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June Squibb and Hal Holbrook to Guest Star on ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ (EXCLUSIVE)
(EXCLUSIVE) Elizabeth Wagmeister
VARIETY | TV Reporter @EWagmeister
March 1, 2017 | 09:00AM PT

“Grey’s Anatomy” has tapped June Squibb and Hal Holbrook as guest stars, Variety has learned exclusively.

The duo will appear in the episode on Mar. 23, playing Elsie Clatch and Lewis Clatch, a married couple who visit Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital. No other details on their storyline have been revealed.

Additionally, the Mar. 23 episode will also welcome back guest star LaTanya Richardson Jackson, who will reprise her role as Maggie’s (Kelly McCreary) mother, Diane Pierce.

Squibb, who was nominated for the Academy Award for “Nebraska,” recently had an arc on Showtime’s “Shameless.” She will be in the upcoming film “Table 19.” She is repped by BRS/Gage.

Holbrook, star of his iconic Tony-winning one-man show “Mark Twain Tonight,” has been keeping busy in recent years. The multiple-time Emmy-winner had a recurring role on “Sons of Anarchy” and guest starred in an episode of “Bones” this year. He is repped by JR Talent Group.

“Grey’s Anatomy,” which was recently renewed for a fourteenth season, airs Thursday nights at 8 p.m. on ABC.

http://variety.com/2017/tv/news/greys-anatomy-guest-stars-june-squibb-and-hal-holbrook-1201999499/

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Be sure to check the website for articles & other news about this episode that Kevin directed.

This week's episode of Grey's Anatomy took place not in Seattle, but in Montana and got us some pretty heavy duty backstory on Jackson Avery. He traveled to one of the Avery Foundation hospitals to treat a patient along with April, a last minute substitute for Meredith. What followed was Grey's ubiquitous tense medical case filled with anvils aplenty. As usual in these sort of stunt episodes, very few other characters were seen which meant lots of stories didn't move forward this week. However, we did get more capable directing from Kevin McKidd.

The bickering between Jackson and April continued as they stepped into the Avery family plane and were offered champagne by a flight attendant. While Jackson put his nose into patient files and acted unimpressed by the luxury around him, April teased him while also sticking up for Catherine, pressing Jackson's buttons all the way. The mood shifted rapidly when they arrived at the Montana hospital to do a throat transplant from one child to another when they realized the dying child's father still held out hope his son would wake up. Jackson shared his own heartbreak at losing the son they both still mourn, shocking April into silence, and convincing the father to authorize surgery.

When Jackson next used his experience as a father to charm the mothers of their transplant patient, April confronted him. His response was to stalk away to a diner in which we later find him soused as April picked up the pieces of their exploded surgery when the donor was found to no longer be an option. In some stunt casting we found Eric Roberts tending bar and acting all sorts of folksy, offering Jackson a standard free beer for new customers. The plot thickened when April sought out a now drunken Jackson only for him to storm moodily out of the bar. A brief introduction to the bartender gave us the next plot cannonball - he's none other than Robert Avery, a former surgeon and, wait for it, Jackson's missing in action father. Now all Jackson's talk of fatherly concerns slipped eerily into place.

Once a less optimal surgery option was all they had to offer, their patient's mothers decided to take her out of state which was risky given her deteriorating condition. Jackson, headstrong and self-assured, promised them an idea to fix their daughter's condition which he later admitted to April he made up on the spot to give himself time to think. She accused him of only being in Montana to see his father, a quest she told him was putting their patient at risk. Our normally eloquent Jackson found himself at a decided loss for words before he stalked away from her once again. This at least temporarily put a halt to their bickering as April patiently heard Jackson's amalgam of feelings around being face to face with a father who didn't recognize him.

With April's encouragement Jackson once again approached his father, but found his bumbling description of how the status and expectations of the Avery name just wasn't 'his thing' to be less than what he'd hoped for in a response. The clueless look on his father's face paired alongside the heartbreak on Jackson's face was mesmerizing. Once again Jackson stalked away from the encounter rather than face his pain in front of April, which made this week yet another episode in which the patient's story was almost beside the point to the resulting impact on the doctors' personal lives. And boy was it ever personal as Jackson and April's bickering turned to empathizing which turned to surgical breakthrough, oh yeah, and turned to smut as we saw Jackson and April, high on surgical adrenaline, back in each other's arms. The culmination of the story came when Jackson found it in himself to make peace with his biological father's absence from his life which allowed him to also seemingly make peace with his force of nature mother Catherine. Be ready for the next stop on the rollercoaster Japril fans, will this detente stick for them or not?

