Station 19 premiered in March 2018 as the second spin-off of Grey’s Anatomy — Private Practice, which ran from 2007 to 2013, was the first — and centers around the firefighters at Seattle Fire Department’s Station 19. Ben Warren (Jason George), married to Grey’s Anatomy’s Miranda Bailey (Chandra Wilson), has started a new career as a firefighter, and he has been assigned to the best station in the SFD. Run by Captain Pruitt Herrera (Miguel Sandoval), Station 19 is known for having the fastest arrival time, the strongest firefighters, and a team that feels like a family. Herrera’s daughter, Andrea “Andy” Herrera (Jaina Lee Ortiz), is one of the leaders of the team, along with Lieutenant Jack Gibson (Grey Damon) and firefighter Maya Bishop (Danielle Savre).
Andy Herrera made her first appearance in Grey’s Anatomy’s Season 14, Episode 13, “You Really Got a Hold on Me,” when she and Warren brought two boys involved in a fire to the ER at Grey Sloan Memorial. The episode gave Warren the first opportunity to reflect on his transition from surgery to firefighting, a process that continues into the beginning of the first season of Station 19. Since then, the show has become a fan favorite, and many viewers were disappointed to hear that the show would be ending with Season 7. With the premiere coming on March 14, audiences are excited to see how Season 6’s cliffhangers will wrap up.
A Captain Six Seasons in the Making
From the very beginning of Station 19, there has been one major question running through each season — who is going to be the station’s next captain? In Season 1, Episode 1, “Stuck,” Captain Pruitt Herrera collapses in the middle of a fire. Gibson, Andy, and Bishop are able to get him out of the building and onto an ambulance, but at Grey Sloan Memorial, Andy learns that her father has been hiding his cancer and must step down from his position with SFD. Andy and Gibson spend most of the first season competing for the role of captain, but when Pruitt interferes by telling Fire Chief Lucas Ripley (Brett Tucker) that he wouldn’t recommend either of them for the role, Ripley brings in Robert Sullivan (Boris Kodjoe) at the beginning of Season 2.
Sullivan remains captain until Season 3, Episode 3, “Eulogy,” when he is promoted to Battalion Chief. Andy is sure she’ll be chosen to replace him, but when her best friend and former boyfriend Ryan (Alberto Frezza), a former officer with the Seattle Police Department, returns to Seattle from San Diego to tell Andy he loves her and then dies when Andy’s neighbor’s son thinks a real gun is a toy and shoots Ryan in the stomach, Sullivan decides that Andy isn’t ready and promotes Bishop instead. Bishop’s tenure as captain is initially quite tough, with the team struggling to see her as anything other than a type-A over-achiever. Eventually, the team thrives under Bishop’s leadership and becomes frustrated when she is demoted for disobeying the orders of the fire chief while on scene at the end of Season 4.
In Season 5, Episode 1, “Phoenix from the Flame,” Sean Beckett (Josh Randall) arrives to take Bishop’s place as the captain of Station 19. Andy has been transferred to Station 23, where she is a lieutenant and then acting captain for part of Season 5. Both she and Theo Ruiz (Carlos Miranda) are transferred to Station 19 when 23 closes in Season 5, Episode 14, “Alone in the Dark.” When Beckett, who has been a mostly mediocre captain, deals with alcoholism and has to check himself into rehab, the new fire chief, Natasha Ross (Merle Dandridge), first offers the acting captain role to Andy, who turns it down because she only wants to be captain if it’s permanent. Andy suggests Theo as the acting captain, and he begins his tenure in Season 6, Episode 12, “Never Gonna Give You Up.” Over the remainder of season 6, Andy, Theo, and Sullivan, who have returned to being a lieutenant after being demoted due to his pill addiction in Season 3, vie for the permanent position. In the season 6 finale, Ross tells Andy what she has been hoping to hear — she’ll be the new captain of Station 19.
Station 19 Often Deals with Love and Loss
When they’re not fighting fires, saving the lives of civilians, or worrying about who will lead their team, the firefighters at Station 19 are dealing with love, friendship, grief, and their mental health. Many of the firefighters even date each other. Andy dates Gibson off and on for the first two seasons of the show and marries Sullivan in Season 3, Episode 12, “I’ll Be Seeing You,” though their marriage cannot withstand Sullivan’s addiction, Pruitt’s death, and Sullivan’s role in Bishop’s demotion. After dating Andy, Gibson dates the wife of a fellow Station 19 firefighter, a relationship that haunts him when the firefighter dies on the job after refusing to listen to Gibson, and he dates Bishop, who is bisexual and later offers to become the sperm donor for Bishop and her wife, Carina DeLuca (Stefania Spampinato), in Season 5.
