‘Grey’s Anatomy’ season 10: ABC to air Isaiah Washington’s last episode before return

When Preston Burke returns to “Grey’s Anatomy” on Thursday night, it will have been seven years since you last saw the character. With that in mind, it really should not come as much of a surprise that the show is doing what it can in order to remind viewers of previous events before he re-enters the Seattle world again.

ABC confirmed this week that Thursday at 8:00 p.m. Eastern time before the new episode, the network will re-air the season 3 finale that was Isaiah Washington’s last before he was promptly dismissed from the show. This was the moment that Burke left Cristina at the altar, which in turn set the stage for everything that has happened with the character ever since.

As one of the recent sneak peeks for this episode shows, Burke and Cristina will cross paths again while she is speaking at what appears to be at a conference, and he just so happens to be in attendance. It doesn’t appear as though there is anything more substantial going on with this story before this point, given that Sandra Oh’s character looks absolutely stunned to see him.

There has been controversy regarding whether or not it was the right move to bring Washington back given his past on the show, but creator Shonda Rhimes has stressed that it was important for her to do so for the sake of Cristina, as she needed this full-circle moment before the character says goodbye in the finale. Another talking point has been that Washington returned before Katherine Heigl, who left under her own controversial circumstances. Our argument is that there are a variety of other factors at play here, and the two departures were very different and about very different things.

We’ll of course have more on this episode soon, so be on the lookout for that. You can also sign up to get some further TV scoop now via our CarterMatt Newsletter.

Photo: ABC