‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Star Jessica Capshaw Previews ‘Really Tense’ Midseason Return

The doctors of Grey’s Anatomy have taken on a lot of difficult cases over the years, but this one might be one of the toughest yet.

The medical drama from Shonda Rhimes returns to finish its 13th season this week with an intense episode featuring just three of the doctors: Bailey (Chandra Wilson), Jo (Camilla Luddington), and Arizona (Jessica Capshaw).

The doctors leave the hospital to treat a pregnant teen — in prison. Anna Jacoby-Heron guest stars as Kristen, a very troubled, combative 16-year-old who’s serving 20 years to life. She needs a procedure to save her baby girl, but the doctors are horrified to discover what it’s like to provide medical care behind those iron bars.

Yahoo TV chatted with Capshaw about this unique episode, Arizona’s flirtation with hot new doctor Eliza Minnick, and what to expect from the rest of Season 13.

Yahoo TV: This is such a different and unusual episode, just focusing on Arizona, Bailey, and Jo. It’s pretty intense. What was your reaction when you got the script?
Jessica Capshaw: We had a table read, and I knew then that it was going to be a bit of a different side of Grey’s. It’s obviously the same characters, but they were going to be in a very different environment. That allows for a lot of fun for the actors and characters to play in different ways. I sat down and we open up the first page … and all of the sudden, Chandra, Camilla, and I — you could just feel all of our bodies got really tense. We were genuinely, physically closer to each other and a little bit huddled, like we were on this team — like we needed to fight the elements. The way it was described, it felt totally like this other world. It made us all think of like Silence of the Lambs and that first walk Jodie Foster has down that hallway, not knowing what to expect. It was really exciting because it’s not that often you get that kind anticipation on the show.

It really is just the three of them — no other doctors in other storylines. It must have been interesting to take part in this narrow, in-depth character study.
Ultimately, we’re all together and with this X-factor patient, where any given moment we’re not really sure what’s going to happen and we’re not really sure how we’re going to help her. And it’s right when we have this information that perhaps Alex has turned himself in and we’re going to lose him. It’s a lot of anticipation and a lot of anxiety. Having just the three of us there, we certainly got to band together in a way that maybe our characters normally don’t.

The show — I truly can’t believe it’s been 13 seasons — when you look at all the things they’ve done, our writers are the best in the whole world, because they come up with new stuff to do. So for us to be in an environment and situation that we haven’t been in before, it was super thrilling. We were in different sets. I mean, it was a lot of work. My daughter turned 6 when we were doing the show, and because there was so much to do, she had to celebrate her birthday on the set of Grey’s Anatomy. We had a trailer party complete with decorations. It was really great.

Do you feel like the writers are experimenting more with different styles and forms? There’s this episode, and then there was the one where they have flashbacks while operating. There’s another Jackson/April episode coming up.
I do. I think, and this is just me talking and interpreting, but I imagine after writing. … Not that everyone’s been there since the beginning, but Shonda has. Grey’s is so focused on characters; it’s a character-driven show. With the breadth of characters, what I hear from fans is that not everybody loves Arizona, but maybe some people love Alex. Or not everyone loves Alex, and some people love Jo. And there are die-hard Meredith fans.

There’s a character for everyone to identify with or root for. When you have this huge group of characters, you can get a lot of different kinds of stories going. It’s an exciting thing for the writers to say, well, we have this myriad of characters and we can put them in a bunch of situations. And it doesn’t have to be the same kind of show every week. I think they have the freedom to try it out, and luckily we have this incredible fan base that will go along with the journey. And now, thank God, we have Twitter, so they can tell us their opinion!

Arizona’s been through so much recently, with the custody trial and then having her daughter Sophia move across the country with Callie. And then Alex’s trial. But there’s a light on the horizon in the form of Dr. Minnick. How will that relationship evolve?
Shonda is so genius. When you think back on Meredith and Derek, you see them totally fall in love and be all flirty, and then she introduced Kate Walsh’s character — that completely challenged the notion of their relationship.

With Eliza and Arizona, you have this flirty, fun, Hepburn-and-Tracy banter. They’re constantly trying to one-up each other and in each other’s face — just close enough, but not too close. But it’s complicated by the fact that if Arizona did fall into that relationship, she would be betraying Richard. It’s not love or anything like that. It’s a really flirty promise of something that could be great, yet it’s sort of forbidden. The stakes are raised a bit by that.

The winter finale left on a few cliffhangers, with Alex possibly taking the plea deal and Amelia running off. This episode keeps the pin in on those. Will we see resolution on them soon?
Absolutely! There’s a ton of stuff that’s up in the air. It’s fun! It gets you to think during the breaks about the way you want the outcomes to be. It makes it more interesting to watch — there’s an interactive aspect of it. You get a little bit more invested, a little more excited, a little bit more anxious. But ultimately, there’s always an understanding of where the balls fall when they all come down crashing out of the air. Yes, there will be resolution. Some of them are still stories that are in process. I’m on my way to a table read right now, Episode 19. We’ve got some serious, serious, serious drama. There’s going to be some crying.

Of course!
I know, I know. But not romantic, heartbreaking crying. More heartstrings and tenderhearted [crying] circumstances.

Grey’s Anatomy airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. on ABC.