
SPOILER ALERT: The story includes details about the Season 22 premiere of ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy.
Following the massive explosion at the end of the Season 21 finale, Grey’s Anatomy fans had been bracing for the worst. Their fears were realized by the trailer for the Season 22 premiere, which confirmed there were fatalities, with several surgeons unaccounted for.
While Link (Chris Carmack) came very close to dying from his injuries, in the end, it was Dr. Monica Beltran (Natalie Morales) who passed away after being pinned to the wall of an OR by surgical equipment. But not before she saved another patient’s life by guiding Jules (Adelaide Kane) through the surgery of a boy the two had been operating on at the time of the blast. By the time rescuers finally got to them, it was too late for her.
“Monica is such an incredible performer, incredible actor. I loved working with her, and I hope to work with her again one day,” Grey’s Anatomy executive producer/showrunner Marinis said in a Season 22 premiere postmortem interview. “Sitting at the monitors during those scenes when we were filming in the OR, I cried even when she wasn’t on DSLR.”
Morales joined Grey’s Anatomy early in Season 20 as brilliant pediatric surgeon Monica Beltran. She had recurred since; the Season 22 premiere marked her fatalistic 13th and final episode. During her Grey Sloan tenure, Monica became known for her innovative surgeries and compassion for her patients, not so much for her personal life which, besides brief episodes with Amelia and Winston, was largely romantic entanglement-free.
In an interview with Deadline, Morales shared how she found out about Monica’s demise and what her reaction was, discussed filming what became her first career death scene, including practicing her death face, and reflected on Monica’s heroic final minutes. She also reminisced about her time on the show and revealed her favorite episode.
DEADLINE: When were you told that Monica’s arc is coming to an end?
MORALES: When they asked me to come back for this season. I got the phone call to come back, and I said, Oh, I thought maybe she would have died. And then Meg was like, Well, I have something to tell you.
DEADLINE: So you had an inkling that something might be afoot with the explosion?
MORALES: Because the hospital blew up, I thought there’s a big cast on this show, they have to get rid of somebody, maybe.
DEADLINE: What was your reaction when Meg told you that Monica would die?
MORALES: It was obviously a mix of things. I’ve been so lucky to be a part of this show, and I feel very grateful to have been a part of it. I think the fandom of this show has been so kind to me and so welcoming, and I think those people that have been welcoming to me are going to be pissed. I’m sorry about that.
But I also think that Meg is an incredibly talented writer and showrunner, and I will say one of the best people I’ve ever worked with, truly. She was so kind and so on best of it all the time that when she told me the plan, I was like, Oh, that feels right. I get why you’re doing that, and it makes sense to me. Although I’m sad about it, it really works for the story.
‘Grey’s Anatomy’: Natalie Morales as Monica Beltran.
Disney/Maarten de Boer
DEADLINE: You had a very unusual final episode as Monica was pinned down so you were sitting the entire time, which must have been pretty comfortable.
MORALES: It wasn’t as comfortable as you would think. I will say they did try to make me as comfortable as possible. Originally, when I heard about it was like, great, I’ll be sitting the whole time. But, no, I don’t recommend being pinned to the ground for two days straight.
DEADLINE: How did you approach the scene?
MORALES: I approached it the way that I always do, which is truly my favorite part about working on Greys, working with the medical advisors Michael [Metzner] and Linda [Klein] who are incredible, just asking these people who are real doctors and real medical professionals what will happen. Every time we did surgeries on that show, it was either the person who had invented the surgery was there to show us how to do it, or the person who had invented the tool that we were using was showing us how to do it. It was so cool to learn how they do these things, I was very interested in that part of it.
So for me, it was really important to play it honestly from a medical perspective and be like, Well, what’s happening here? Why does she die? When does she start dying? How is she pinned to the wall but then when she moves, that’s when she starts internally bleeding. How is that going to affect her? And how can we portray that so that on second series you can tell what happens, but on first series, you don’t really know when she’s dying and what shifted. Michael and Linda were always such North Stars for me in everything that we did, but particularly in that episode.
I don’t think I’ve ever died in anything before. I mean, I’ve been dead, but I don’t think I’ve died in anything, so that was interesting for me to do. I did also have to practice my death face. Well, realistically, maybe my mouth would be hanging open, but I don’t know that I want to do that on television, so I had to make it real, but not too… And so it was interesting from a technical point of view, on all those fronts, to get to do that.
DEADLINE: You mentioned your death face but you’re not even in focus when Monica dies, you’re in the background.
MORALES: I haven’t seen the episode yet, so I’m excited to see how they did it. But, yeah, I’m in the background. That’s good.
DEADLINE: Is this the only way the death was shot? Or were there also close-ups?
MORALES: No, they shot it a few different ways but it was written that way, where you don’t know that she died until Jules turns around. They shot it in every way, because Debbie [Allen] is amazing and, like any good director, likes to cover herself, but I’m very glad that they edited it as it was written, because I think it’s a better surprise that way, that you don’t know that she’s dead until Jules does.
DEADLINE: How did you feel about entering Grey’s pantheon of heroic deaths with Monica, till her final breath, helping Jules slash the little boy on the OR table?
MORALES: I wish that all doctors were like the doctors of Grey’s Anatomy, who really care about their patients so, so, so, so much. I don’t mean to talk badly about the medical community, because I know that most doctors are like that. But there are some that I have seen, that my friends have seen, that my family have seen, that I wish cared a little bit more.
I think that that’s such an aspirational and beautiful thing to go, wow, this is a doctor who is always putting her patients first. And there’s a certain point in the scenes where she goes, oh. She knows she’s not going to make it, but she knows she has to talk Jules through it, because somebody has to make it out of here, and that she’s going to do that till the second she dies, which is literally what happens. I loved being able to show that because I know that there are people in the medical profession who would do exactly that.
‘Grey’s Anatomy’ (L-R): Adelaide Kane, Natalie Morales, Anthony Hill
DEADLINE: Looking back, was this what you were hoping Monica’s journey on the show would be? And were there any fun moments that you’ll always remember?
MORALES: When I first got hired, they said it was going to be 3 to 5 episodes, so I didn’t know what it was going to be. I’m lucky that it was more than that; I’m excited that I got to do more than that. There were a lot of really fun moments, and a lot of interesting moments for me in learning how to do medical stuff. Like I was saying, that was the really interesting part — not that I’ll raise my hand on an airplane if someone needs a doctor, but I do feel like I have a new respect for surgeons. I never, ever in my life had any interest in doing it, and immediately I kind of do a little like, Oh, this is interesting.
DEADLINE: What will you miss the most about being on the show?
MORALES: They have such a great crew, truly the crew is the backbone of that show. The film and TV business is glamorous in some ways, but really it’s a tight-knit family of people that work really, really hard and love what they do. To me, the crews are always the best part. I got to work with an amazing cast, the writers were all wonderful, and the directors that I worked with were great. So, really, it’s the people that I will miss more than anything.
DEADLINE: Do you have a favorite episode?
MORALES: I think I liked the episode where Winston gave me somebody’s lingerie that was not mine. I liked that episode because I got to be funny in that one, that was fun to do.
DEADLINE: We wanted to see where that goes with Monica and Winston, but it didn’t happen. Maybe in another life.
MORALES: Yeah, maybe I’ll play a ghost again. That’ll be fun.