UPDATE: Thursday night “Grey’s” returned and killed off another main character.

EARLIER: Will “Grey’s Anatomy” make it a 20th season?

Not if Ellen Pompeo has anything to do with it. Pompeo is publicly negotiating for more money to keep playing insipid Meredith Grey beyond this season, number 17.

The show gave her COVID this season and put her in a coma. She’s been in bed whilst dreaming of being on a beach, running into all the other actors fired by Shonda Rhimes over the last 2 decades.

Tonight the series resumes with a crossover special with “Station 19,” the other Rhimes show that’s turned into a surprise success spun off from “Grey’s.”

Meantime, showrunner Krista Vernoff has been giving interviews this week threatening that she’s writing a series finale in case Pompeo doesn’t make a deal with ABC and Shondaland.

But really, ABC doesn’t want to cancel “Grey’s.” The ratings are still good, the show has a lot of fans, there’s a big cast and crew dependent on paychecks far less than Pompeo’s.

Plus, “Grey’s” is an ensemble piece. It never lived or died on the saga of Meredith Grey. If the character dies or moves away, life at Sloan Grey Hospital will continue, and the writers can just tell the stories of the other characters without missing a beat.

Pompeo is already the highest paid female in TV. She’s rich beyond imagination. What else does she want?. She’s not nominated for Emmy awards. She was nominated for a Golden Globe in 2007. Since then she’s become a favorite of the sketchy People’s Choice Awards. If “Grey’s” is cancelled, I guarantee you she’ll be spearheading a reunion series on Netflix within three years.

Vernoff and Rhimes were smart to put Meredith in a COVID coma this season. That’s allowed all the other characters to get on with their business. On daytime soaps producers minimize a character so the audience is used to them not being on screen before they exit. Seems like Pompeo is headed in that direction.

This is just outrageously smart and funny. On Jimmy Kimmel, it seems like Sacha Baron Cohen might be selling vaccines to celebrities. His strung out wife, Isla Fisher, appears to be drinking the vaccines 25 at a time. And, of course, the Hollywood Foreign Press is involved.

Highlights include a call from Kanye West. Cohen says: “I can get you Johnson and Johnson. No, not Dakota and Don.”

Also: “Trust me, no one from the Hollywood Foreign Press is getting COVID any time soon.”

And Tom Cruise calls in: “I thought the Thetans were immune.”

Brilliant.

HBO’s “Allen v. Farrow” dropped again in its third week.

The disingenuous, one sided screed against Woody Allen drew 321,000 viewers Sunday at 9pm. Of those people, 40,000 were in the key demo.

That was down from 333,000 the second week, and 50,000 in the key demo.

There’s been a decline in interest every week since the series, made by Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering, began three weeks ago. This week’s episode should show even fewer viewers as it has no revelations or invented facts to present. The fourth episode is just Ronan Farrow crabbing about Woody Allen’s former publicist, and others kvetching about nothing.

Indeed, Dick and Ziering have run out of steam. Since they refused to make a balanced film, or entertain any other ideas, or explore Mia Farrow’s crazy, suicidal, criminal family, they have nothing left to say.

HBO is taking a bath with this series. Just a few months ago, they had Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant pulling a million viewers in for “The Undoing.” Now they’ve squandered this valuable real estate on junk.

The real meanness here is what should be discussed: how Mia Farrow turned Dylan into a professional victim for the rest of her life, how Mia hates Soon Yi enough to try and destroy her as well as Woody, and their college age daughters. Mia has no love for any of these people. She’s just wallowed in spite for almost 30 years.

And before HBO tries to get Polk Awards or whatever for this series, they may want to explain to all those blue ribbon panels how they left out of the discussion Ronan Farrow’s deal with them to make documentaries. No transparency.