Gray Sloan Memorial loses both daughters of Ellis Gray this season. The final episode featuring McCreary will air on Thursday, April 13. Like Ellen Pompeo, who returns in the Season 19 finale following Meredith's February 23rd farewell, Maggie will visit Gray Sloan's doctors later this season after her April 13th farewell.
“After nine seasons, I am saying goodbye to Maggie Pierce and her Grey Sloan family,” said McCreary who thanked Grey’s Anatomy creator/executive producer Shonda Rhimes, executive producer/showrunner Krista Vernoff, and ABC for the opportunity to be a part of the “legendary television institution” that the long-running medical drama is. “Playing Maggie Pierce has been one of the true joys of my life, and I leave with profound gratitude for every step of this journey. I am excited for this next chapter, and what the future holds.”
As was the case with Pompeo, whose Meredith left Gray Seattle Hospital at the start of the second half of the current season, Pierce's departure has been carefully planned. Sources say McCreary approached producers in advance about her desire to leave and pursue other opportunities, which led to Maggie's season 19 being set up as the character's final chapter at Gray Sloan, with a view to her upcoming departure. The latter storyline largely revolves around Maggie and Winston's (Anthony Hill) increasing marital problems.
“Kelly McCreary is a writer’s dream come true; brilliant, nuanced, thoughtful, and kind,” Vernoff said. “We will deeply miss her and her beautifully crafted Dr. Maggie Pierce.”
Known for her perfectionism and urge for control, Maggie was introduced in the penultimate episode of season ten. In the finale, it was revealed an episode later that Maggie was the biological daughter of Richard Webber (James Pickens Jr.) and Meredith's late mother, Ellis Gray (Kate Burton).
McCreary returned in the eleventh season, starting in a recurring role and soon promoted to the regular cast. She only took a short break at the start of Season 18 in Fall 2021 when she gave birth to her first child with director Pete Chatmon, whom she had met on the set of Grey's Anatomy.
There has been a lot of heartbreak for Maggie over the years. She was with her mother when she lost her battle with cancer, and she also met a cousin who later died on the operating table.
Maggie went through several relationships, especially with DeLuca and Jackson, until she met Winston, one of her interns at Tufts who followed her to Seattle. They got married during Grey's Covid theme in season 17, with two weddings, a smaller one in Meredith's backyard and a larger one on the beach.
The first signs of trouble for Maggie and Winston came in the season 18 finale when she wondered if the two were getting married too quickly without getting to know each other well. He quickly dispelled her doubts with an emotional speech about their love for each other.
But Winston's well-intentioned idea to switch specialties and abandon cardio to protect their marriage soon caused another rift. They've feuded and famously ever since in the attic of Meredith's house when it was struck by lightning, causing a fire. Even as they performed a professional "miracle" by successfully performing the first high-risk partial heart transplant on a newborn, Winston and Maggie continued to drift apart, leading to her moving in with Amelia and seeking advice from her father.
At the end of last week’s episode, Maggie tearfully asked Richard how he and Catherine knew that what they were going through “was just a rough patch and it wasn’t something more… malignant.” While Richard was reassuring, the way his words were intertwined with Meredith’s end-of-episode voiceover made the exchange ominous. The scene culminated with Richard saying, “Whatever’s going on, you and Winston have so much love between you that whatever it is, you work through it, I know you will,” followed by Meredith’s line, “Sometimes, despite our schooling and centuries of medical advancement, the disease wins.”
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