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.