ABC has cast the lead of its Texas “Grey’s Anatomy” spinoff. Karla Souza, who played Laurel Castillo in “How to Get Away with Murder”, will play Carolina “Lina” Hall, a “haunted and cynical” doctor in her 40s who runs a medical center in a small West Texas town. ABC and Shondaland announced the casting on November 11th, 2026. Souza is the first actor named for a series that still has no title. The show has a series order, a 2027-28 season slot and a production start of early 2027.
Shonda Rhimes created “Grey’s Anatomy” and co-created the spinoff with Meg Marinis, the flagship’s current showrunner. Betsy Beers and Ellen Pompeo executive produce alongside them for Shondaland and 20th Television. The show has moved a long way since ABC ordered it. It has changed seasons and it has changed states. Warning beyond this point there are spoilers for “Grey’s Anatomy” through Season 22.
Souza is the first actor named for a series that still has no title.”
The official description calls the show “an edgy drama about a team at a West Texas rural medical center”, the “last chance for care before miles of nowhere”. Houston native Marinis told The Hollywood Reporter in October that the writers are “digging into the actual communities and true stories of what happens out in rural West Texas”. She added, “It’s related to Grey’s, but its stories are going to be different.” The earlier shows were set in Seattle and Los Angeles. This one sits in a small town, and ABC’s own logline sells the distance.
The order came on May 19th, 2026. Deadline reported it as an exclusive a week after ABC released its fall schedule. ABC gave the untitled one-hour drama a straight-to-series order and planned it for midseason 2027. In her statement Marinis said the show is “all set in my home state of Texas”. The Hollywood Reporter notes that Rhimes and Marinis are co-writing it, which marks Rhimes’ return to the “Grey’s” world as a writer. Shondaland remains under an overall deal at Netflix and this series is still an ABC order.
None of the earlier spinoffs started this way. Addison Montgomery (Kate Walsh) left Seattle to headline “Private Practice” and Ben Warren (Jason George) led “Station 19”. The Texas show is not built around a former series regular. It starts with a new group of doctors. Deadline reported in May that the show will probably connect to the flagship through one or more characters, and named Catherine Fox (Debbie Allen) as a candidate. TheWrap points to Levi Schmitt (Jake Borelli), who moved to Texas with his partner when he left in Season 21. Neither character has been announced for the spinoff.
The first sign will come on the flagship. Marinis told Deadline in October that characters from the spinoff will appear on “Grey’s” this season. She said the writers are still choosing the episode. TVLine asked her whether the new show would be introduced through “Grey’s” characters and she answered, “You’ll just have to wait and see!” Shondaland says only that the spinoff will connect to the main series in a way not yet explained. Season 23 airs Thursdays on ABC, so the setup has the whole run to land in.
The delay is the bigger story. Deadline reported on November 6th, 2026 that the spinoff will shoot in Albuquerque, New Mexico after its California tax credit application was rejected twice. The move pushed the premiere from midseason 2027 to the 2027-28 season. The show is in pre-production in Albuquerque and production is expected to begin in early 2027. Deadline’s sources put the start around February or March. Until then the cast list has one name on it.
Beers laid out the cost at an Assembly Committee hearing in North Hollywood on October 29th, 2026. She said, “We were denied credit due to the fact we were not providing enough jobs for the state to consider us an asset.” ABC and the studio applied again and were then told, she said, that a new show would get no chance to apply. Beers also said proximity mattered because the co-creator and showrunner is also running “Grey’s”. On the new base she said, “Now we are filming in Albuquerque, where they have been wonderful to work with, but we want to be here.”
“Grey’s Anatomy”, “Private Practice” and “Station 19” all shot in Los Angeles and Shondaland’s California record also covers “Scandal” and “How to Get Away with Murder”. The new show will shoot in Albuquerque instead. Souza’s casting puts her back with the people who built that record. Rhimes and Beers executive produced “How to Get Away with Murder” through Shondaland.
Souza played Laurel, one of the students drawn into the crimes and cover-ups of Annalise Keating (Viola Davis), on all six seasons of the Philadelphia-set ABC drama from 2014 to 2020. Laurel is the role she is best known for. After it she played Marina on ABC’s “Home Economics” and starred opposite Jamie Foxx in the Netflix film “Day Shift”. Her most recent starring role was Prime Video’s “56 Days” with Dove Cameron and Avan Jogia. She also took International Emmy honors for starring in the Prime Video series “Dive”.
Shondaland adds that Souza was born in Mexico City, lived in Aspen, Colorado, until she was 8 and later studied at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London. The description gives Lina two traits before any scene exists. Haunted and cynical points to a past that the announcement does not name. A lead who runs the center carries every case the team cannot send anywhere else, and the logline says there is nowhere else.
The franchise has done this twice before. “Private Practice” began in 2007 and ran six seasons through 2013. “Station 19” ran seven seasons from 2018 to 2024 and TVLine notes that it crossed over with the flagship more than once. The Texas show is the third spinoff on ABC. Shondaland and A.V. Club, which also count the web series “Grey’s Anatomy: B-Team”, call it the fourth. TVLine adds that Station 19 star Danielle Savre returned as Maya Bishop in the penultimate episode of Season 22, so the older spinoffs still reach back into the flagship.
The flagship is carrying all of this through a leaner year. Season 23 premiered on October 15th, 2026. Kevin McKidd and Kim Raver left at the end of Season 22. The new season was expected to come in under the 18 episodes of each of the last two seasons, and Hidden Remote reports that a Disney+ preview lists 13. Pompeo, Chandra Wilson and James Pickens Jr. remain from the original cast. Asked by Deadline about a final season, Marinis said, “no one’s told me that, so I’m gonna keep on doing what I’m doing.”
Marinis is juggling both shows. She told TheWrap that building a second series next to the first is “a little nutty” and that she has to stay on top of her schedule “about which hat I’m wearing”. Former cast members have noticed the new show. Sloan Riley (Leven Rambin) appeared in five episodes of “Grey’s” and Rambin posted an Instagram video on May 20th, 2026 telling Rhimes she is “literally in Texas right now” and that “This needs to happen.” TVLine reads it as a pitch to return. The casting announcement does not answer it.
Plenty is still blank. The spinoff has no title, no episode count, no time slot and no second cast member. ABC has not said how it will connect to Grey Sloan Memorial, the flagship’s Seattle hospital, or which characters will make the trip. Cameras roll in early 2027 and the premiere sits in the 2027-28 season. The next announcements will be more casting, a title and a crossover on the flagship. Until one of them arrives, Lina Hall is the only piece of this show anyone can describe.
What Do You Think? Does a “Grey’s Anatomy” spinoff work without a Grey Sloan doctor at the center? Which returning character should make the trip to West Texas? And is a show shot in Albuquerque close enough to Texas to feel like it?
See you on the next binge!
