,” because to underscore the significance of the situation, Meredith told Cass that she and Nick were married, setting up the surprise engagement near the episode’s end.
Speaking of the end of the episode, Sophia Bush was part of another wildly unexpected reveal, when Toni Wright (Jen Landon) told Amelia Shepherd (Caterina Scorsone) she was falling in love with her, only to realize that Amelia had just slept with Cass! It seems like Bush had the same reaction as every Grey’s fan, as she said:
When I flipped to that page, the gasp, I mean, I shrieked so loud I scared everyone in my house.
Forget the scandal of it all, with Toni and Amelia at such a tenuous place in their young and complicated relationship — this CassMelia pairing is one that fans have apparently been begging for. Sophia Bush continued:
You immediately get that question of like, ‘What happened? This is insane.’ Also, I was just giggling to myself because from the moment that Cass showed up at Grace [sic] Sloan, the whole gay internet has been asking for this. And I was like, ‘Oh, okay. Writers’ room, I see you!’
Well we certainly can’t blame Cass for needing to blow off some steam after operating on Meredith Grey’s partner, but will she continue to show up in Season 23? Who knows? We didn’t even expect to see her in the Season 22 finale! We’ve got a while to wait before finding out if CassMelia can be a real thing or if she’s just a bump in the road for Toni and Amelia, just like she proved to be for Teddy and Owen.
You can rewatch any of Grey’s Anatomy’s 22 seasons on Hulu, or start a rewatch from your favorite Grey’s era, with the first 21 seasons available to stream with a Netflix subscription.