STATION 19 has given viewers an upsetting update on one of the ABC show’s most beloved characters, Jack Gibson.
Played by Grey Damon since the Grey’s Anatomy spinoff premiered in 2018, fans think the character might now be leaving the show.
At the end of Station 19’s Season 6 finale last year, Jack suffered a serious brain injury and collapsed before the credits started rolling.
Fans learned his fate when the ABC series, which was recently canceled and is ending with its current season, returned with a new episode last week.
The Season 7 premiere revealed Jack was alive but not doing too well.
Though doctors said he might make a full recovery, they said his career as a firefighter was likely over.
In Thursday’s new episode, viewers watched as Jack dealt with the fact that he wouldn’t be cleared to return to work and would have to say goodbye.
To mark the end of his firefighting career, the broadcast ended with an emotional scene of Jack with his friends and colleagues at the fire station.
Captain Andy (Jaina Lee Ortiz) gave Jack a marker to leave his mark on the underside of their station’s kitchen table.
Grey’s character crawls under to write his name as all of his colleagues watch on.
As the episode closed, Jack cried as everyone joined him on the ground in a big group pile.
With his character leaving the station, fans began fearing Jack would be leaving the show as a whole and insisted his character didn’t deserve this fate.
“Jack’s been through so much already and on top of that they make him get hurt and now he can’t be a firefighter for the last season,” one furious fan tweeted.
“I get SO EMOTIONAL when they cuddle pile like this,” a second fan wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “I’m just so upset about Jack. Everyone’s crying. This is too much.”
“I’m crying jack didn’t deserve this,” a third upset viewer insisted.
Another fan called the ending scene “heart-wrenching” and said it “means so much more” knowing that the cast had just learned about the show’s cancellation while filming it.‘
Grey revealed this tidbit in a recent interview with TV Insider, saying the “under the table scene was emotional” because the cast had just found out Station 19 would not be returning for Season 8.
“So it was kind of easy for us to be like, ‘Oh, well, crap,’” he added. “And then I think just for Jack and knowing what he’s gone through and trying to put myself in that as much as possible to do service for people that would be going through these things.”
Earlier this month, the Station 19 showrunners Zoanne Clack and Peter Paige revealed how they found out the show had been canceled and how they shared the news with the cast.
The duo revealed they had only just started working on Season 7 when they got the news.
“We were what, two days into shooting the new episodes?” Zoanne told TVLine. “And we got the call.”
They jumped to call everyone in for a big meeting as they didn’t want any of those working on the show to hear about the cancellation from outside sources.
“Basically, we got the news and were like, ‘Get the cast in, get the writers, get the crew assembled… Make sure they’re all going to meet us at lunch,’ Peter told the outlet.
“Then we raced, raced, raced to tell them before there were any leaks.
There were tears shed during what Peter called the “world’s saddest in-person meeting.”
