Now that was an intense season premiere! Justin did stellar work throughout (no surprise there), and I’m so looking forward to watching what comes next for Alex Karev. Making the return of Grey’s even better, is the return of Justin giving interviews. He spoke with Entertainment Weekly about Alex’s storyline, what happened in the season premiere and why he’s chosen to stay on Grey’s. Check it out below.

Though Alex was hesitant to take responsibility for DeLuca’s condition, he made a shocking decision in the closing moments of the Grey’s Anatomy premiere by turning himself in to the police.

During the premiere, DeLuca (Giacomo Gianniotti) is rushed to the hospital, but Alex (Justin Chambers) declines to share what happened to him. Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) quickly deduces what happened, confronts Alex, and pushes him to turn himself in. While she initially helps him cover it up, Mer ultimately tells Bailey (Chandra Wilson) — but Alex has already turned himself in. What’s next? EW hit the set to find out from Chambers:

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What’s Alex’s mindset right now when turning himself in?
JUSTIN CHAMBERS: His mindset is that he wants to be married, and he’s in love with Jo, and he wants to be her husband, and he wants her to be his wife, and she hasn’t given him an answer. DeLuca was just an innocent bystander caught in the crossfire, and Alex has a lot of rage. He’s got a lot to be rageful about.

EW: How guilty does he feel over what he’s done?
JC: Right now, he’s just trying to pick up the pieces and try to glue it back together.

EW: This is a side we’ve never really seen from Alex before. How does this incident scare him?
JC: It’s a good question. I’ll know the farther I act it. It’s great to be on a show where they really dive into the characters, and everyone gets a little piece of the pie. These are moments that I relish. It’s a great gig. It’s just such an awesome job. I’m so grateful, and I enjoy it very much.

EW: Can you talk about the repercussions moving forward?
JC: I don’t know how that affects his medical license. I don’t know, but he’s… got to find redemption.

EW: Alex seems to have reverted back to the jerk we knew from the early seasons.
JC: I think two steps forward, one step back. I think the jerkier side’s going to come out, and I think he’s definitely taking a pit stop from trying to be more altruistic. He’s been wronged a lot, but he also has to take responsibility.

EW: How do you feel about going back to that side of Alex?
JC: It’s fun. It’s all fun. I’m just happy to work. Yeah, it’s glorious. It really is. Not to be corny, but it is.

EW: Let’s talk about how this is going to change his relationship with Jo.
JC: Obviously, [he’s] going to find out why she can’t marry him. I don’t know where that takes them from there, but he’s hurt, and he’s angry, and he’s wrong, but he’s also right.

EW: For Alex and Jo, do you think there’s…
JC: Hope? On this show, anything’s possible. Anything.

EW: How do you think he’ll feel when he finds out Jo Wilson is not Jo Wilson?
JC: I think angry, very angry, and hurt. Hurt’s usually always under anger. So hurt, very, very hurt.

EW: This is somebody who he finally opened himself up to after Izzie.
JC: Yeah, and it’s a facade, but there’s got to be a reason. He’s definitely going to be hurt in the beginning when he finds out, but people can work through things.

EW: Do you think he understands a little bit about running away from your past given his own past?
JC: Yeah, I would think so. I think he should be a little more empathetic, but they bonded over their past, and to leave that part of her past out, that’s a pretty big piece of her puzzle, so I think he’s going to feel very betrayed.

EW: How will Alex’s relationship with Maggie change after beating up her ex? Will it be difficult for them to come back from that?
JC: I believe so. I mean, as of what we’ve shot so far, I’ve seen her look at Alex with disgust. He messed up. He messed up. Messing up is not good. We got to clean it up if we mess it up.

EW: What was it that made you want to come back, ultimately, for season 13?
JC: A job. I like having a job. I like the people I work with. My boss is awesome. It’s great. Why not? I’ve got nowhere better to be. This is where I’m supposed to be, and I’m enjoying it.

EW: Do you feel like you’ve achieved what you wanted to achieve with this character and everything’s icing on the cake at this point?
JC: I’d like to see him settle and find real foundation with family. I think Alex would be a good dad, but maybe he’s supposed to be everyone’s dad as a doctor. I know that I still care to play him, so I’m interested in seeing where it goes, but I think Alex is going to be OK.

