With Harry Shum Jr. Joining ‘DWTS,’ Is His ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Exit Coming?

Among the newly announced cast list for the next season of Dancing With the Stars is Harry Shum Jr., and that may leave some Grey’s Anatomy fans wondering if that means his character, Benson “Blue” Kwan, is on the way out of Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital — for good, this time.

In Season 22, Blue was fired by Richard Webber (James Pickens Jr.) for injecting an experimental drug into a patient against FDA orders. Even after he came in with a big assist during the bridge collapse disaster, Richard told him he was no longer welcome at the hospital.

In the aftermath, Shum told press that he wasn’t sure about whether the character would return to Grey’s. In an interview with E! News, he explained, “I wish I knew. I am just as much in the dark as audiences, but to me, it’s the hope of, ‘Do audiences want to see him go or do they want to see him go back to the hospital?’ It’s not fully up to the audience. It’s up to the writers and Disney. But also, I think it’s good to see the doctors make mistakes, but also with good intentions. It wasn’t just because he was a bumbling mess. He was very motivated in making sure that someone got to be able to choose life over death.”

In the first photos from Season 23 production, though, fans seemed to get an answer, since Shum was part of the cast pictured on set, and his costars even made a jocular video about his surprise appearance in the hospital backdrop.

Blue’s return wouldn’t be a complete surprise, of course. After all, Richard has been known to walk back a firing or two in his past, and Blue had the backing of Miranda Bailey (Chandra Wilson), who’s made the same mistake in the past and who Richard was completely willing to forgive when he thought Blue’s mistake was hers.

However, since Grey’s is currently in production, and Dancing With the Stars premieres in just a couple of weeks, it looks like Blue’s return to the hospital might not be a permanent one. We’ll just have to wait and see if this portends an early exit for the character, and if so, how he makes his grand exit.

Dancing With the Stars, Season 35 Premiere, September 15, 8/7c, ABC

Grey’s Anatomy, Season 23 Premiere, October 15, 10/9c, ABC