While we missed seeing most of our favorite make believe Seattle surgical team in this episode, based on the preview for next week the shipper rollercoaster will arrive at the station for two more groups of fans very, very soon. Hold onto your hats!

VARIETY | March 16, 2017
‘Grey’s Anatomy’: Jackson and April Reunite for an Emotional Episode (SPOILERS)
Elizabeth Wagmeister TV Reporter @EWagmeister

SPOILER ALERT: Do not read ahead if you have not watch the Mar. 16 episode of “Grey’s Anatomy,” titled “Who Is He (And What Is He to You)?”

Rejoice, #Japril fans! This week’s episode of “Grey’s Anatomy” was a one-off solely focused on Jackson (Jesse Williams) and April (Sarah Drew).

“I think that this episode is really more ‘Jackson the Movie’, than ‘Japril the Sequel,'” Sarah Drew tells Variety, referring to the episode from Season 12 that was all about Jackson and April’s relationship. “It really is about Jackson’s journey, and it made sense to have the person who knows him best be on that journey with him and show up and be strong for him in the midst of it.”

Thursday night’s hour centered around divorced duo who were assigned to a high-stakes case and had to take a flight, on the Avery family private jet, nonetheless, to perform surgery on the patient. However, the medical case-of-the-week was really the background of the episode, which heavily focused on Jackson’s personal life.

Jackson’s estranged father, who he never met, worked at the local restaurant near the hospital that Jackson and April visited, so Jackson ended up confronting him and through a series of scenes, ultimately told him he did not want to have a relationship, since he left him and never cared to be a true father.

Be sure to check the website for articles & other news about this episode that Kevin directed.
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Grey's Anatomy Sneak Peek: Will Jackson and April Rekindle Their Romance?
by Liz Raftery | Mar 15, 2017 6:00 PM EDT | TV Guide

Thursday's episode of Grey's Anatomy finds April (Sarah Drew) and Jackson (Jesse Williams) taking a trip to Awkward Town when Catherine (Debbie Allen) sends them away to treat a young patient who needs a complicated throat transplant.

In actuality, the two docs are traveling to Montana. And in the episode, which ABC and the show's stars are dubbing "Japril the Sequel," things start to go downhill when Jackson has a hard time focusing on the task at hand because he can't stop thinking about the fact that - surprise! - his biological father lives in the area.

"When [April] discovers that his father is there in Montana and that his father is the one that is distracting him and throwing him for a loop and causing him to act strangely, she knows exactly what he needs because she knows him so well," Drew tells TVGuide.com. "She knows that he needs to go talk to his father. He needs to have that interaction. He needs to open that door... maybe close that door. But something needs to happen."

In this exclusive sneak peek, April encourages - well, more like insists - that Jackson confront his father and get whatever he needs to off his chest."The tactic that she uses, I think, is pretty brilliant because she makes it about the work," Drew points out. "She doesn't make it about, 'I care about you and I see you're hurting, and you really need to do this, and this is going to help you. I'm telling you to do this because I love you.' I think all that stuff is in the subtext, but I think what he needs in this moment is for someone to kick his ass and say, 'You're not doing your job well. You have to do this in order to do your job well, so shut up and go do it.' And that's exactly what she says and it leads to really great results."

Is it possible that "Japril the Sequel" will lead to Jackson reconnecting with not only his father, but also his ex-wife? Fans will have to wait until Thursday to find out - but according to Drew, the episode solidifies that, if nothing else, Jackson and April will continue to be there for each other to lean on, despite all their previous ups and downs.

"It really is more about Jackson than it is about Japril, but it is about April kind of showing up for Jackson in a way that she really never has so far in their relationship. That's the part of 'Japril the Sequel' that I love the most," Drew tells TVGuide.com. "She really just shows up for him over and over and over again and doesn't need him to show up for her in any way. And that is just a true mark of what love is supposed to look like."