Grey’s Anatomy creator and executive-producer, Shonda Rhimes, gave interviews to Entertainment Weekly and TV Insider about what’s in store for season 13.
The interviews are rather extensive and so I haven’t posted them in their entirety, only the parts that relate to Justin and his character, Alex Karev. The full interviews can be read at the sources that are linked to below.

★ From Entertainment Weekly

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: The show is putting focus back on the remaining original characters. How is that resonating in the stories in season 13?
SHONDA RHIMES: It just means that part of what we’re doing is we’re really telling stories that are about — our story arcs this season are about Meredith, about Alex, about Bailey, and about Richard, and that’s where we’re pointing our compass right now.

EW: Does season 13 therefore feel in the spirit of those early seasons?
My goal is always that every season feels like it’s its own special animal, so I don’t think that would be a totally accurate thing to say. But I think it does feel really good.

EW: Speaking of what’s next, in the finale, Alex beat DeLuca within an inch of his life. Can you talk about the consequences of his actions both legally and professionally?
There are going to be some really big consequences. We talked about it a lot in the writer’s room, how we were going to deal with this, and what we thought made sense, and I really wanted to tell a story that felt true. What happens when you really screw up? Alex is a guy who has worked really hard to grow up, and be a responsible adult, and to not be the kid he was when we first met him. To find himself in this position I think is just interesting for him as a character because he is in this place of growth. He is a character who every single time he has become involved with a woman, that woman has, in some way, destroyed him. We are going to watch what happens for him now and how that challenges him and changes him.

EW: Justin has intimated that we’re seeing an Alex that is more like the jerk of the earlier seasons.
I think people who are hurt revert to their less mature selves a lot of the time. He is hurt and he doesn’t quite know how to cope with that. What I love is that he and Meredith are trying to get through it together, and she’s trying to take care of him, and he’s trying to take care of her, and at times they don’t appreciate each other’s methods.

EW: How will what Alex did divide the hospital?
I’m not as keen on the concept that it’s going to divide the hospital. It definitely poses some problems for the people in charge. It definitely poses some problems for Bailey, who has worked really hard to be in charge and to find a place of leadership, then to find herself in a situation that is really volatile, and a very volatile workplace is not a lot of fun. The idea that one of her employees has attacked another one of her employees, what is she going to do and how is she going to cope? That world is really interesting to watch her survive in, especially when it’s supposed to be a teaching environment; it’s supposed to be a nurturing environment.
And I love the fact that we’re going to get to know DeLuca a lot better, who we don’t know at all, and who we’ve just started to scratch the surface of. Now, because this thing has happened to him, he has found himself in a spotlight that he was not interested in ever being in.

EW: How is what Alex did going to affect his relationship with Jo?
I think that is going to be the key. That relationship is going to be deeply affected — I don’t think that there’s any way it couldn’t be after what he did, after what happened. There’s no way to have that occur and to expect that there aren’t going to be any consequences.

EW: One of the more shocking moments at the end of the season is that Jo Wilson is not actually Jo Wilson. Where did this idea come from and what more are we actually going to learn about her this season?
Oddly enough, that concept is something that we — the writers — have talked about for years, and have always been like, “Is this the right time? Is this the right time?” We’ve been trying to figure out when to deploy that. It felt right at this moment in time because Jo’s backstory has always been very intriguing to us, and this idea that she is now fully who she says she is, and that she is somebody who has reinvented herself. I love her as being somebody who has reinvented herself. I also love her as being somebody who has overcome a lot of really, really bad things to make something of her life. She’s a survivor. The idea that she’s a survivor and that very act of being that person is threatening to that relationship is interesting. The fact that Alex is a guy who his response is to beat somebody up is a little problematic.

EW: You’re introducing a story of domestic violence this year with Jo’s past. How big will that feature and why was it important to showcase that this year?
I don‘t think that I ever think about doing things, like, “Oh, we’re doing a domestic violence story as an issue.” It felt like it was time to tell Jo’s story, and it felt like it was time to tell Jo’s story especially in the context of Alex, who he is and how he grew up. Alex is so defined by who he used to be and who he is trying to become, and so is Jo. So those stories were very interesting to me. Meredith suffered a violent attack last year and very much overcame it. This idea that women are often treated in this way is disturbing to me, but it’s also very interesting to me to get to tell the story of Jo from this perspective of somebody who has walked away from a past that happened so long ago, and might have to face it again.

