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[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Station 19 Season 7 Episode 2 “Good Grief.”]
This isn’t the first time that Jack (Grey Damon) has stepped away from Station 19, but it very well looks like it will be the last. Due to his brain injury, he can no longer be a firefighter.
That’s hard for Jack to accept as Station 19‘s final season continues, but it is something we’ll see. Because, despite his attempt to argue, he’s already gotten a second opinion. For now, he’s packed up his locker and, with the rest of the house around him, added his name under the table. Below, Damon talks about filming that last scene, Jack and Andy’s (Jaina Lee Ortiz) relationship, and the end of the series.
How much did you know about what would be going on with Jack at the last season’s finale?
Grey Damon: Not a lot actually. I hit them up and I was like, “So this is it. You guys are finally going to kill me?” Because every season… But they said something along the lines of, “He’s not dead.” Then some things shifted. We just don’t know what’s going to happen with Jack really. But I know that he’s going to have this presence. What that is, I’m not even exactly savvy to.
Talk about filming that last scene, especially Jack writing his name under the table and then the others joining him. That was emotional to watch.
It was really emotional to do actually, with the whole cast there. I think we’ve just been doing this for so long and doing that scene and then really thinking about what Jack had gone through. What was nice is that everybody there, I felt their emotion as well, and when you’re acting and this cast is great and giving you that, especially Jaina… I don’t know if you noticed the episode before this, but I’m just looking at her as she’s talking to Ghack—Ghost Jack—and she’s giving 110 percent every one of those takes. I was blown away. I try to be there for people, but I don’t think I’m there that much like her, so I’m just throwing a little love towards her.
But that scene was really nice in that we all know each other. We all know what’s real and what’s not with our characters and with us, but it was one of those ones that kind of felt more blurred lines, I guess. It felt very emotional, so it wasn’t hard for me to get there, which was surprising to me because sometimes it can be.
We’ve seen him come back to work before, but it doesn’t seem like it can be in the cards for him this time…
I think the goal was to show that this does happen with firefighters probably often. Sometimes things happen on jobs like this, and you don’t do a job like this unless you love it—or you don’t keep doing a job like this unless you love it. But I think it’s kind of brilliant that they would implement that into the show because I haven’t quite seen anything like that. I thought that was really quite clever of Zoanne [Clack] and Peter [Paige] because it doesn’t feel cheap to me. It feels like this is actually a very profound sort of thing. It’s kind of beautiful. It’s an ending to a show, but I don’t believe that they did that in knowing that they were going to end the show yet. So it was kind of interesting to have that happen and then that happened. Yeah, I think it’s kind of beautiful. It makes things precious.
What I like about this episode this week is that we also get a sense of how much his work in the clinic means to him. But would he want it to be part of his life? He’d be back at Station 19, seeing everyone he worked with going on calls he no longer can.
Clever. I had been wondering some version of that. This is all he has left of Dean, but it is going to be really hard to come here and do this and be around these people that he loves and are [his] family. That’s gotta be really hard to see people doing the thing that had fulfilled him so much and then to no fault of his own was taken away from him. That’s kind of the job, too. Yeah, I think it’ll be hard for him. It’s hard for him to be away from Pru. I mean, everything’s hard for Jack. That’s just kind of Jack’s thing.
Jack and Andy’s relationship over the years has been one of the most interesting ones to track, considering where they started.
Right? I think it’s really beautiful to show how they can be there for each other and kind of evolved into this brother-ish, kind of sister-ish relationship when they had had so much other passions for each other.
What are we going to see from that dynamic going forward?
I think there’s never been a shortage of them taking any opportunity to show how you can be a good friend to somebody that had meant something else to you and may have hurt you because it doesn’t get worse than that when you’ve been in that sort of relationship with somebody. But also it’s a testament, I think, to both of them, how Jack had dated Bishop [Danielle Savre] and how he had also dated her. And it is a testament to both of them, how they had both been hurt by each other, and they were able to rise above it and they were able to move forward and they were able to see that “I still think you’re wonderful because I see what you do, and I see where your heart is.” I think it’s just a good example, more than anything of, if you are going to continue to be friends with your ex, that’s a good way to go about it.
But I don’t think those two will ever not be special to each other. And I think also what’s special is that they can appreciate each other enough and so much that, despite how they might feel in another way, that is still important to them and that means more, and that’s not always favored in relationships these days.
So off of that, are you ruling out the possibility of them returning to a romance then?
God, no. Of course not. No, because I want to keep it spicy. No, I’m just appreciating that our writers, as brilliant as they are, took special care with how they treated that. It can be a good example in real life of how you can treat those situations. Not all of it—it’s a drama. This is that universe. I didn’t know that I would like or appreciate or even fall in love with their sister-brother sort of relationship. Because Jack is a piece of me now, and I think I held on to that hurt or whatever for Andy or that kind of torch he carried for, and I’ve tried to see what avenues in his mind why he would start to date Bishop after. There’s a laundry list of reasons why that might happen.
Who will Jack be leaning on as he has to figure out what this next chapter looks like for him?
The thing about Jack is that he needs to lean on himself. He needs to take better care of himself. He needs to learn how to lean on himself in other ways than he has. But he also is not bad at understanding how important it’s to have those family elements. He’s always going to lean on Marsha [Jayne Taini].
Disney/James Clark
I love that relationship.
Yeah, and how good is she? She’s so good. I love her to death, and she’s just such a wonderful human being. We’re supposed to get lunch, and it’s legitimately been something I’ve been very excited about because she’s just so fun to talk to and hear her stories. … There’s so much truth to her when she performs. I feel so fortunate in that they hired her because I didn’t see that relationship ever happening, and I love that. I don’t know if they did this because I asked them—I was like, “You guys should see if he can bond with this person and find a little bit of family there.” I think maybe they were planning that anyway because it’s such a poignant thing that had happened to him with the Christmas tree. He’s always going to lean on Marsha for sure.
How has it been preparing to say goodbye to Jack and the series?
I don’t think I ever will. People say that they have to learn something for a role and it can sometimes take a piece of you. But oftentimes I find a bit of myself with roles, and Jack has been interesting because they’ve been very generous in allowing me to give him little nuances. He’s a bit of a slob when he eats, and he’s a terrible dancer, when it turns out I’m an excellent dancer. I have insane rhythm. Anyone I’ve danced with would say different, but I just think that most people have terrible rhythm.
But I’m not sure I ever will say goodbye to Jack, at least in a way that’s kind of big to me. But that under the table scene was emotional. I think we had just learned that the show was on its last season. So it was kind of easy for us to be like, “Oh, well, crap.” 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, yeah, I was just kind of like, “Oh, crap, man.” He just can’t catch a break in the ways that I feel like he really needs, but he always kind of gets what he really does need. Bigger picture. We’re right where we need to be, I guess.
So you learned about the series ending as you’re shooting at an emotional scene, so you’re already emotional.
Yeah, we all were, I think. It was beautiful. I didn’t see them. I’m just there looking at my handwriting, crying about how I can’t read my own handwriting. But I felt them so much. Andy and Vic [on either side] were there to just try and comfort him in this most horribly sad thing that he would probably ever go through after he’s been through so much.
Station 19, Thursdays, 10/9c, ABC