'Grey's Anatomy': Welcome Back, Addison

Addison's back! And in the first few minutes of her return to Seattle Grace -- alas, only for a visit; she's still tied to "Grey's" spinoff "Private Practice -- she walks into yet another awkward Derek-Meredith moment and gets propositioned by McSteamy. Oh, Addison, you have been missed.

It's quite the contrary when it comes to Izzie. Only recently has this show come back and the instinct is to ship Izzie off to that holistic health place in California in lieu of Addison (sorry, Tim Daly and Taye Diggs). In this episode, she pouts about George getting all buddy-buddy with the other interns, pouts her way into an invitation to go with the interns (who all rightfully cringe in horror at the thought), and is ham-handed with a pregnant patient who is HIV-positive. Then she thinks she has a "Gandhi moment" when she tells said pregnant, HIV-positive patient that she has a 98 percent chance of having a healthy baby. Really, we think the girl could have found that information on the Internet.

Back to relationships. One of the lovely uses of Addison's return is to recap exactly how the writers have managed to implode pretty much all the relationships on the show since Addison blew town. She obviously knew about the nuptial disaster that was Cristina and Burke; now she finds out that Bailey is heartbroken because her husband left, Callie and George are divorced, the Chief's wife has left him -- oh, and that Meredith and Derek have broken up. Which, of course, horrifies Addison, who figures if she can't have Derek back, it must be because Meredith (whom she awkwardly hugs in the beginning) has finally figured out how freakin' lucky she is that Derek hasn't run away screaming yet and is ready to settle down with him. Addison is so horrified, in fact, that when she's performing the delicate surgery that has brought her back to Seattle Grace -- the birth of a baby with its heart growing outside his body -- she starts cracking jokes about Derek's McRebound Girl. While Rose is standing right next to her. Oops. (But is there any better way of showing how McBland Rose is than having her land in an end-of-the-show elevator with Steamy, Dreamy, Mer and Addison?)

While she's in all her full, Addison glory, Kate Walsh also sets off the night's best storyline when she just assumes that giggly BFFs Callie and Hahn are Seattle Grace's newest couple, sending Callie into a total tailspin (Hahn, all the hints are meant to scream, is gay or bi -- and is hot for Callie).

Best dialogue of the night:
Callie to Meredith and Cristina: "Anyone ever think you two are a couple?"
Meredith, without missing a beat: "No, because we [sleep with] boys like whores on tequila."
Cristina: "Then we either try to marry them or drown ourselves."
Callie decides to clear up all her internal personal confusion by doing the obvious -- dirty dancing at the bar with McSteamy, then inviting him to go have some McSex. Stay tuned on this one.

On other fronts, Ava/Rebecca Pope reappears, and immediately pops out the news that she's pregnant. Alex responds by asking her whether she's going to have an abortion, then going all negative on the poor parents-to-be of the baby with the outside heart. There is the requisite "I'm not the father type" grumbling, and general avoidance, right up until the point when Heart Baby's little heart starts to beat inside his carefully reconstructed chest cavity. All we see are Alex's eyes over his surgical mask, but they get all misty and we're supposed to believe the Grinch just had that moment when his heart grows three sizes. All of which would be distressing if not for the lovely twist thrown in at the end: Ms. Ava/Rebecca isn't really pregnant at all! Instead, she's a manipulative nutball! (Or truly deluded. But let's hope for the former).

Little to report on the Meredith-Derek-Rose triangle. Rose is pretty much nothing but a foil for Addison this week, and Mer/Der launch their new clinical trial and try, but fail, to save the guy with the tumor who tangoed with the bear last week. But just in case anyone misses Addison's main point (and, really, the only one dense enought to miss it is Meredith), she gets in one last salvo before the show ends, getting into Meredith's face at the bar and letting her know just how stupid she is if she lets Derek get away. Again.

-- JENNIFER FREY

Jennifer Frey  |  May 2, 2008; 1:43 PM ET Grey's Anatomy
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