★ From TV Insider

Is there life beyond McDreamy? Oh, hell yeah! Last season, Grey’s Anatomy followed Dr. Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) as she grieved for her husband, Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey). The ratings spiked, and Grey’s ended the 2015–16 season as the third highest-rated network drama in the advertiser-coveted 18–49 demo (behind Empire and The X-Files), a stunning achievement for a 12-year-old program that—by all the rules of showbiz—should require life support by now.

That said, the show’s creator, Shonda Rhimes, isn’t reveling in all this viewer love. On the eve of the show’s 13th season, she’s only thinking about one fan, and that fan’s name is Shonda Rhimes.

“Here’s how I operate: If I don’t completely reinvent Grey’s Anatomy every season, then I’m not going to be interested anymore,” Rhimes says. “I need to keep this show fresh and rewarding and moving forward. Last season was about Meredith trying to figure out who she is without her marriage and her best friend, Cristina [Sandra Oh]—in fact, without her whole support system.” Now, says Rhimes, “we find out what this rebuilding of Meredith’s life really means and how it affects the people around her, and we’re really going to test her ride-or-die friendship with Alex [Justin Chambers].”

In last May’s season finale, Alex beat the bejesus out of Andrew (Giacomo Gianniotti) after the doc thought he’d caught the young intern about to have sex with his girlfriend, Jo (Camilla Luddington). (In fact, Andrew had simply escorted a drunk Jo home and was helping her to bed.) Now Andrew is fighting for his life and Alex is the most hated man at Grey Sloan Memorial. “There’s just no way to spin it to make Alex look good,” Rhimes says.

TV Guide posted an article where Kelly McCreary (Dr. Maggie Pierce) talks about how part of the fallout of Alex and DeLuca’s fight will be their fellow doctors taking sides and that causing friction between them. Check out what she had to say below.

We already know that Alex Karev (Justin Chambers) is in seriously hot water when Grey’s Anatomy returns for Season 13 this Thursday. But any legal repercussions he might face for beating up Andrew DeLuca (Giacomo Gianniotti) may pale in comparison to the blowback he’s going to receive from his colleagues at Grey Sloan, not to mention his girlfriend Jo (Camilla Luddington). In fact, the incident divides pretty much the entire staff at Grey Sloan, and may cause irreparable damage to some longstanding friendships and relationships as a result.

“The last thing that we saw was Alex beating the crap out of DeLuca. That has some serious repercussions … in the relationship between the doctors in the hospital, having to reckon with the notion that one of their own could have been so violent,” Grey’s star Kelly McCreary tells TVGuide.com. “There’s a pretty intense fallout from that impulsive behavior from Karev. … It causes some friction among the doctors. There’s definitely sides being taken.”

McCreary previously teased that Season 13 will focus on “the originals” – i.e. the few remaining characters who have been a part of the show since Season 1: Meredith (Ellen Pompeo), Karev, Bailey (Chandra Wilson) and Richard Webber (James Pickens Jr.). For Meredith and Karev, Season 13 will mark a turning point in their relationship as Meredith’s immediate impulse is to empathize with and protect her BFF.

“You would think that you would take the side of somebody who’s been beaten up, but these doctors have long histories together, and so I think it’s just human nature to want to make sure you have all the information before you take sides,” McCreary says. But inevitably, if you have a long history with somebody, that informs any new information you get about them.”

And all of that doesn’t even touch on what’s maybe the biggest question: Will Jo and Alex be able to move forward after her revelation that she’s married to someone else? It’s obvious that Alex is already struggling with major trust issues after Jo dropped her bombshell, targeting DeLuca because he believed he and Jo were hooking up.

Unfortunately, we may have to wait to get an answer to that question and more. The season premiere – which picks up about 10 minutes after the Season 12 finale – is so focused on the immediate fallout from Karev’s assault on DeLuca, many of the other dangling threads from last season won’t get picked up until Episode 2 at the earliest.

