Karla Souza to lead Grey's Anatomy Texas spinoff

Karla Souza will star in ABC's untitled "Grey's Anatomy" spinoff set in West Texas, playing the doctor who runs the medical center in a small rural town. She is the first actor cast in the series.

Her character, Dr. Carolina "Lina" Hall, is described as "haunted and cynical," and Deadline reports she is in her 40s. ABC's official pitch calls the show an edgy drama about the staff of a rural West Texas clinic that serves as "the last chance for care before miles of nowhere."

That premise breaks from the franchise's usual formula. "Grey's Anatomy" launched in 2005 by following surgical interns through a big Seattle teaching hospital, and much of its appeal came from watching young doctors grow up. Building a spinoff around a jaded veteran who is already in charge, at a facility with no backup down the road, gives the new show a different engine. Patients can't simply be transferred upstairs, and a lead described as cynical leaves room for something darker than the mothership's mix of romance and melodrama.

A delayed debut and a first for the franchise

ABC ordered the series straight to series in May and initially wanted it on the air during the current 2026-27 season. It has since been pushed to the 2027-28 season after the production did not receive a California TV tax credit. Filming is expected to start in early 2027; Deadline's sources put the start around February or March.

Instead of Los Angeles, the show, now in pre-production, will be based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Deadline reported last week that it will be the first series in the franchise's 23-year history to film outside Los Angeles. That is a real departure for Shondaland, which has made its shows in California regardless of where they were set, including the Seattle-based "Grey's," its earlier spinoffs "Private Practice" and "Station 19," the Washington-set "Scandal" and Netflix's "The Residence," the Philadelphia-set "How to Get Away With Murder" and ABC's "The Catch."

The relocation looks like a reasonable trade, even if the series still isn't shooting in the state where it's set. New Mexico's high desert is far closer in look to West Texas than a Los Angeles soundstage, and a show that promises a sense of isolation needs landscapes that sell it. The cost is time: losing a season pushes the premiere well over a year past the order. The upside is that the producers now have room to cast the rest of the clinic carefully instead of racing to fill a midseason slot.

Who is behind it, and how it may connect

Shonda Rhimes, who created "Grey's Anatomy," developed the spinoff with Meg Marinis, the current "Grey's" showrunner and a Texas native. The two also wrote the first episode. They are executive producers along with Shondaland's Betsy Beers and "Grey's" star Ellen Pompeo, and 20th Television and Shondaland produce.

Marinis has framed the show as rooted in real rural life. "We're digging into the actual communities and true stories of what happens out in rural West Texas," she told The Hollywood Reporter in October, adding, "It's so different from Grey's." She said the region holds stories she hadn't seen on television.

That focus could become the show's strongest selling point. Hospital dramas rarely leave the city, and a clinic hours from the nearest specialist creates built-in stakes: long transports, limited equipment and doctors forced to work outside their comfort zones. Whether the series delivers on "true stories" will depend on how specific it gets about the place, which is where a showrunner with roots in the state should help.

How viewers will meet these characters is still unknown. When TVLine asked Marinis whether the new show would be introduced through characters on "Grey's," she replied, "You'll just have to wait and see!" Both earlier spinoffs leaned on familiar faces: "Private Practice" followed Kate Walsh's Addison Montgomery out of Seattle, and "Station 19" brought along Jason George's Ben Warren. A brand-new lead in a different state makes that kind of handoff less obvious, but with a full season of "Grey's" still to air before the spinoff arrives, the door remains open.

This will be the third "Grey's" spinoff on ABC. "Private Practice" ran six seasons, from 2007 to 2012, and "Station 19" ran seven, from 2018 to 2024. ABC.com also carried a digital series, "Grey's Anatomy: B-Team," in 2018. That track record shows the brand can support an offshoot for years, which helps explain ABC's willingness to wait a season rather than drop the project.

For Souza, the role is a homecoming. She played law student Laurel Castillo opposite Viola Davis on "How to Get Away With Murder," the Shondaland drama produced by Rhimes and Beers. She later played Marina on the ABC comedy "Home Economics," which ran three seasons, appeared opposite Jamie Foxx in Netflix's "Day Shift" and was most recently a series regular on Prime Video's "56 Days" with Dove Cameron and Avan Jogia.

Her most telling credit for this job may be "Dive," also known as "La Caída," the Prime Video film that earned her International Emmy recognition for her performance. It showed she can carry a heavy dramatic story on her own, which is exactly what a series built around one burned-out doctor will require. Her résumé also includes Mexican hits such as "Instructions Not Included" and "Nosotros los Nobles."

Casting her looks like a smart first move. Souza already knows how Shondaland runs a network drama, audiences know her from one of its biggest hits, and leading the show is a clear step up from the ensemble role that made her famous. The harder work comes next: the clinic needs a staff, and the show needs a title.

In the meantime, "Grey's Anatomy" continues its 23rd season Thursdays at 10 p.m. ET on ABC, and cameras on the spinoff are expected to roll in Albuquerque early next year.