‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Season 18 Episode 3: The Heat Is On for Addison (RECAP)
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Is it warm in here, or is just the heatwave hitting Seattle in Grey’s Anatomy’s October 14 episode—Season 18, Episode 3, a.k.a. “Hotter Than Hell”? Or maybe we’re just hot and bothered because Addison Forbes Montgomery is finally back?
[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Grey’s Anatomy Season 18, Episode 3, “Hotter Than Hell.”]
Yep, the famed neonatal surgeon is back at Grey Sloan, with Kate Walsh making her first Grey’sappearance in nearly a decade. And the residents know Addison by reputation but also by her place in the hospital lore, though they can’t quite remember the years-old drama between her and Meredith (Ellen Pompeo). (“I heard there were sex parties,” says one of the residents.)
Addison is back as part of the ongoing effort to get the residents up to speed—“You must be the group that’s been screwing up the program,” she tells them—and she’s bringing a helluva medical case with her. She’s conducting the hospital’s first-ever surgical uterine transplant, helping a patient named Tovah have the baby she and her late husband always dreamed of having.
After Schmitt (Jake Borelli) passes her neonatal pop quiz, Addison picks him to scrub in with her and Richard (James Pickens Jr.). But the trio soon hit a roadblock: The hospital’s overloaded HVAC system conks out, and it takes out the filtration system with it. So the surgeons have to rush through the rest of the operation, and they need an extra pair of hands who can do a microvascular anaestomosis in record time. “Get me Meredith Grey,” Addison says.
Mer shows up, and the team finishes the operation successfully and scrubs out. But what should be a victory lap turns mournful: Addison breaks down in the elevator, saying thought she’d feel more of Derek’s presence at the hospital. (Addison was Derek’s first wife, in case you missed the first few seasons.) Mer reminds her that Derek lives on through his children, and she invites Addison over to meet them that night at her place. Addison tearfully accepts. (As Meredith and Addison emerge from the elevator, the gossip-hungry residents spy on them. “Grey made her cry, and I’m here for it,” Helm [Jaicy Elliot] says.)
Meanwhile, Winston (Anthony Hill) is still helping his patient Rashida get a kidney transplant. (If you recall, he snuck her onto the transplant list in last week’s episode.) Partly because the A/C outage bumped Rashida off the OR schedule, and partly because the operation is off the books, Winston and Owen (Kevin McKidd) operate on Rashida in the Physician Response Team rig that Ben (Jason George) brings from Station 19. Even in that unconventional “annex,” the operation seems to go off without a hitch.
(Speaking of Owen, he spends the episode trying to get in touch with Noah, his patient from last week’s episode. He wants Noah’s help getting the VA to cover other veterans who are suffering maladies from exposure to burn pits. Finally, when Owen shows up at Noah’s house and gives a rallying speech through Noah’s closed front door, Noah agrees to share his story to help others.)
Eric McCandless/ABC
The other patient of the week is Lily, a teen who perforated her rectum when she fell off a jet ski and had a jet of water go up her “undercarriage,” as Bailey (Chandra Wilson) explains. Lily’s operation goes well, too, and Hayes (Richard Flood) gets Lily’s friend, Micah, to unlock her phone so that he can call her parents. But Hayes also gives Micah a lecture about how, yes, it’s hard to be a teenager, but it’s also hard to be the parent of a teenager.
Elsewhere in the hospital, Amelia (Caterina Scorsone) has possibly-flirtatious banter with Kai, the Parkinson’s researcher in Minnesota. Oh, and she has a sweet reunion with Addison in the lobby. (Private Practice throwback!)
Link (Chris Carmack), meanwhile, ponders whether he can fix his and Amelia’s relationship. And while she and Link are trying in vain to fix the HVAC, Teddy (Kim Raver) has a brainstorm about her Bailey-appointed role as the hospital’s new Ambassador of Fun. To boost morale and get people cooled off, Teddy invites everyone to a snow-cone party in the morgue. (Her bon mot about the locale? “People are dying to get in here.”)
Eric McCandless/ABC
In the episode’s closing minutes, Mer finally breaks the news about Minnesota to Richard, telling him she’ll be spending half of each week there going forward as part of her Parkinson’s research. He’s been really excited about his ideas for the residency program, so she gives him his old job of Director of the Residency Program back. (She had the position for, what, five minutes?)
And the episode closes with Mer introducing Addison to her kids over ice cream at her place, and them asking Addison if she was a friend of their dad’s. “He called me Addie,” she tells them.
Grey’s Anatomy, Thursdays, 9/8c, ABC
