TVLINE | Discuss to me concerning the resolution to kill off Seth. On the level the place Angie and Seth received married earlier in Season 4, did you already know their fortunately ever after can be short-lived?
HELDENS, ROSENTHAL & THOMSEN | [In unison] Yeah.
ROSENTHAL | We did. After which after we noticed the marriage, we had been similar to, “Oh my God, how are we even…?” It was terrible. We felt like horrible, horrible individuals. It was so lovely.
HELDENS | And we had been, like, “What else can we do?” Each of those deaths had been very laborious, and there was a variety of debate within the writers’ room. However yeah, we did have that on our thoughts to get Angie and Will again in one another’s orbit.
TVLINE | There was a variety of fan anxiousness this season that one thing like this would possibly occur to Seth — and that elevator stabbing a number of weeks again actually appeared to intensify it. Watching it, I feared it was a setup for Seth to comprehend all too late how badly he was bleeding internally, which is in the end what occurs right here. Was that designed as a fake-out, understanding how his story ends?
ROSENTHAL | I believe it was. [Laughs]
THOMSEN | To me, particularly the stabbing wasn’t it, however as we had been writing the episode, you had been speculated to suppose like, “Oh no, there is a gunman and Seth is being pressured to [treat this patient] at gunpoint…” So yeah, the sensible viewers — the viewers that is seen 10,000 hours of an ABC cleaning soap — goes to be, like, “Oh, he is not getting out of this one alive.”
ROSENTHAL | Yeah. So it wasn’t the stabbing, however yeah, precisely. We did suppose it was virtually, like, “Prepare!”
HELDENS | However we additionally wished to get probably the most out of Scott Foley whereas we had him. He’s only a fantastic man, and I need to work with him many extra instances in my profession. And it was enjoyable to get him in an motion sequence on our present, and it was enjoyable to provide him some hero moments.
TVLINE | I do not find out about all of you, however that “ER” stabbing all these years in the past scarred me for all times by way of TV characters getting stabbed in hospitals.
HELDENS | That episode is talked about in each writers’ room ever.
ROSENTHAL | For positive.