Do we need to call a code blue on Dr. Levi Schmitt's career at Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital?
Maybe! Even Jake Borelli, the actor who has played the surgical resident for five seasons on Grey's Anatomy, isn't confident that his character will overcome his latest fumble. In an exclusive chat with E! News, Jake expressed that he's "scared" for Levi heading into the rest of season 18.
"I'm going to speak from the heart here as an actor," he shared. "Sometimes when you read a script that says you are not you working at the hospital or you're walking out of the hospital, you're like, 'What does this mean?' Because yes, there are some greats like Cristina Yang, who walks away and comes back. But then she walked away one time and didn't come back."
He added, "At this point, I'm still worried that Levi doesn't work at the hospital."
The Feb. 24 episode featured Levi making a mistake during a solo surgery and losing the patient, resulting in a breakdown where the doctor cleaned his hands raw. Levi struggled to move on from the surgery in the March 3 episode, as he walked out of the Morbidity and Mortality Conference.
Later boyfriend Dr. Nico Kim (Alex Landi) begged him to return to the hospital, to which Levi responded: "Please go away and don't come back. We're done."
And though the pair have had an on-and-off relationship, Jake hinted that an immediate reconciliation wasn't in the couple's future. "This was the strongest, I've seen Levi be in his opinion towards Nico," he said. "And he's been going through a lot, that's for sure. So it's going to be interesting to see how Nico actually responds. But it seemed like Levi was pretty firm."
And from the sounds of it, it will take some time for Levi to overcome his traumatic experience. "I think for the first time in his time at Grey Sloan," Jake explained, "this is a situation where he can't see a light at the tunnel. And so it's gonna be a tricky road, I think for Levi."
For what's to come for Levi, be sure to catch Grey's Anatomy when it airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. on ABC.