Spoiler alert! This story contains spoilers for Grey’s Anatomy’s November 21 episode “Drop It Like It’s Hot.” Episodes can be streamed with a Hulu subscription if you need to catch up.
Grey’s Anatomy wrapped up its run on the 2024 TV schedule by saying goodbye to two beloved surgeons. Last week we bid farewell to Jake Borelli’s Levi Schmitt, as he chose to follow his passion for pediatrics to a job in Texas. This week Mika Yasuda also took control of her own fate by choosing to leave the hospital, but the circumstances were much less celebratory. With Mika surviving the car crash cliffhanger earlier this season, Grey’s Anatomy effectively left the door open for Midori Francis to return someday, and the actress shared her honest thoughts about whether that’s a possibility.
“Drop It Like It’s Hot” picks up six weeks after Mika’s little sister Chloe died, and the still-grieving sister is headed back to work for the first time since the accident. Despite her best attempts to distract herself (enter Jules Millin), Mika can’t get past the fact that her sister died in that hospital and ultimately tells Miranda Bailey she has to quit. Bailey (Chandra Wilson) was the very definition of grace, telling Mika that when she was ready to help people again, going through this experience would make her a better doctor. Does Midori Francis see that for her character’s future? She told Deadline:
I think Mika has a lot of healing to do, and she’s going to go home and do that. In the back of my mind, because I know how passionate she is about what she does, do I think and do I hope that she will find a way to use this grief as a way to continue pursuing caring for other people? Yes, I do.
It’s a promising sign that Grey’s Anatomy’s writers didn’t choose to kill Mika off (I thought they would, since it’s been a few years since any series regulars died), because that means she could always return down the road. However, Midori Francis isn’t sure that’s Mika’s path — despite her own feelings about a future comeback. She said:
As far as returning to Grey’s, I would be so delighted. These people and this world has become part of my trajectory of acting families, and I would be absolutely delighted to return. I don’t know if Mika would, I think for Mika it would be triggering.
Mika said something similar to Bailey in the episode, when the mentor told her she might feel differently after a few weeks. Mika said she was a person who was either all in or all out, and she’d made up her mind that she wouldn’t find healing while still working in that hospital.
That’s not great news for fans who were holding out hope for Mika and Jules (Adelaide Kane). The couple did have one hot hookup before Mika made her decision and left Jules heartbroken again. This was exactly why I was annoyed Grey’s Anatomy made them a couple in the first place, because it was so short-lived and ended so painfully. However, I fully enjoyed what we did see of them, so I guess I shouldn’t complain too much.
"Drop It Like It's Hot" ended on a big cliffhanger, and now we’ve got a long wait before finding out if Lucas Adams (Niko Terho) or Jo Wilson (Camilla Luddington) was shot in the convenience store robbery. What’s going to happen to Jo and Link’s babies? We won’t know until Grey’s Anatomy returns as part of the 2025 TV schedule at 10 p.m. ET Thursday, March 6, on ABC.
In the meantime, Grey’s Anatomy is one of the best shows to binge on Netflix right now, and since you probably don’t have time to go back through all 20 seasons, we’ve got some suggestions for where to start your Grey’s rewatch, depending on your favorite era of the medical drama.
