'Grey's Anatomy': Watch the First Six Brutal Minutes of the Season Finale (Video)

ABC/RANDY HOLMES

"Grey's Anatomy's" Ellen Pompeo and Patrick Dempsey

Grey's Anatomy viewers, buckle up: you're in for screams, blood, exposed bones and a completely stressful episode if the first six minutes of Thursday's Season 8 finale are any indication of what's coming.

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After a plane carrying some of Seattle Grace's best and brightest crashed into a forest, Meredith (Ellen Pompeo), Derek (Patrick Dempsey), Cristina (Sandra Oh), Lexie (Chyler Leigh), Mark (Eric Dane) and Arizona's (Jessica Capshaw) lives were left hanging in the balance.

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Showrunner Shonda Rhimes has warned that the episode, fittingly titled "Flight," will include what she calls a "pretty big death."

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"We're not talking [about] some guest star [who] is going to come in and die kind of thing; it's a big death and it's fairly shocking," she told The Hollywood Reporter during a recent interview. "It was hard, it was hard to write, it was hard to listen to at the table read. It is a difficult thing to do and not done lightly. When one of your main characters dies, it always affects the heart and soul of the hospital."

So who will survive the first six minutes? Watch the clip to find out, but be warned: it's graphic and severely cringe inducing.

Grey's Anatomy's Season 8 finale airs Thursday at 9 p.m. on ABC.

Email: Lesley.Goldberg@thr.com; Twitter: @Snoodit