"Grey's Anatomy" has been on a month-long break leaving fans wondering what exactly will happen to Dr. Miranda Bailey (Chandra Wilson) after the episode "Idle Hands" revealed that she was the person responsible for the infection killing her surgical patients. Not a sick intern, not another doctor -- Bailey.
This week's episode, "Sleeping Monster" (Thurs., April 25, 9 p.m. ET on ABC), will reveal the consequences as the Center for Disease Control (CDC) must come to the hospital to investigate the deaths ... and Bailey. But unlike the usually tight gang from the Seattle Grace of years past, things are different now at Grey Sloan Memorial: Almost all of Bailey's usual allies are also now her bosses.
HuffPost TV caught up with "Grey's Anatomy" star Wilson to talk about Bailey's reaction to the CDC investigation and her temporary hospital suspension (not surprisingly she admits, "She really doesn't have patience for this whole being grounded thing"). Plus, she also dished about feeling like everyone on "Grey's Anatomy" was against Bailey and no one was championing her.
Will she be found at fault? Will the investigation knock her down a peg? And will her life be in danger during the natural disaster at the end of the season just to truly break fans' hearts? Keep reading for more ...
The show has been on a break for a few weeks, and I can't stop worrying about Bailey.
It's alright to worry! You can worry -- she's in quite a pickle here coming into this next episode. We left her sitting in the chair -- she was grounded, basically. And you know Bailey doesn't take well to that kind of behavior at all. [Laughs.]
Thinking back, she's never really been on the receiving end of a huge wrist slap like this, putting the hospital in trouble.
Yeah, and I think that's the biggest problem for her: the fact that her competence is called into question. There's her surgeon ego all over the place in this. Under normal circumstances, if the Center for Disease Control needs to come in in order to figure out, "OK, where's the common link here? What is the problem? Where does this infection come from?" You sit back, you acquiesce, you do what you need to do so that they can do their jobs. But Bailey's really not trying to hear any of that ... Obviously, it doesn't have anything to do with her! [Laughs.] There's no mistake that she made! She really doesn't have patience for this whole being grounded thing.
Well, when she thought it was the intern's fault, she was all over her. Now that all eyes are on her, who is going to be the one to reprimand Bailey?
From Bailey's point of view, it's everybody. At this point, she feels like everybody has turned their back. No one, in her opinion, is championing her. And they're not supposed to right now -- you're supposed to sit down and you're supposed to let the thing run its course. She just figures she would've had a champion by now instead of people just following the rules. Somebody needs to be breaking some rules on her behalf.
But they all have to follow the rules now because they all own the hospital!
Exactly! She doesn't have any patience for that. [Laughs.] When I look at it, from the originals, it's basically just Bailey and [Alex] Karev are the only people that don't have a financial stake in how the hospital goes. It's really an uncomfortable position for both of them to be in. Here are their colleagues, and now they're all their bosses. It's weird. It's hard to know where she stands. There's no job security in it anymore for her.
That's what I keep wondering ... Bailey's got this big episode this week, and now we hear about this season's natural disaster finale. It's been a long time since the show had a finale without killing someone. I'm concerned about her future.
There's a reason to be concerned! We're not necessarily on solid ground. Even though the board is together now, they're still finding their way. The storm that's coming to Seattle ... we do have to go into crisis mode, and we're learning how to do crisis mode under new management, but there's a lot of residual stuff going on. Bailey still has a lot of residual stuff going on as a result of this investigation.
So will she be grounded for a while?
Um, not necessarily, but she is definitely affected for the rest of the season as a result of how she feels she was treated.
I don't like it when Bailey loses her Baileyness.
[Laughs.] But that's the thing: I'm not sure how un-Bailey she is. Maybe she's more uber-Bailey!
And in all of this, where the hell is her husband Ben?
Exactly, right? This is the part when you feel like you need to have home to depend on, and they're doing this commuter marriage, and Bailey's not the best. She still hasn't quite learned the lesson of, "Oh, let me call and lean on my husband when things are going wrong." She's still taking on the world all by herself. She feels like she has to handle everything. A lot of it truly is ego. She has a mad ego! So she kind of puts herself in this situation to be isolated.
I don't want to get maudlin, but hear me out. Hearing that Bailey might finally be in a position to learn a lesson, to get knocked down a peg, to maybe be more humble, and also she's finally making life changes, letting people in ... and then to hear that this storm is coming ... it would be the worst to lose Bailey. If it's Bailey's time to go, however tragic, do you feel like you got to do enough, or do you think there's still more story to tell?
Amazingly, we still have more stories to tell. You'd think stuff would die out after three or four seasons, but that writers room, those bungalows ... they keep coming up with more things for us to explore. They continue to allow us to grow and evolve and find things out about ourselves that we didn't know seasons before. As long as they keep putting pen to paper, we still have stories to tell. So I guess the short answer is no -- I think she still has a lot of growing and climbing and goals to reach. There's more story for her. Now as far as what anybody else thinks about that [laughs] ... that's a whole other story!
When you think back so many years to the day you realized Shonda wasn't messing around, that anyone could die at any time, did that make you more eager to ask every year, point blank, do I die?
Absolutely not! I don't go anywhere near the bungalow. [Laughs.] I stay as far away from that place as possible! Fortunately, for me, it's just always been an ever-present reality as an actor that your time on shows isn't promised. It doesn't matter what the contract says -- it's all about the stories. Before George O'Malley got hit by the bus, I always used to say, "You know a bus could come along and knock one of us off at any time!" [Laughs.] And then it happened and I said, "OK, I'm not going to use that analogy anymore." But that was always my view as an actor, and it certainly hasn't been proven wrong. I try not to be paranoid ... I just save my money! [Laughs.]
Before Bailey's wedding, Patrick Dempsey was saying he doesn't think anyone on the show will ever find their happily ever after. Do you agree?
Oh my gosh ... I think the goal of this season ... wasn't there something about this being the season of romance? [Laughs.] So the inference is that there's happiness in there somewhere. So don't give up hope. Our happiness is certainly mixed in with the tragedies of life. You have to find the lemonade. You have to find the silver lining in the middle of everything that happens in life.
Find out what happens with Bailey on "Grey's Anatomy," Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET on ABC.
