‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Texas Spinoff Finds Its Lead in a ‘How to Get Away With Murder’ Star

The ‘Grey’s Anatomy‘ Texas spinoff has taken its first big step from concept to cast list. After months of waiting, ABC’s rural medical drama finally has someone to anchor it.

The untitled series was ordered straight to series in May, with no pilot, and is co-created by Shonda Rhimes and current ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ showrunner Meg Marinis. Its official logline describes an edgy drama about a team at a West Texas rural medical center, the last chance for care before miles of nowhere.

Karla Souza is the first actor cast in the new series. She will play Dr. Carolina “Lina” Hall, described as a haunted and cynical doctor in her 40s who runs a medical center in a small West Texas town.

The casting is also a homecoming. Souza starred as Laurel Castillo on the Emmy-winning ABC drama ‘How to Get Away With Murder’, so the role returns her to both ABC and Shondaland. It reunites her with Rhimes and Beers, who executive produced that series, and her credits also include ’56 Days’.

Getting here was not smooth. The show was originally slated for the 2026-2027 broadcast season, but it has been delayed to the 2027-2028 season after it did not receive a California TV tax credit.

Reports say the production applied twice and was rejected both times. As a result, the spinoff will shoot in Albuquerque, New Mexico, making it the first series in the franchise’s 23-year history to film outside Los Angeles. Deadline reports that production is expected to begin in early 2027, around February or March.

Beers publicly criticized the process at an Assembly Committee hearing in North Hollywood on Oct. 29, according to TheWrap. She said the company lost time, personnel and money fighting to stay in Los Angeles, and she urged lawmakers to weigh a show’s track record in deciding who gets credits. The California program is capped at $750 million a year, and industry figures have pushed to lift that cap.

The creative team is a familiar one. Rhimes, Beers, Marinis and ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ star Ellen Pompeo are all executive producers, and 20th Television and Shondaland produce. Marinis, a Texas native, has said the project is set in her home state, and the spinoff is the first ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ project Rhimes has written or co-written since a Season 11 episode.

The new series follows ‘Private Practice’ and ‘Station 19’ as another branch of the franchise. Both of those shows have ended. Where ‘Private Practice’ followed Addison Montgomery to a Los Angeles clinic and ‘Station 19’ stayed in Seattle with the city’s firefighters, this one swaps a big-city hospital for a remote clinic, a setting that could make Lina’s medical center the only option for patients nearby.

Beyond Souza, the details are thin. ABC has not announced a title, a premiere date or who will work alongside her. It also has not said whether any characters from the original show will appear, and early coverage noted it was unclear whether Marinis would run both series at once.

A lead like Souza gives the spinoff a face, and her ABC history gives fans something to hold onto. ‘How to Get Away With Murder’ ran in the same corner of Shondaland, so audiences already know her from the network’s prime-time dramas.

The cynical, haunted-doctor description also hints at the tone. It points toward a darker and more weathered take on the hospital drama than the flagship’s Seattle setting, though that reading is an inference from a single character description.

The delay, meanwhile, has changed the show’s place in the schedule. The original ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ remains on ABC’s Thursday lineup in the meantime, and it has been renewed for a 23rd season.

Have something to add? Let us know in the comments!