Lexie’s totally scarred after her near-death experience at the end of last season!
Chyler Leigh‘s character Dr. Lexie Grey has always seemed the most put together out of the Grey’s Anatomy cast — the only questionable act she has ever committed was changing her hair from brunette to blonde in season six — but that’s all about to change in the upcoming seventh season! Lexie “ends up having a complete breakdown and having to go into the psych ward,” Chyler shared during a Sept. 8 conference call for her new Lifetime movie, The 19th Wife.
“Right when we come back into it, you will start seeing the trauma manifest for every character,” Chyler said. And for Lexie, this means losing her mind.
In the two-part sixth season finale titled “Sanctuary” and “Death and All His Friends,” we saw Lexie’s world literally shatter when a shooter invaded Seattle Grace Hospital and go on a killing rampage. And Lexie’s newest love interest Dr. Alex Karev (Justin Chambers) was right in the line of fire! After finding him almost bleeding to death, Lexie finally told Alex that she loves him, much to her ex-boyfriend Dr. Mark Sloan’s (Eric Dane) disgust — he confessed to Lexie that he wanted her back. And even after Alex mistakes Lexie for his lost love Izzie (Katherine Heigl), Lexie remained by his side. This is exactly where season seven picks up.
Lexie, who has a well-noted photographic memory, “can’t shut her brain off so she can’t sleep,” Chyler told us. “She’s trying to rationalize what happened. A lot of it is guilt-driven because she feels incredibly guilty for what happens.”
“Everybody has to start doing mandatory therapy sessions to get cleared to go back into surgery,” she continued. “And everybody starts looking at my character differently. She feels like she has to tiptoe around everyone because they think she may crack again. She feels like she has to regain everybody’s trust.”
Lastly, Chyler confirmed that “there’s not much of a love triangle this season” between her, Karev and Sloan. “It’s a question of who is going to be there when she has this breakdown. … That gets shown right away in the first episode!”
Grey’s Anatomy returns for its seventh season Sept. 23 on ABC!