Greys Anatomy Fans Are Having A Meltdown Over The Shocking Derek Shepherd Season 19 Twist – Yahoo Life

True Greys Anatomy Fans Caught This Derek NodVivian Zink - Getty Images

This article contains spoilers from the premiere episode of Grey's Anatomy season 19.

Fans of Grey's Anatomy, rejoice your favorite medical drama is officially back for season 19! Thursday night's premiere introduced viewers to a whole new class of interns, all with different agendas for how they want to advance at Grey Sloan. But one new face actually has ties to a fan-favorite character, and it took a bit of detective work to figure out the shocking twist no one saw coming.

In the first episode of Grey's Anatomy season 19, dedicated viewers met Lucas Adams (Niko Terho), a young man who Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) described as "charming" yet "a bit of a black sheep." His charisma rang true as he prepared to perform surgery with a group of fellow surgeons. While he described the scenario throughout the room, he utters these key words: "It's a beautiful day to save lives."

Sound familiar? As true fans know, a rather dreamy doctor used to say the exact same phrase before performing an operation: Dr. Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey).

Now, you may be wondering how Lucas could've possibly known about Derek's famous quote. As Amelia (Caterina Scorsone) remarks to Meredith, there's a wild connection between the two men. "Derek was a god to him," she begins. "And Lucas was Derek's favorite nephew."

What a way to introduce this twist! Longtime fans were shocked too, and they naturally had to react to this revelation on social media. "My heart literally stopped," one fan wrote on YouTube. "He said it! Derek's line!" another follower excitedly noted. "The fact that the actor who plays Lucas was able to nail the inflection of Patrick Dempseys delivery is wild," a different fan added.

Photo credit: ABC

While Lucas's connection to the Shepherd family may come out of nowhere, there's actually validity to his existence. In fact, Derek actually referred to his large family back in the second episode of the entire series. As he told Meredith in season 1, McDreamy had four sisters (Amelia, Nancy, Kathleen and Lizzie) who are not only "very girly" but had "tons of kids." He clearly made an impression on his nieces and nephews before his death from a car crash in season 11, since another Shepherd family member is seemingly here to stay.

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Now that we think about it, Grey's Anatomy actually left subtle clues to Lucas's familial ties while promoting season 19. When the character was officially announced back in July, Deadline described the character as "the charming black sheep of his family" and "determined to prove himself as a surgeon, just like many in his family that have come before him." In addition, Instagram further captioned a photo of Lucas as "ready to prove himself as worthy."

From this alone, it looks like Lucas is about to be an important character to watch this season. And we seriously can't wait.