Grey’s Anatomy fans are used to frequent comings and goings, but as season 22 approaches, the future of Piper Perabo’s character, Jenna Gatlin, remains uncertain.
In a TV Insider interview published on Tuesday, August 5, the actress, 48, teased whether Jenna will return after her arrest and the ensuing explosion during the season 21 finale.
“It was so fun when they called,” she told the outlet. “I literally was talking with the writers’ room about [that] — because it literally is, like, boom, season out — and so I was talking with them about the immediate aftermath because it’s not totally clear where everyone is in the building. When you see the explosion, it wasn’t clear which hallway certain people are in.”
Amid speculation about Jenna’s fate, Perabo wondered whether her character could have used the blast to her advantage.
“So I talked to them a lot about that immediate moment, and also, is escape possible?” she added. “Given the chaos of the explosion, could I escape?”
During the season 21 finale, which aired in May, Jenna forced Amelia Shepherd (Caterina Scorsone) to perform a dangerous operation on her daughter by threatening to blow up the operating room with a gas tank and flint striker. After the surgery was completed successfully, Jenna claimed the gas tank was empty the entire time, and she was arrested. While the surgeons on the floor resumed their normal routines believing the scene was safe, Jenna’s husband later revealed that the gas tank wasn’t empty, with a leak causing an explosion as lives hung in the balance.
Regardless of Perabo’s season 22 status, Ellen Pompeo (Meredith Grey), Chandra Wilson (Miranda Bailey), James Pickens Jr. (Richard Webber), Kevin McKidd (Owen Hunt), Kim Raver (Teddy Altman), Camilla Luddington (Jo Wilson) and Scorsone are expected to return to the long-running ABC medical drama later this year.
