Grey’s Anatomy season 16: Jesse Williams signs new two-year deal
According to Deadline, the actor has officially inked a new two-year deal to stick around the ABC show in the role of Dr. Jackson Avery. This is a part that he’s played for hundreds of episodes at this point and while he isn’t an original cast member of the show, he’s been a long time to be considered an iconic part of the cast.
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The site notes that moving into this coming season, Williams was the only cast member unsigned and the reason for the prolonged negotiation involved in part his availability. As previously reported, Williams is already going to be heading to Broadway next spring and because of the timing of that gig, coupled with when Grey’s Anatomy films, he is going to be unable to do both full-time.
More than likely, what’s going to happen is that Jesse will do a slightly more limited run of episodes for season 16 so that he can take off during the latter stretch for his theater gig. Then, he will come back and be a part of season 17 on the other side. (While there is not officially a season 17, it feels like a given that the show will be back for it — cast member Ellen Pompeo already has a deal in place for it.)
Perhaps the best news that comes out of this announcement is mostly just knowing that Jackson is going to be okay. After all, season 15 ended with a pretty dramatic cliffhanger for the character, and we now have a pretty good idea as to why. In leaving the character’s fate up in the air, it did leave the writers a little bit of leeway in the event that Jesse didn’t come back for some reason.
Now, we can be assured that he is at least alive, but that doesn’t exactly mean that he is a-okay either. There could be some problems that await him, and after that, there may be plenty of things that he and Maggie need to work on in their relationship.
Beyond anything in his personal life, we just would like to have some good medicine-focused storylines for Jackson coming up given that it feels like it’s been a while. As a matter of fact, it felt like Jackson’s storyline in general in season 15 was a little bit start-and-stop. He did have a little period of time in which he was gone from the show in the early going, and following that, it sort of kept things from jumping forward in a big way.
Grey’s Anatomy season 16 is set to premiere at some point this fall, if you want to read our newest character spotlight all about Alex, be sure to visit the lake here.
What do you think about Jesse Williams sticking around Grey’s Anatomy? Be sure to share in the comments. (Photo: ABC.)