'Grey's Anatomy' Star Chris Carmack Is Hopeful His Character Is Alive After Season 21 Cliffhanger: 'Fingers Crossed!'

Chris Carmack, who plays Dr. Atticus "Link" Lincoln on Grey's Anatomy, is hopeful his character makes it out alive after the Season 21 finale aired on May 15.

The explosive episode left viewers with more questions than answers, particularly about Link and if he made it out of Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital alive after it went up in flames.

"Well, I can tell you how I feel about the ending because I thought it was really exciting. I thought it was a fun episode, and I've been on the show for seven seasons now, and I've never been able to be part of those nail biting cliffhangers where you don't know what's going to happen. We've had them happen — just not to my character. Mine is always like, 'Is he going to propose?' or, 'Is she going to say yes?' Mine has always been kind of romantic, but finally, it's like, 'Does he live or die?' I haven't talked to the writers yet, so fingers crossed, but I like to think I'm very popular over there and people like me!" the actor, 44, who has teamed up with McAfee for the Keep It Real moment and McAfee Scam Detector launch, exclusively tells OK!.

When the Nashville alum, who is married to Erin Slaver, got the script, he says everyone "avoided" him at the table read. "Not in a mean way, but it's like, they give you this somber look. You have to grovel and be like, 'Please don't me go!'" he jokes. "Then you look at the writers and producers and try to catch some smiles — are they smiling or scowling?"

The handsome hunk says the episode "took a really fast turn" for Link. "Him and Jo Wilson [played by Camilla Luddington] were sort of a light comic relief, tucked away in a janitor closet making out the whole time — and then it was the last page that made my heart sink. It really hit me at the end there," he admits.

Carmack, who has appeared on other great TV shows, says it's been a "blessing" to be part of such an "institution of television."

"Shonda Rhimes has gone on to create so many iconic shows and to be part of one of the first that she created is amazing. It's had this immense staying power and has existed through multiple generations," the dad-of-two gushes about the medical drama, which first began in 2005. "This came on the air when I was at college, and now one of my kids is just a few years away from watching it. It's astounding. I feel very blessed to be part of something with such an incredible history that has had so many incredible iconic actors make their way through the cast. It's an amazing project to be part of."

When he's not acting, Carmack is found hanging out with his wife and two kids, daughters Kai and Cielle Estee, at home — and if there's a free moment, he loves making TikToks with his wife. "We still collaborate a lot, but we used to be a lot more collaborative in terms of putting together a scripted idea. We used to do a lot more sketches, but it's evolved recently into a lot of pranking," he quips. "My wife takes the lead on that. She'll be like, 'Don't check our Amazon orders, don't pick up the packages!' I know she's always onto something. She's brilliant at finding ways into pranking me that I'm completely unaware of. It's been more of her brainchild than me, but it's fun when we get to collaborate."

Carmack recalls Slaver coming home from the salon with different hair. "I 100 percent believed she chopped her hair off. She had tears coming out of her eyes. I'm discovering she's more of an actress than I ever give her credit for her," he says.

The pair, who got married in 2018, are now on a mission to spread the word about how to avoid scams, especially after he was nearly duped by a convincing phishing scam promising him a verification badge.

"Not only have been a victim of a scam, but we are constantly bombarded by scams in our emails, text messages and phone calls. I think five times a day your phone rings and it says 'Scam Risk.' We are unfortunately very familiar with being on the receiving end. In fact, we lost a lot of money. My wife was involved in a scam on an online retail site, and she bought some pillows for the house, and the person ran off with our money. I almost got baited into the toll booth scam because I had been in Florida a week before that thing hit, and I had no idea what was going on. We've gotten emails from TikTok scams that I've had to corroborate," he shares.

Because of this, The O.C. alum is excited to talk about some tools, including the brand-new McAfee Scam Detector, which helps flag fake emails, dangerous links and suspicious communications before it’s too late. With scams evolving fast, McAfee’s AI-powered protection can be a game-changer for influencers looking to protect their brand and personal data online.

"They're doing a campaign aimed at de-stigmatizing what it means to be the victim of a scam," he explains. "Nothing helps more than sharing our stories, talking about how it's happened to us and trying to attack it from an angle of not only should we not be ashamed of being the victim of a scam, but the more we share, the more we talk about it, the more we make people aware of these things that are happening, the better the chance of it not happening to somebody else. At the same time, making people aware of these tools you can use in real time. McAfee has the Scam Detector, which I'm using on a daily basis now. It's integrated into Android. I take a screenshot of an email or text message, and I run it through the scam detector, and it tells me if it's trustworthy or not. It's a tool I use on a daily basis in order to avoid scams — but also to avoid time and energy that goes into this whole thing."

"It's a hard lesson to learn. Getting scammed once certainly puts your alarms up. The biggest lesson we've learned is don't click on a link that takes you outside of a selling platform," he adds. "These tips are also available through McAfee. They give you tips and tricks of how to avoid scams. Scams can do real damage to people's lives. By talking about it, we can mitigate the emotional damage a little bit."