Spoiler alert! This story contains spoilers for Station 19’s Season 7 premiere “This Woman’s Work,” which aired on March 14.
The Season 7 premiere of Station 19 might have marked the beginning of the end for the Grey’s Anatomy spinoff, but for one of the firefighters, it was just the end. Following Jack Gibson’s head injuries in Season 6 — and the cliffhanger that left him unconscious — we learned in the March 14 episode that while he survived, he will most likely never again fight fires alongside his chosen family at the fire station. Showrunners Peter Paige and Zoanne Clack talked about why they wrote this story for Jack, and it turns out it was inspired by a conversation with a real firefighter.
Station 19’s Season 6 finale saw Jack (Grey Damon) hit his head in the big ballroom floor collapse. The firefighter seemed OK at first, but passed out as the credits rolled on the season, leaving his fate up in the air going into the series’ final season. Thanks to Amelia Shepherd (in a guest appearance from Grey’s Anatomy’s Caterina Scorsone), we learned that Jack has brain scarring called encephalomalacia, and Peter Paige told The Wrap why they chose to go this route with the character:
In a lot of cases, there is a ticking clock on [firefighters’] career, which oftentimes is chosen out of passion. Nobody becomes a firefighter to get rich … it ain’t a money job. You do it because you want to be of service to your community, and there are often external limits imposed upon that.
While Dr. Shepherd left the door open for Jack to possibly recover, she said he might develop CTE, and it doesn't sound like an improbable recovery in the cards, as the showrunners are choosing to explore a side of firefighting that often gets overlooked. Zoanne Clack recalled being inspired during a recent visit to a fire station, saying:
Pretty much every season we’ll do a tour with five different fire stations. During the most recent one, the guy who was taking us around — a media relations guy who used to be on the field — was telling us about the physical and psychological toll that firefighting can take on you. Sometimes you just have to get out. You want to stay with your brethren, but it just gets to a point where you have to find out what’s next. So we’re exploring that [with Jack] this season.
Obviously Jack will want to stay with his fellow firefighters — who are pretty much the only real family he’s ever known — and we even saw him joking with Andy Herrera (Jaina Lee Ortiz) about when his next shift was when he finally woke up at the end of the season premiere. It sounds like it’s going to be a tough road for Jack, who’s already been through more than his share of heartbreaking circumstances, but as Peter Paige and Zoanne Clack said, firefighters sometimes don’t get to choose when and how their careers end.
It may be the final season, but thankfully we’re just getting started, and I can’t wait to see what else is in store for Season 7. New episodes of Station 19 air at 10 p.m. ET Thursdays on ABC and can be streamed the next day with a Hulu subscription. Be sure to check out our 2024 TV schedule for all of the upcoming premieres.
