'Grey’s Anatomy' Season 22 Opens With a Deadly Explosion — Who Died? (SPOILERS)

Spoiler alert: This article contains spoilers for Season 22, Episode 1 of Grey's Anatomy.

Grey’s Anatomy has done it again: broken our hearts, stomped on them, and somehow made us thank it for the pain. Season 22 opened with chaos, tears, and the kind of emotional whiplash that only this show can deliver.

After that Season 21 finale explosion, everyone was asking the same thing: who died in Grey’s Anatomy Season 22?

The answer came quickly, but not without devastation. Grey Sloan Memorial was in shambles, doctors were missing, alarms were blaring, and two fan-favorites were fighting for their lives. Only one made it out.

The Season 22 premiere picked up seconds after the blast that leveled the OR floor in the Season 21 finale. Within minutes, every doctor was found, except for two. Dr. Atticus “Link” Lincoln was discovered unconscious beneath debris, and Dr. Monica Beltran was pinned against the wall of another operating room by surgical equipment.

Link eventually pulled through, but Monica didn’t.

Her final moments were heartbreakingly quiet. She stayed focused on saving a young patient, encouraging Jules to keep operating even as her own strength faded. That silent, heroic death? Classic Grey’s.

Showrunner Meg Marinis told Deadline, “I didn’t want to kill off another doctor… but it became clear to me, oh, this is where the story is leading.” She explained that given the size of the explosion, it was realistic they’d lose one of their own.

Monica’s death hits hard. Not just because fans loved her, but because she represented the best of Grey Sloan: calm, capable, and selfless even in chaos.

After the blast, Grey’s Anatomy teased us with what might be one of the most gut-punching phone calls in the show’s history. Link, trapped and barely conscious, called Jo Wilson to say goodbye. The conversation had every fan ugly-crying in 4K.

Thankfully, Link survives, but it’s not an easy recovery. As Meg told Deadline, “He’s alive, but he has a long road to recovery. It’s going to be a long time before we see Link back up operating as a surgeon.”

Writing that goodbye scene wasn’t easy either.

Meg admitted, “I might be getting a little too personal. I revised it right after the terrible floods in Texas had just happened. I knew a couple of families that had suffered tragedies, so I was in a very emotional, sad space... The things that you think about saying before you might lose your life to your loved one, you never know what you’re going to say.”

That emotional honesty, the messy, human panic, is what keeps Grey’s fans glued to the screen year after year. Link’s love for Jo, his fear of leaving her (and their future family) behind, all felt too painfully real.

By the end of the premiere, the hospital was still smoldering. Meredith Grey and Richard Webber stood together at the edge of a massive hole where the OR once stood, staring into the ruins of yet another tragedy.

“What are we going to do here?” Richard asked. Meredith’s answer? “What we always do, we are going to rebuild.”

That line set the tone for what’s next. Meg confirmed to Deadline that Season 22 is all about "hope and recovery and where you find your hope, who gives you hope, and what gives you hope. We need some hope.”

If there’s anything Grey’s Anatomy knows how to do after 20-plus seasons, it’s rip everything apart… and make us believe it can all be healed again.

So yes, Grey Sloan lost another good one. Monica’s death hurts, but Link’s survival reminds us that hope isn’t gone yet. Season 22 is shaping up to be one of those chapters that leaves fans laughing through tears, whispering “just one more episode” at 2 a.m.

And if you’ve been with Grey’s since the beginning, you know the drill: nobody’s safe, nothing’s easy, and every heartbreak comes with a reason to keep watching.