“Because DeLuca’s badly injured, there’s an immediate medical emergency. Taking care of him sort of takes center stage,” McCreary cautions.

Just how badly injured is DeLuca? Only time will tell. And among the other storylines that need to be dealt with are Callie (Sara Ramirez) leaving the show, April (Sarah Drew) and Jackson (Jesse Williams) trying to figure out how to be parents, Owen (Kevin McKidd) and Amelia (Caterina Scorsone) navigating married life, and Maggie’s (McCreary) revelation to Meredith at the end of Season 12 that she has the hots for Riggs (Martin Henderson).

“Maggie clearly is in a moment of great hope and optimism, and she remains in that place for a while … while Meredith figures out how to manage this new information,” McCreary says. “Meredith is still totally processing all of this. For the moment, it’s like Maggie has sort of put Meredith between a rock and a hard place. … She’s going to face a major disappointment at some point. But it does not reveal itself in that first episode.”

Grey’s Anatomy kicks off Season 13 Thursday at 8/7c on ABC.

Entertainment Weekly posted a new article where Justin, Ellen Pompeo and Grey’s Anatomy creator and executive-producer, Shonda Rhimes, discuss what’s coming up for Alex and Meredith’s friendship in the new season. They also give their thoughts about the possibility of the two characters’ relationship going from platonic to romantic.

As Grey’s Anatomy heads into season 13, the ABC medical drama is shifting focus back to the remaining original characters, Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) and Alex (Justin Chambers) included. The duo are the last of the Fab Five, with their friendship only strengthening over time — so much so that many viewers have rooted for the pair to actually get together, especially in the wake of Derek’s death.

“I was not surprised,” executive producer Shonda Rhimes tells EW of fans wanting to see an Alex and Mer relationship. “We did the dinner party episode, and Meredith and Alex sat on the floor in her bedroom, and they had that great, amazing scene together, and I watched that scene and I thought, ‘Oh, people are going to start ‘shipping Meredith and Alex,’ because there’s such a sense of comfort and nostalgia. They’re easy and wonderful together.”

But Rhimes recognizes that not everyone would want to see the friends together. “If you talk to Ellen and Justin they’ll go, ‘Ew!’ because they’re like brother and sister,” Rhimes says. “But I think it’s because those two actual people have 13 years of history together. They’re very, very much intertwined; they’re family. So it feels really easy like family, and there’s something beautiful about that.”

Chambers concurs: “It did surprise me, because I never saw that happening. I know we did an episode where it was like ‘What if?’ so we got to see a little bit of it, but yeah, it’s surprising. It’s interesting. Hey, this is Shondaland, you know? Anything’s possible!”

With that in mind, season 13 will shine a light on Meredith and Alex’s friendship in the wake of Alex shockingly beating DeLuca (Giacomo Gianniotti) within an inch of his life, believing the intern was making a move on Jo (Camilla Luddington) in the finale. “Anytime someone who you’re very close to does something really out of character it rocks your whole world, because you think you know someone so well,” Pompeo says. “It’s really damaging on so many levels. An interesting storyline to play this year is not really knowing who Alex is. You think people have come so far. There’s that adage that people don’t change, but people do change. I believe people change — some people can change, some people can’t, and then some people change and then revert back, so there’s all different shades of gray. It’ll be fun to play.”

For Alex, he will regress to the gruff character of the early days. “People who are hurt revert to their less mature selves a lot of the time, and I think that he is hurt and he doesn’t quite know how to cope with that,” Rhimes says. “What I love is that he and Meredith are trying to get through it together, and she’s trying to take care of him, and he’s trying to take care of her, and at times they don’t appreciate each other’s methods.”

“She’s covering for him,” Chambers adds. “Blood’s thicker than water, but they’re not even blood, they are like siblings. I think she’ll do the right thing, but if Alex does, that’s another question. Alex is pretty complicated at times.”

All that said, would Rhimes ever consider pairing Meredith and Alex on a romantic level? “I’ve learned to never say never at this point,” Rhimes says. “I always thought the show would end at season 2, 3, 4 or 5. So every time I would say, ‘This is definitely going to be what’s happening,’ then we keep going and the story grows. Then everyone gets mad because I said something was definitely going to happen. So I’m never going to say never at this point.”

