Grey’s Anatomy’s Kevin McKidd on the Impact of Teddy’s Life-or-Death Medical Emergency (Exclusive)

This post contains spoilers from the Season 20 premiere Grey’s Anatomy.

Kevin McKidd teases what’s in store for him Grey’s Anatomy character Owen Hunt and his wife Teddy Altman (Kim Raver) after she survived a medical emergency in the season 20 premiere.

The 50-year-old actor tells PEOPLE exclusively that Teddy’s recovery will be a pain for the couple.

“I think it’s interesting that Teddy — because she’s so powerful — I think when she initially recovers, she becomes very focused on work again,” he explains. “She’s just like, ‘I want to come back. I want to go back to what I was before.’ She becomes very single-minded and determined.”

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Kevin McKidd.

As for Owen, McKidd says he “got pretty quiet” after his wife’s medical scare, causing a “relationship [to go] through complication.”

“They miss each other all the time, they’re a little disconnected because Owen is still kind of going through the shock of the trauma of what happened when he saw his wife lying on the floor potentially dead, and they haven’t really talked about it,” he explains.

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“So I think that can happen in couples quite often – if something quite traumatic has happened, you kind of want to get over it quickly, especially the person who happened to it, but then the other person is left with all these feelings,” he adds.

Kim Raver and Kevin McKidd on “Grey’s Anatomy.” ABC

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McKidd teases how the pair have found a way to reconnect as season 20 progresses after they “didn’t connect very well.”

“Eventually towards the end of the season, they had to address it and say, ‘Listen, we have to communicate. We have to get back on the same page,’ he shares. “They are moving away a bit, living separate lives. And I think that’s partly because that’s how Teddy deals with the trauma of what happened, and then Owen goes, ‘Where are you? I have to talk about this too. Even though it happened to your body, it happened to us as a couple and we have to communicate.’”

He continues, “It’s kind of a cool lesson about traumatic events and how people can shut down a little bit. They’re both a little bit in their own worlds.”

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The Rome alum shares that Teddy’s life-or-death experience triggers Owen’s PTSD, explaining, “He’s a high-functioning person, but that thing never goes away, never fully heals. So I think that’s always there and it’s ready to rear its head if something big happens, and this certainly does.”

“It’s complicated for Owen. And Teddy also went through many years of working in war zones,” he adds. “So I think they kind of become tough, they have a tough exterior, and they put up these walls, these emotional walls to deal with it. I think that’s how Teddy and Owen cope until they can’t do it anymore, they have to break down the walls and bond.”

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Grey’s Anatomy airs Thursdays at 9pm ET on ABC.

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