Last we saw of the "Grey's Anatomy" cast, they were awaiting salvation from a plane crash. Six doctors - Meredith (Ellen Pompeo), Derek (Patrick Dempsey), Cristina (Sandra Oh), Mark (Eric Dane), Arizona (Jessica Capshaw) and Lexie (Chyler Leigh) - crash-landed in the mountains, with Lexie eventually dying from her injuries.

The season 9 premiere airs this week, on Thursday, Sept. 27, and there will be much more happening in the episode than the aftermath of the plane crash.

Let's get some of the questions we were left with last season answered.

The title of the premiere is "Going Going, Gone."

TVLine reported that Patrick Dempsey revealed that his Dr. Derek Shepard character in not going to have a "miraculously cured" hand when the season begins, even though the premiere episode jumps forward a few months.

A clip from the premiere shows Derek telling fellow attendee Callie that he is ready to go back in the operation room, however, Dempsey said, "The first couple of episodes, he's trying to perform surgery, and it's not working, so he has to make an adjustment."

Sara Ramirez came out saying that her character "absolutely puts pressure on herself" to help Derek and figure out a way for him to be a fully-operational surgeon again.

"Any of the people we saw injured are not going to be A-OK when we come back," the show's executive producer, Shonda Rhimes said to TV Guide. "We're going to watch what happens to a doctor who can temporarily no longer perform surgery... And what do you do and how do you overcome this? Derek is being pretty heroic about it, which is interesting."

While last season's last episode made viewers almost positive that Mark is going to die, Arizona's future is still up in the air.

Ramirez said that Callie and Arizona's future is going to be "an intense one," and Gather.com suspects that based on what has been said, Arizona might survive the plane crash but with a permanent injury, because of the intensity of the impact.

Rhimes said this will be the "season of romance," and so some surprises are bound to be in store.

She also revealed that the second episode of season 9 will go back in time to show how the doctors were rescued from the plane crash, so not everything will be revealed in the first episode alone.

Season 9 will also be set at Seattle Grace hospital and another location as well.

"I didn't want us to feel like you're coming back and magically everyone is back home. You understand why some people stayed and why some people left. There are some very clear reasons what happened. It's very challenging playing an entirely separate story line in another location," Rhimes said.

"I don't want to say where the location is because that would be too spoilery. It's a hospital. When we come back at the beginning of the season, some of our doctors are in different locations, more than one of them, and some of our doctors are preparing to leave for different locations."

Rhimes also revealed that since the doctors already survived a shooting (that took place last season in the hospital) and are now traumatized by a plane crash, "their attitudes are very different."

Meredith especially.

Rhimes called her "the ultimate survivor" and with the death of her sister, with took place in the last episode last season, mixed with Derek's current injury will be a big blow for her.

A slow reconciling of Cristina and Owen's relationship will also take place.

"Grey's Anatomy" returns Thursday at 9/8c on ABC.

Tags
Grey's antaomy, ABC