You heard it, right ladies and gentlemen. After 12 long and amazing seasons, we are going to have to say goodbye to one of the characters we love the most, Jackson Avery. This hits harder than a lot of the deaths somehow. For many years now we have grown to fall in love with Jackson.
“Jesse Williams is an extraordinary artist and activist. Watching his evolution these past 11 years both on screen and off has been a true gift,” Grey’s Anatomy executive producer/showrunner Krista Vernoff said in a statement to Deadline. “Jesse brings so much heart, such depth of care, and so much intelligence to his work. We will miss Jesse terribly and we will miss Jackson Avery — played to perfection for so many years.”
Jesse Williams last episode will air on May 20th. Soak him up while we still have him. From the sounds of it, there seems to have been a lot of conversations between directors on how to give Jackson the best sendoff. This is why April returns in tonights episode. The show wanted to give him one of the best send off’s they possibly could. (Thank God after we lost Alex the way we did!)
When Jackson came to Grey Sloan Memorial we did not love him, we did not accept him because he was the Mercy West crew, but now we truly can’t imagine Grey’s without him, and this breaks our hearts.
“I will forever be grateful for the boundless opportunities provided me by Shonda, the network, studio, fellow castmates, our incredible crew, Krista, Ellen and Debbie,” Williams said in a statement to Deadline. “As an actor, director and person, I have been obscenely lucky to learn so much from so many and I thank our beautiful fans, who breathe so much energy and appreciation into our shared worlds. The experience and endurance born of creating nearly 300 hours of leading global television is a gift I’ll carry always. I am immensely proud of our work, our impact and to be moving forward with so many tools, opportunities, allies and dear friends.”
I have no more words, I need to process this. I wish we were kidding.