‘Grey’s Anatomy’ EP Calls ‘Silent All These Years’ the ‘Most Powerful’ Episode Ever

Camilla Luddington in Grey's Anatomy
ABC/Eric McCandless

Grey’s Anatomy has been going strong for a whopping 15 seasons, but the ABC medical drama is still finding ways to tell powerful stories.

In fact, showrunner Krista Vernoff says the upcoming episode, “Silent All These Years,” is “the most powerful hour of TV I’ve ever been a part of.”

The Thursday, March 28 episode was apparently inspired by Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony about Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Vernoff tells The Hollywood Reporter, “With the Supreme Court situation happened this year, I wrote the writers and I said, ‘We have to do something about consent. It hurts me too much. We have to do something.’ It was the only time I can point to where I came at them with an issue and the story evolved.

“What these great writers brought to it is so much character and so much humanity and so much heart.”

The episode synopsis reads, “When a trauma patient arrives at Grey Sloan, it forces Jo to confront her past,” referring to Camilla Luddington’s character’s search for (and, this week, final meeting with) her birth mother, played by guest star Michelle Forbes.

Though tackling these difficult stories is painful, Vernoff understands the importance of telling real stories in their show.

“I am not fearless, but I am f**king brave. I have so much fear when I challenge the status quo. And I shake and I cry and I call people and then I do it anyway,” she explains.

Grey’s Anatomy also had episodes this season that have focused on gun violence and the opioid epidemic.

Grey’s Anatomy, Thursdays, 8/7c, ABC