'Grey's Anatomy' recap: Heart Murmurs

''Grey's Anatomy'' recap: Addison's back!

Okay, kids, our show is back — for real this week. And I'm going to go ahead and pretend it's not just because Addison made a cameo on last night's episode — the writing and the regular cast deserve a lot of the credit. But I'll also say that this ensemble has always run on its very complicated chemistry, and any time a key component is subtracted (this went for Burke as well), it takes some readjusting to keep things running smoothly. So it might not be a total coincidence that a little injection of Kate Walsh magically pushed everything back into place. Too bad she has to head back to the kiddie pool of Private Practice.

That said, the banter, the humor, the awkwardness, the sexual tension — those key ingredients were all cooking tonight as well, and that's what I missed last week. When we focus on just the cheesy medical cases on Grey's Anatomy, we notice how over-the-top they are. When we get all the other stuff, too, the surgeries add just the right hint of heart. In this case, they literally added heart, as the headline case of the night was a baby whose heart was growing outside its body while it was still in utero — a surgery that, of course, only Addison Montgomery could perform. It also required a lot of team effort, always a bonus. Even Sloan got to participate by growing a flap of skin from the baby's stem cells. (Nice use of cutting-edge technique, Seattle Grace!) ''Now I grow skin for babies, like God,'' he bragged to Addy before trying (unsuccessfully) to get in her pants. Somebody get this guy a real story line, stat.

Izzie was desperately in search of a story line herself, marching around with a bunch of cranky, hungover interns following her. And Alex got more story line than he bargained for when Ava/Rebecca/Former Amnesia Chick showed up yet again to announce to him that she was pregnant with his child. ''Are you keeping it, or are you having an abortion?'' he barked. ''I have a really big case.'' This was even less sensitive than that tumor guy (the one from last week, back for possible miracle surgery) whose condition made him blurt out whatever was on his mind. The idea was that he'd be getting an operation that involved injecting a live virus into his tumor — and also, incidentally, required Meredith and Derek to work verrrry closely together. He also wouldn't shut up about how he wanted to fix his wife up with a new guy before he kicked it, which apparently she found off-putting. ''What do you think, Dr. Grey?'' he said. ''Do you think Dr. Shepherd is attractive enough for my wife?'' ''It's just the tumor talking,'' the wife kept saying. Then later, she complained to Meredith that her last memory of him could be ''him calling me a hot piece of ass.'' I don't mean to judge the suffering almost-widow here, but since she's fictional, I'll just say that if I were her, I would be unspeakably sad at the thought of my husband saying his last words, but I wouldn't be so bummed if he used them to say I was a hot piece of ass. I can think of worse.

NEXT: Callie's lesbian panic

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