Season 19 of Grey’s Anatomy is here. With new residents, a new residency program, and an interim Chief of Surgery, the season is sure to be one to remember. With Ellen Pompeo’s Meredith Grey in a more diminished role this season, it leaves room for the stories of other characters to be explored in a new way.
Five new residents does mean time will need to be dedicated to them. Audiences will want to know who they are, where they came from, and why they want to be doctors. But they aren’t the only characters who deserve more screen time.
Jo Wilson (Camilla Luddington) started on the show as an intern in season 9, meaning this will mark the tenth season of the character in the series. Fans have watched her live through some extraordinary circumstances, from learning how she was conceived to losing two husbands. It seems like whenever Jo is given an ounce of happiness, it’s immediately taken away from her. It’s time for her to have a happy ending.
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Jo Has Lived Through Two Heartbreaks
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When we meet Jo as a resident, it’s clear someone has hurt her before. She connects with her fellow residents, but she and Dr. Alex Karev (Justin Chambers) immediately butt heads. He thinks she’s a rich girl because of the watch she wears, while she is just a product of the foster system trying to build a better life for herself. In trying to do that, she’s fallen in love with and had her heart broken by other doctors.
Jo’s first husband, Dr. Paul Stadler (Matthew Morrison), caused her to run away and change her name. He was an acclaimed general surgeon known for his papers and techniques. While Jo had to play the doting wife in the public eye, he was abusive when they were behind closed doors, hitting her if he felt she did something “wrong.” Sometimes this was as simple as laughing too much at a colleague’s jokes.
After running away, Jo knew that if she tried to file for divorce Paul would find her, so she remained estranged from him. Even when he did finally find her, only to ask for a divorce so he could marry someone new, he continued to manipulate her and her friends and colleagues to undermine her confidence and security. She did have the final say in their relationship after an accident caused Paul to be brain-dead, and she was tasked with making his end-of-life decisions.
Her second marriage looked like it was going to be it for her. After Jo married Alex, it seemed like she had finally found her person, but even he let her down. After Meredith’s hearing with the medical board, Alex disappears, supposedly in Iowa, helping his mother. Jo calls her and finds out Alex was never there. In a letter, he explains that Izzie (Katherine Heigl) used the embryos they made when she was battling cancer, and he has two children out there. He can’t abandon them now that he knows about them, so he leaves Jo to be with Izzie.
This comes after Jo had been through in-patient treatment for her depression after meeting her birth mother. Just as she began to put her life back together and recover, it fell apart again. After two incredibly distressing marriages, Jo shouldn’t have to go through another heartbreak.
She Needs Someone by Her Side
Season 18 showed why Jo needs more people than just her long-time best friend, Atticus “Link” Lincoln (Chris Carmack), standing beside her. When they began seeing each other in a “friends with benefits” situation, the lines blurred, resulting in Jo nearly cutting off the friendship to protect her feelings. While the two were able to make amends by the end of the season, she spent much of the season without someone to talk to.
Previously, Meredith and Jo were on pretty good terms. That changed when Alex left. It seemed like Alex was the glue that kept the two friends, and without him, Jo lost another friend. This was after Stephanie (Jerrika Hinton), her fellow resident friend, was airlifted to another hospital after suffering horrific burns in a fire. She has lost, or nearly lost, all of her close friends over the last ten seasons.
In finally letting her connect with someone and find a permanent happy ending, it will feel like the end of a character arch fans have been waiting on for a decade. Jo has been through the wringer, especially since Alex left her. From adopting a baby to changing specialties after working as an attending general surgeon, it’s time for her to have someone by her side that she doesn’t have a complicated history with. Luddington believes her character is a warrior queen, but even a queen needs a king from time to time.
While we wait to see how Jo’s story will play out this season, let’s speculate if a fan-favorite would return for the series finale.
