The Season 22 finale of Grey’s Anatomy airs Thursday, May 7, 2026, at 10 p.m. ET on ABC, and it will be the last episode to feature two of the show’s most enduring characters. Kevin McKidd and Kim Raver, who have played Dr. Owen Hunt and Dr. Teddy Altman for the better part of two decades, are leaving the series. The episode streams on Hulu the following day.
The departures were confirmed in late March 2026 and were described by the production as creative decisions. Both actors may return to the show at some point in the future, though no specifics have been attached to that possibility.
How long McKidd and Raver have been part of Grey’s Anatomy
McKidd joined Grey’s Anatomy in Season 5 in 2008. Over the course of his tenure, he directed 48 episodes of the series, including the Season 22 finale that marks his own exit. Raver came aboard in Season 6 in a recurring capacity before being elevated to series regular status. She left at the end of Season 8, returned briefly in Season 14 and came back as a full-time cast member in Season 15.
Their characters arrived on the show as close friends from their time serving together in the Army. The romantic tension between Owen and Teddy built slowly across multiple seasons before they acted on it when Teddy returned in Season 14. They married in Season 18 and had two children together. By the start of Season 22, their marriage had ended, with the divorce finalized before the current season began. Series creator Shonda Rhimes has indicated that both characters will be given a happy ending.
What the season 22 finale is built around
The episode is titled Bridge Over Troubled Water and centers on a catastrophic bridge collapse that sends a surge of trauma patients into Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital. The disaster was established as the season’s central crisis in the penultimate episode, which ended with Owen Hunt’s fate and Dr. Nick Harrison’s survival left unresolved.
Whether Owen survives will be answered Thursday night, and the uncertainty gives the finale genuine dramatic stakes beyond the emotional weight of two long-running characters taking their final bows. McKidd directing his own exit adds a layer to the goodbye that the show has not quite staged before.
The losses Grey’s Anatomy has already absorbed this season
Season 22 arrived at its finale already carrying significant weight. Dr. Monica Beltran died in October 2025 after surgical equipment trapped her in an operating room while she was attempting to save another patient. Katie Rogers’ death from cancer was confirmed in the March 19 episode. Both losses reduced the experienced ranks at Grey Sloan ahead of its most overwhelming single-episode crisis.
The accumulated grief of the season makes the bridge collapse finale feel less like a conventional cliffhanger and more like a conclusion to a particularly hard year inside the show’s world.
What else the finale is expected to address
Several ongoing storylines are converging on the finale without resolution. Teddy’s earlier opportunity to move to Paris has remained an open thread through much of the season’s second half. Lucas and Simone are still navigating the emotional fallout from their bridge entanglement. Miranda Bailey’s effort to protect resident Blue from the hospital’s internal politics has been building without a clear payoff.
How many of those threads close on Thursday and how many carry into Season 23 will depend on how much space the finale allocates to the bridge disaster versus the personal stories running alongside it.
What comes next for the show after McKidd and Raver leave
Grey’s Anatomy has already been renewed for Season 23, which is set to air in the fall of 2026. The show will continue without two cast members who have been part of its fabric since the late 2000s, and the question of what it looks like without Owen and Teddy is one the writers will have to answer starting from wherever Thursday night leaves things.
That answer begins May 7.