Travis Montgomery (Jay Hayden) and Victoria Hughes (Barrett Doss) also have their share of complicated relationships. Travis dates Emmett Dixon (Lachlan Buchanan), the son of former fire chief and former police chief Michael Dixon (Pat Healy), for parts of Seasons 3, 4, and 5, and then runs against Michael Dixon for Mayor in Season 6. Hughes is engaged to Fire Chief Ripley until his unexpected death in Season 2, Episode 15, “Always Ready,” dates Grey’s Anatomy’s Jackson Avery (Jesse Williams) briefly, and is in a relationship with Theo Ruiz for Seasons 5 and 6, though it appears to have ended in Season 6, Episode 18, “Glamorous Life.”
Though the death of Pruitt Herrera in Season 3, Episode 12, “I’ll Be Seeing You,” is devastating for the team, the death that truly changes them is that of Dean Miller (Okieriete Onaodowan) in Season 5, Episode 5, “Things We Lost in The Fire,” an episode that concludes on Grey’s Anatomy’s Season 18, Episode 5, “Bottle Up and Explode!”. Gibson and Hughes, who were both best friends with Miller, struggle most with the loss, though both of them find ways to carry on Miller’s legacy. Gibson opens the Dean Miller Memorial Clinic at Station 19 with Carina DeLuca to serve people who can’t otherwise afford medical care, and Hughes takes on Crisis One, Miller’s program that partners the SFD and the SPD with social workers to more appropriately respond to mental health related calls. Miller’s daughter, Pru, who is named after Pruitt Herrera, is adopted by Ben Warren and Miranda Bailey, though they must deal with Miller’s parents wanting to take Pru first, against Miller’s wishes.
Station 19 Prioritizes First Responder Mental Health
Though most members of Station 19 have dealt with mental health issues at one point or another, Gibson has dealt with them the most, beginning with his PTSD after nearly dying in a skyscraper fire in Season 1, Episode 10, “Not Your Hero,” and Season 2, Episode 1, “No Recovery.” He also deals with depression after Miller’s death and in Season 5, when he is reconnected with his biological family and discovers that his parents stayed together after giving him up for adoption and had more children together. Gibson is one of Station 19’s most nuanced characters, though the showrunners have done an incredible job making sure that all the show’s characters feel authentic.
Bishop also deals with mental health issues, particularly in Season 6, Episode 7, “We Build Then We Break,” when she works out so much that she ends up with rhabdomyolysis, a condition that could kill her. When she refuses treatment, Carina and Grey’s Anatomy’s Teddy Altman (Kim Raver) put her on a 72-hour hold in order to get her help, and in Season 6, Episode 8, “I Know A Place,” Maya spends the day with Diane Lewis (Tracie Thoms), the fire department’s psychologist, working through the issues that led her to the rhabdomyolysis. Maya and Carina’s relationship plays a big role in the sixth season, and their reconciliation late in the season leads to them deciding to revisit invitro fertilization in the season finale
What Comes Next for Station 19?
The season finale, Season 6, Episode 18, “Glamorous Life,” saw Station 19’s team and their fellow firefighters at the Firefighters Ball, where their own Ben Warren was set to be honored with a Medal of Valor. The event seemed to be a disaster from the beginning, with several members of the team running late and Warren’s award presentation getting delayed by a kitchen fire, but the apex of the episode comes when Andy and Captain Drew Farris (Riley Smith), the new head of the firefighters union, discover that the dance floor is moments from collapsing.
In the final, harrowing moments of “Glamorous Life,” the firefighters of Station 19 must come to the rescue of some of their very own, and then, just as things start to calm, Jack Gibson collapses from yet another concussion. Viewers are excited to see how the new Station 19 showrunners choose to end the show, especially given the shortened season. With Andy beginning as the new captain, Gibson’s life on the line, and several relationships either ending or taking on something new, Season 7 of Station 19 is bound to be an exciting one.
