Grey's Anatomy and Station 19 tackle police brutality and sexual exploitation of Black girls in fall finale

Variety

Showrunner Krista Vernoff says the sex trafficking storyline was something unfinished from the coronavirus-shortened season. "It felt like an unfinished story for DeLuca," she says. "For me, the story always starts from character. We don’t start with a political hot topic or a social issue that we want to shine a light on. The social issues tend to evolve from the character. So, the sex trafficking pitch was one of the ideas that we came into the season excited about, and to not let it be over when we thought it was over last season." Grey's writer Felicia Pride, who penned the episode, adds: "It also gave us an opportunity to shine a light on the prevalent amount of the Black girls who are trafficked, as well as the reasons why Black girls are more vulnerable to being trafficked. We got to dive even deeper on that side of the issue." As for Station 19 delving into police brutality, Vernoff says: "There had been a big push from the actors on Station 19, since the beginning of the show, to take a look at the relationship between firefighters and police and the fact that the Black firefighters would have a different experience and relationship than white firefighters. For a long time, the show favored a different kind of storytelling. This year, it felt imperative to honor the truth and to honor the lived experiences that the actors were so eager to explore and the writers were also eager to explore. It just felt really important. A lot of our conversations in the writers’ room this year happened in the summer when we were taking days off to protest. I feel that what is so very powerful about the hour of Station 19 is that it starts like any other episode — joyful and playful and familial and communal and funny and easy — and then the day turns to horror."