After 8 seasons, he left Grey's Anatomy: Jake Borelly explains

Dr. Levi Schmitt has left the hospital. We'll tell you how.

After eight seasons and more than 130 episodes, Jake Borelly said goodbye to Grey's Anatomylast night, at the end of episode 7 of season 21. Warning spoilers!

Dr. Levi Schmitt, arriving in Season 14, has left his colleagues in Seattle to accept a lucrative medical research position in San Antonio, Texas, where he intends to gain needed experience before applying for fellowships in pediatric surgery. And a rare thing in Grey's AnatomySchmitt was entitled to a happy ending. Her new boyfriend, hospital chaplain James (Michael Thomas Grant), is going to move to the other side of the country with him. They are very much in love and end up together.

“Levi is coming to the end of his internship, so I think a decision had to be made at some point as to whether he was actually going to become a doctor at Gray Sloan or whether he still had things to learn” Borelli explains to Variety. “I'm not sure how it happened behind the scenes, but producer Meg Marinis and I started talking about what we wanted to see Levi accomplish before he left Seattle. How did Levi grow up?“

On this side, the actor believes that his character has changed enormously. “I feel like Levi has done a 180 degree turn in his self-confidence. He's always been vulnerable, but we've seen over these eight seasons how being vulnerable really leads to success. I love the fact that we were able to see how he embraces his homosexuality, how he took power over his own life (…) And then we were able to create this really beautiful, very queer and very empowering ending for this character“.

Also queer in the city, the actor says he is very proud of the legacy he leaves behind in Grey's Anatomy : “I was a fan of this show for a very long time, and it had this massive queer representation with Callie Torres (Sara Ramírez) and Arizona Robbins (Jessica Capshaw). It was wonderful to see, even though their story didn't resonate at all with my experience as a queer man (…) I believe Levi's story is groundbreaking, and I'm glad so many people do. have seen.”

The fact remains that the doctor is not dead. He should therefore return to a head in Seattle, one day, like all the former starters of the medical series: “I can't wait to see, if he ever comes back, where his life is“resumes Jake Borellywho confides that the production is “very open“on a return. “There's this wonderful opportunity, now that Levi is in Texas, to see in the future what this move really did for him, how this move really changed him. So I'm hopeful that in the future , we see Levi again in Grey's Anatomy.”