The ABC medical drama is saying goodbye to two longtime cast members at the end of this season.
WARNING: Spoilers for Thursday's episode of Grey's Anatomy! Do not proceed if you haven't watched "Cold as Ice."
Thursday's Grey's Anatomy saw the Grey Sloan team coming perilously close to losing one of their own. But thankfully, Dr. April Kepner (Sarah Drew) pulled through.
After Matthew Taylor (Justin Bruening) -- a Grey Sloan paramedic, and April's ex-fiance -- ended up in the emergency room after a car accident, he warned the doctors that April had been in the car with him. Dr. Owen Hunt (Kevin McKidd) finally found her body next to a stream, and the team brought her in, suffering from hypothermia with no vital signs, but still clinging to life. As Dr. Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) put it, "She's not dead until she's warm and dead."
The rescue efforts were harrowing on the entire team, as Dr. Jackson Avery (Jesse Williams) broke down upon seeing his ex-wife on the operating table, and later made a heartbroken, tearful plea to a higher power to bring April back. In fact, nearly every member of the Grey Sloan family burst into tears at some point during the ordeal, especially after Dr. Arizona Robbins (Jessica Capshaw) revealed to the team that April and Matthew had fallen back in love following their recent personal hardships.
Finally, Dr. Maggie Pierce (Kelly McCreary) was able to get April's heart beating, and the trauma surgeon finally opened her eyes again as Jackson sat by her bedside.
"You prayed for me," she teased. "And it worked, haha."
April seemed to be fine, launching into the medical facts behind her seemingly miraculous recovery, and reassuring the emotional team that she didn't come back from the dead. "There's only one person who gets to do that, and that's Jesus. And I know I didn't die, because I would have gotten to meet him."
The episode also saw Arizona give her notice at the hospital, as she makes plans to move to New York City so her daughter Sofia can live closer to her mom, former Grey Sloan doctor Callie Torres (Sara Ramirez) -- before getting an incredible job offer from her former mentor Nicole Herman (Geena Davis).
Prior to the emotional episode, Pompeo warned fans that, "on a scale of 1 to 10 tonight's definitely a 12."
The actress recently told ET that Drew, who will be departing Grey's with Capshaw following the current 14th season, would not be meeting a horrific end.
"You only get killed off when your behavior is bad. If you're a nice actor, you die nice," Pompeo told ET on Tuesday. "But yeah, these endings aren't tragic."
Pompeo also shared her personal reaction when she learned that Drew and Capshaw would be leaving the show, seemingly reiterating that she wasn't part of the decision.
"My first reaction was, 'What? What do you mean? Why?' And then you go through levels and stages of grief. It's hard for them, it's hard for us, it's hard for the writer who had to make the choice, [who] had to make the creative decision," she said, adding, "You have to try to support the girls. It's just not easy for anyone, but I don't want to make it about me. It's about them and I just tried to be just as supportive as I could be to everyone involved."
Grey's Anatomy airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.
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