It was “so clearly the right course.”
Grey’s Anatomy boss Krista Vernoff has said there “wasn’t even a debate in the writers room” about what to do for Alex Karev’s exit.
Justin Chambers, who played Karev for 15 years, announced in January that he had left Grey’s – and that his final episode had already aired. The character was written out in an episode that aired in North America last month.
And Vernoff told TV Line that when it came to handling his exit, the found that they had three choices.
Spoilers for Grey’s Anatomy lie just beyond this point.
“Kill Alex off camera; have Alex be alive and in Seattle — and still married to Jo — and we just never see him; or [reunite him] with Izzie,” she explained, adding that there was no way they would have ever considered killing the character off.
She noted that killing Karev off would have been “cruel to everyone — particularly Meredith and Jo,” noting: “There was no way to not put those characters through gut-wrenching, ongoing grief if we had killed Alex off camera.”
But it also wouldn’t have been fair to the longtime fans of the series.
“Some fans were upset, particularly the Jolex shippers, that [Alex left Jo to be with Izzie] — and I understand why. But I would fight real hard anyone who tried to tell me that fans would not have been equally or more upset if I had killed Alex Karev off camera,” she continued.
Vernoff added that having Karev remain in Seattle and stay with Jo – albeit off-screen – wouldn’t have been fair to her character, or Camilla Luddington, who plays Jo.
“It would absolutely eliminate [the chance for her to play] so many colors that she is so good at playing,” she said.
