"Grey's Anatomy" is known for getting rid of Characters in interesting and unique ways, so one can only guess what the future holds for Arizona Robbins and April Kepner. Season 14 is more than halfway done, meaning that fans of Arizona and April will be holding their collective breath in anticipation of what's to come. Following the news that their contracts wouldn't be extended along with the show that was renewed for two more seasons, fans were devastated. Reports by Entertainment Weekly, US Weekly, and CNN were used as information sources for most of the information in this article.
Who's headed for the door?
Big moves are set to take place in TV medical drama "Grey's Anatomy" following the news that series regulars, Sarah Drew and Jessica Capshaw, will be leaving after this season. Capshaw has been a series regular as the character Arizona Robbins for the past 10 years and Drew has played trauma surgeon April Kepner for nine years. The announcement comes as a surprise to fans of the show, and an unwanted one at that. Arizona Robbins became one of the first lesbians to be the main character in a prime-time medical drama and began to gain a following because of that alone. Fans came to know her as the bubbly pediatric surgeon who also happened to be gay. April Kepner has a strong connection to her faith and has displayed this throughout her entire stint on the show.
The thing that has some fans so upset about their departure is that there are two underrepresented groups on television that are losing their representation. Both Jessica and Sarah were upset about their departure and tried to make sure the fans knew how much the show meant to them.
https://t.co/IIBdRdCH9D pic.twitter.com/K9rdrcJXGx
— Sarah Drew (@sarahdrew) March 8, 2018
— Jessica Capshaw (@JessicaCapshaw) March 8, 2018
Why are they leaving?
There has been a lot of speculation on why the two are leaving the show after so long, and one of the biggest rumors that started to circulate was that it was due to Ellen Pompeo getting her big payday recently.
It was big news that Ellen became the first leading woman in a television show to be paid the landmark amount of $20 million. This is due not only to the fact that her character is the show's namesake but also because she has been directing many episodes. The writers of the show have said that they have just run out of storylines to give these characters and although they hate to Say Goodbye, now was the time to do it.
Ellen has also gone on "The Ellen Show" and stated that her pay raise has nothing to do with the character's departure and that after 14 seasons, the writers face the tough task of trying to come up with new storylines for each of the series regulars and Season 14 has 16 season regulars that the writers have to create content for.
Why fans are upset
Some fans have expressed their dislike for the claims as to why these characters are leaving. People have brought up some different things that have been mentioned about Arizona that could have been turned into a storyline for her character. A few examples of things that have been brought up are the fact that she is a single mother raising her daughter while her former partner, Callie Torres, is across the country, her brother Timothy died prior to her existence on the show but is only casually mentioned, and lastly, she is a double board certified surgeon in two of the most difficult specialties yet there is hardly any talk of that or any big cases for her to work on.
Fans have struggled to come up with storylines for April that could have been explored further but are mostly upset because they were holding on to hope that April would end up with her ex-husband Jackson Avery in the end since the two have a daughter (and a deceased son) and are a fan favorite.
How they may leave
There has been a lot of speculation as to how these characters may leave at the end of the current season. Some have said that they believe April will die because there is no way that she would leave her daughter behind for any reason, and Jackson Avery would never allow his daughter to be taken from him. As for Arizona, not many are sure what will happen to her because she doesn't have much that keeps her tied to the city or hospital.
People think that she may end up in Italy because she has a girlfriend who is from Italy and they are both studying why the maternal death rate is so high in the United States and very low in Italy. There are some fans, however, that hope that Arizona will realize she wants her ex-wife in her life and she will go to New York to try and make that happen. This is all speculation until the final episode for each respective character airs, but like all Shonda Rhimes shows, you will probably never see it coming.