 
Check out this quick peak of Alex and Meredith in the season premiere. Countdown is on…

We’re a little over a week away from the season 13 premiere of Grey’s Anatomy, and with that many previews are coming out. Here’s a roundup of the Grey’s season 13 previews.

★ I added scans of Entertainment Weekly‘s Fall preview for Grey’s Anatomy to the gallery. Click on the thumbnails for the album.

 
★ Here is a bit more from Entertainment Weekly, about what’s coming for Alex and Jo in Justin’s words.

Something about Jolex’s storyline on Grey’s Anatomy? I love them so much. — Giusina

It won’t be long before Alex finds out that Jo Wilson isn’t who she says she is. “Obviously, he’s going to find out why she can’t marry him,” Justin Chambers says. “I don’t know where that takes them from there, but he’s hurt, and he’s angry, and he’s wrong, but he’s also right.” Unfortunately for Alex, Jo will have a very strong reaction to what he did. More on that here.

 
★ This is the Grey’s preview from Yahoo! TV.

‘Grey’s Anatomy’ (Sept. 22, 8 p.m., ABC)
This Season’s Theme: Relationship drama! Camilla Luddington, who plays intern Jo Wilson, says that the premiere picks up right where the Season 12 finale left off: with Alex (Justin Chambers) just having beaten DeLuca (Giacomo Gianniotti) to a pulp after finding him with Jo and believing the worst. “Dealing with the aftermath is probably the central storyline,” she says of the beginning of Season 13. And then there’s a love triangle brewing with Meredith (Ellen Pompeo), sister Maggie (Kelly McCreary), and Riggs (Martin Henderson).

Where We Left Off: Owen (Kevin McKidd) and Amelia (Caterina Scorsone) got married, and April (Sarah Drew) gave birth to her baby with Jackson (Jesse Williams). Arizona (Jessica Capshaw) made peace with Callie (Sara Ramirez), who moved to New York with her girlfriend.

Coming Up: The Alex mess is going to weigh heavily on the entire staff of Grey Sloan. “There will be ramifications,” Luddington warns. “There’s no way to hide what happened.” Meredith, meanwhile, has a more lighthearted storyline. “There’s a little bit of a love triangle, although I feel like Meredith doesn’t want to admit it,” she says. “It’s a lot of fun. With Grey’s, even in the midst of the darkest storylines, they bring another element of comedy somewhere else.” And let’s not forget the newlyweds! “Amelia and Owen just got married and what does married life look life for two very complicated people who really jumped into it?” Luddington teases.

Career Counseling: Even as Jo grapples with the aftermath of Alex’s violent episode, she’s still trying to find her place in the hospital. “Of anybody, Jo was connected to Callie, so Jo definitely has to find her place and her specialty,” she says. “We see Stephanie (Jerrika Hinton) in neuro, and I think Jo wants that for herself. So this season, I think we’ll see Jo finding a mentor, because she lost the person who may have been that.”

 
★ Next up, is the Grey’s preview from TV Line.

The Meredith/Nathan/Maggie triangle will go from kinda weird to flat-out awkward as Maggie’s crush on McHottie shows no sign of letting up. Nathan, of course, is more interested in jumpstarting her widowed sister’s heart, leaving a still-relationship-resistant Mer caught smack right in the middle (what else is new!). Elsewhere, Jo’s abusive ex-boyfriend, er, husband will remain an off-screen presence through at least the early fall as she and Alex grapple with the repercussions of his scary pummeling of Andrew. Jackson and April, meanwhile, make a valiant attempt to stay in the Friend Zone while raising their new baby. Good luck with that, kids.

BONUS SPOILER!: As previously reported, Arizona will be MIA the first two episodes; an early episode will reference her being in New York doing the co-parenting thing with Callie.

RETURN DATE: Thursday, Sept. 22 at 8/7c (ABC)

In an article published by Entertainment Weekly, Shonda Rhimes (creator and executive producer of Grey’s Anatomy) explains that the show will tackle the issue of domestic violence in season 13. The issue will be explored through Jo Wilson’s (played by Camilla Luddington) backstory as a woman who ran away from her abusive husband, and her relationship with Alex who grew up with domestic violence.
Read below what Shonda and Justin had to say about the story.