Grey's Anatomy airs Thursdays at 8/7c on ABC.

http://www.tvguide.com/news/greys-anatomy-jackson-april-father-sarah-drew-japril/

Be sure to check the website for articles & other news about this episode that Kevin directed.
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TV LINE: Grey's Anatomy Preview
Sarah Drew Reveals What April Does For Jackson 'Out of Love' in #JaprilTheSequel
By Charlie Mason / March 15 2017, 3:00 PM PDT

The promos for Thursday’s Grey’s Anatomy (8/7c, ABC) have already revealed that Jackson and April’s work trip to Montana reunites him with his long-lost father. But what they don’t reveal is how what transpires on that journey impacts Harriet’s divorced co-parents going forward. “At the beginning of the episode, there is so much tension between them,” Sarah Drew, who plays Dr. Kepner, tells TVLine. “They don’t have any real sense that they are going to work anything out [during their travels]. It’s not a nice, cozy vacation.”

However, once April learns that Jackson has found his dad (whose casting will remain a secret until airtime), everything changes. “She realizes from the beginning that something’s going on with him. He’s unusually cross with her — even in terms of their working relationship,” notes Drew. “So when she discovers that [the reason] is his father, it kind of opens up a world for her of, ‘Now everything makes sense’ — his attitude, his shortness, his shutting her out.

“Because this is a very deep and intense situation,” she continues, “it gives her more empathy and patience towards him.”

It also gives her a mission to accomplish: getting him to at last have it out with his father. “I love the way that scene plays out. She doesn’t say, ‘You need to go because you’re going through something, and I care about you and want you to figure it out,'” the actress previews. “No, she says, ‘You need to go because you can’t do your job right now, and I need you to do your job.’“That’s really tough, and I don’t think it’s completely honest,” she adds. “I think [she does it] totally out of love, but she’s not going to let on that it is, because… that’s exactly what he needs to hear in that moment. She’s so firm and so strong. She’s really being a rock for him.”

So much so that, by the end of “Who Is He (And What Is He to You)?” the once-marrieds are closer than they have been in ages. “Regardless of where it goes from here,” Drew says, “there is a great healing that has happened as a result of this experience that I think would give Japril fans a lot of hope.”

Be sure to check the website for more news about this episode that Kevin directed.
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Be sure to check the website for more news about this episode that Kevin directed.
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E! News | Grey's Anatomy's
Big "Japril" Episode Just Might Be an Avery Family Reunion in Disguise
by Billy Nilles | Wed, Mar 15, 2017 9:05 AM

For as long as he's been in our lives on Grey's Anatomy, Jackson Avery's father has never been in the picture.

We've gotten more than our fill of his mother, the domineering and ultra-successful Catherine Avery (Debbie Allen)—especially with the mess she's created at Grey Sloan Memorial this year with the whole Minnick debacle—but we've never met the man who ran off when Jackson (Jesse Williams) was young, leaving him to be raised by a single mother. But it looks like that all might be changing—and soon.

In this sneak peek of Thursday's new episode, exclusive to E! News, Jackson and April (Sarah Drew) have traveled to Montana to treat a young patient, but when his ex-wife catches wise to what really may have brought them out to Big Sky Country, she's none too pleased.

"When are you gonna tell me that you found your father?" she unloads on her former spouse. "Your father, Jackson. Your long-lost deadbeat dad. The distinguished hippie former surgeon Dr. Avery who slings hash at the local diner. He's the whole reason we're here!"

"No, I came here to help a patient," Jackson replies, rather unconvincingly. Come on, Jackson! You're going to have to lie a little better than that.

The special episode, in which Williams and Drew are the only two series regulars to appear, is a sequel of sorts to the special season 12 episode that chronicled the pair's complete relationship history as they sign divorce papers amid April's secret second pregnancy. Could what fans are affectionately referring to as "Japril: The Sequel" be the episode to bring these until as-of-late (thanks to Grey Sloan Memorial's ridiculous civil war) happy co-parents back together for good?

While the pair aren't spilling that precious detail under fear of retribution from their boss Shonda Rhimes, they did open up to E! News' Kristin Dos Santos about the episode. "The relationship—Will they? Won't they? Are they going to stay together? They're co-parenting, being divorced, but living together. They can kind of escape through their work, but on this trip and in this episode, they're together," Williams teased during the recent TCA Winter Press Tour . "They have to face each other."

Are the actors themselves rooting for a reconciliation between their characters? "Yes, always. I'm just always rooting for them to get back together because they're great and I can't understand," Drew admitted. "There was stuff that made sense for them to be apart, but now it feels like that's in the past…Japril forever!" 

Are you still holding out hope for Japril to get their act together and reconcile? Sound off in the comments below!

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

Be sure to check the website for articles & other news about this episode that Kevin directed.
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