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Grey's Anatomy Is Devoting an Entire Season 15 Episode to [Spoiler] | TVLine

tvline.com|Michael Ausiello

Another longtime Grey’s Anatomy character is about to get the standalone episode treatment. Showrunner Krista Vernoff tells TVLine that one of the three bonus episodes recently commissioned by ABC will be “Amelia-centric.”

Earlier this month, the network announced that it was expanding Grey’s Anatomy‘s current 15th season from 22 to 25 episodes. But as Vernoff reveals, the order was — in her mind — just for one additional episode. “I knew for a long time that we were making 24,” she explains. “We’ve been making 24 episodes a year for many years now. ABC asked about [doing one more] and I spent a week thinking about whether or not we could accomplish it. I [ultimately] said yes because I like to be a team player.”

Once Vernoff signed off on the extra hour, it didn’t take long for her to settle on the Amelia of it all. “I had an extra standalone episode idea that I wanted to do this season,” she notes. “So it doesn’t really lengthen our season too much. It allows us to tell [this Amelia-centric] story that we might not otherwise have gotten to tell this season.”

For her part, portrayer Caterina Scorsone is cautiously optimistic that she’s up for the task at hand. “I’ve been doing the show for a long time and just hearing what it’s about fills me with nervous excitement,” the actress enthuses, before assuring TVLine that the episode will not merely shadow her alter ego around Grey Sloan. In fact, the Bill D’Elia-helmed installment doesn’t even take place in the hospital.

“It’s not just, ‘Let’s follow Amelia to the neuro lab,” Scorsone says with a laugh. “It’s definitely a little standalone. It’s almost like a little movie on its own.”