“We thought it would be more satisfying for the audience if there was some hope left for both of them…”
Season 17 of Grey’s Anatomy continues this evening on TF1 and will be marked by a new event: the departure of Jackson Avery. Spoiler alert!
Jesse Williams leaves the series for good, and he goes with his ex-wife April Kepner, to whom he proposes to go with him, to Boston, with their daughter Harriet, while he takes over the Catherine Fox Foundation. But things could have been very different if the actors Jesse Williams and Sarah Drew had not intervened. Because the authors didn’t really want this kind of happy ending originally:
“The pitch I was given initially was that April was super pregnant with Matthew’s baby and Matthew wasn’t home when Jackson showed up at her house to pitch April the idea of moving to Boston. with him...” recount Sarah Drew to Insider this week.
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Basically, in this version of the story, Matthew and April weren’t separated, like they are in the episode. “In this first version there was a storm outside and Jackson had to take care of delivering April’s baby at her house. And after all that experience, April decided to bring her whole family to Boston with Jackson.”
Most Sarah Drew explains that she didn’t like this ending to their story: “Jesse and I talked about it and thought it would be more satisfying for the audience if there was some hope left for them, for a possible Japril reunion. Jesse pitched that to the writers and the writers agreed, then the story changed…”
Season 18 of Grey’s Anatomywithout Jackson or April, is currently underway in the USA.