Heading into its 13th season, Grey’s Anatomy will be shining a light on the topic of domestic violence.

At the close of season 12, Jo (Camilla Luddington) turned down Alex’s proposal, scared to confess that she couldn’t marry him because she was already wed. In truth, her name isn’t even Jo Wilson, and she had run away from an abusive husband. Season 13 picks up in the aftermath of Alex (Justin Chambers) pummeling DeLuca (Giacomo Gianniotti) following what was ultimately a miscommunication resulting from Jo’s reveal. As Alex faces the consequences of his actions both at the hospital and within his relationship, Jo’s backstory will finally unfurl.

“I don‘t think that I ever think about doing things, like, ‘Oh, we’re doing a domestic violence story as an issue,’” Shonda Rhimes tells EW. “It felt like it was time to tell Jo’s story, and it felt like it was time to tell Jo’s story especially in the context of Alex, who he is and how he grew up. Alex is so defined by who he used to be and who he is trying to become, and so is Jo.”

It’s that commonality over rising above their scrappy upbringings that initially brought Alex and Jo together — and could now ultimately drive them a part. “They bonded over their past,” Chambers says, “and to leave that part of her past out, that’s a pretty big piece of her puzzle. So I think he’s going to feel very betrayed.”

The storyline is part and parcel of Grey’s Anatomy putting focus on the remaining original characters — check out photos of season 13 here — including Alex, Meredith (Ellen Pompeo), Bailey (Chandra Wilson) and Webber (James Pickens Jr). “Meredith will always be the nucleus because she’s the voice, but to have the four originals still is pretty amazing,” Chambers says.

Truly, this is a storyline that’s several years in the making. Longtime Grey’s Anatomy viewers may remember Jo’s former fling Jason Myers a.k.a Chest Peckwell (The Originals’ Charles Michael Davis), who landed in the hospital severely beaten after he hit Jo — which makes a lot more sense now knowing her history. “That concept is something that we’ve — the writers — have talked about for years, and have always been like, ‘Is this the right time? Is this the right time?’” Rhimes says. “We’ve been trying to figure out when to deploy that. It felt right at this moment in time because Jo’s backstory has always been very intriguing to us, and this idea that she is now fully who she says she is, and that she is somebody who has reinvented herself.”

“I love her as being somebody who has reinvented herself,” Rhimes continues. “I also love her as being somebody who has overcome a lot of really, really bad things to make something of her life. She’s a survivor. The idea that she’s a survivor and that very act of being that person is threatening to that relationship is interesting. The fact that Alex is a guy who his response is to beat somebody up is a little problematic.”

What’s also problematic is that Jo’s husband is still out there, and viewers may even get to meet him this season. “Meredith suffered a violent attack last year and very much overcame it,” Rhimes says. “This idea that women are often treated in this way is disturbing to me, but it’s also very interesting to me to get to tell the story of Jo from this perspective of somebody who has walked away from a past that happened so long ago, and might have to face it again.”

★ Ryan, who is part of the crew on Grey’s Anatomy, tweeted another behind-the-scenes pic of Justin with Ellen Pompeo in episode 11.10 “The Bed’s Too Big Without You”

@7JustinChambers & @EllenPompeo work it out in the lab @GreysABC #hiatusphotovault pic.twitter.com/dZrrmI4Yih

— RyantheBlank (@RyantheBlank) May 31, 2016

 
 
★ Below is the intro to a fun list of a few great Alex Karev moments over the last 12 seasons of Grey’s Anatomy. Check out which moments were chosen at the link.

12 Times We Fell In Love With Dr. Alex Karev

Character development on fleek.

Part of the reason I probably love watching “Grey’s Anatomy” every week is because of Dr. Karev. Over the past 12 seasons “Grey’s Anatomy” fans have watched him go from a cocky, self-absorbed intern, to the lovable
pediatric surgeon who is now Meredith’s bestie (and basically one of the only original characters that Shonda Rhimes hasn’t managed to kill or write off yet). I mean talk about some serious character development. And while he has his moments where he can be a bit of a jerk, we can’t help but to love Dr. Karev.

P.S. Shonda Rhimes can please not kill this one off?

 
★ And a few more fan pics from the last few days…