Greg Germann Exits ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ As Series Regular
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SPOILER ALERT: The story includes details about the May 20 episode of Grey’s Anatomy.
EXCLUSIVE: How is this for a classic Grey’s Anatomy twist — the show is bidding farewell not to one, but two doctors in tonight’s episode.
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Greg Germann is joining Grey’s veteran Jesse Williams in departing the medical drama as a series regular. However, this is not the last we have seen of Tom Koracick, as Germann is expected to reprise his role as a guest star in the future.
After Jackson’s bombshell’s announcement in Grey’s Anatomy‘s most recent original that he would be leaving Seattle to take over the family foundation to help create racial equity in medicine, signaling Williams’ exit from the show, the promo for tonight’s episode, Williams’ last, prepared viewers for an hourlong farewell to his beloved character. The surprise part is that the double-exit episode, “Tradition,” also marks the last episode as a series regular for Germann. And to tie things up nicely, Jackson and Koracick rode off into the sunset — or, in this case, flew off to Boston — together.
“Greg Germann is a comic genius and we are so lucky that he brought his talents to our show these last few years,” Grey’s Anatomy executive producer/showrunner Krista Vernoff told Deadline. “We will miss Greg terribly in the day to day – but we plan to see Tom Koracick again!”
Germann has played Dr. Tom Koracick, a brilliant neurosurgeon who is unapologetic in his arrogance — and in his romantic pursuits — since 2017. He joined the series as a recurring in Season 14 and was promoted to a series regular at the start of Season 16.
“To have worked with all the incredibly talented people involved with Grey’s over the past few years has been such a privilege,” Germann told Deadline. “A big thank you to the fans as it has truly been a shared experience!”
The Ally McBeal alum helped bring some levity to this season, filled with a lot of grief and heartache as it tackled the pandemic; Koracick’s witty banter with Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) while she was briefly out of her Covid-induced coma was certainly a highlight.
Koracick had an intense season arc as he, like Meredith, battled Covid. That storyline had a happy ending, and his love triangle plot also was resolved, with Teddy letting him go and he and Owen (almost) reconciling in a touching moment, giving the character’s journey on the show closure.
In tonight’s episode, Koracick got to treat a Native American elder with symptoms of a stroke from a tribal community that had been hard hit by the pandemic.
While Koracick was performing an emergency surgery on the man to remove a clot, he paused with a look on his face like he had just had a premonition when Schmitt told him that Jo had switched specialties to obstetrics because “she was sick of general.”
Koracick later appeared moved by the speech the old man, recovering from his surgery, gave to his granddaughter via a video link to another room in the hospital where she had just given birth to his great-granddaughter.
“I don’t think I know anything anymore,” Koracick told a confused Levi moments later.
Later that evening, Koracick met Jackson and offered to join him at the foundation in Boston.
“I lost six roommates while I was treated for Covid; I was the only white guy,” Koracick said.
“I want to be an ally, I want to spend whatever time I’ve got left making this lousy, stinking place better,” he pleaded with Jackson. “I’ll operate, I’ll administrate, I’ll do anything. I don’t want money, I don’t want a title, just let me help.”
Jackson hired him on the spot but asked him not to join him on his jet for the flight to Boston so “I am not tempted to fire you before we land.”
You can watch Grey’s Anatomy‘s farewell video to Tom Koracick below.
The exits of Germann and Williams follow the departure of another series regular, Giacomo Gianniotti, who left the series earlier this season.
Germann can currently be seen in Herding Cats by Lucinda Coxon, marking the first production post-pandemic to fuse in-person and livestream theater. Germann performs live from a soundstage in Los Angeles, and is transmitted via video-link into the Soho Theatre where Jassa Ahluwalia and Sophie Melville perform in front of an in-person audience. Simultaneously, audiences across the globe can access the production as a live-streamed theatrical experience that combines performances of both the American and British actors in real time.
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