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Addison was like the human version of that tumor for Seattle Grace, playing the role of person who comes in from the outside and sets everyone straight, seeing what they cannot about their own lives. She called the Hahn-Callie lesbian vibe out right away. ''Callie,'' she said, ''are you speaking the vagina monologues now?'' (Callie's priceless rejoinder: ''I like penis. I'm a huge, huge fan of penis.'') Addison also expressed shock and outrage that Meredith and Derek broke up. ''Derek, I hugged her,'' she snapped. ''I hugged her, and you're not even together with her anymore?''

The heart baby, meanwhile, taught us all some valuable lessons about — come on, you can guess it! That's right, love. ''Our son is one of a kind,'' his super sweet and sensitive father said, ''wearing his heart on his sleeve.'' (Does this guy write the voice-over scripts?) Of course, this was mostly to set up a deep contrast with Alex, who showed up on the case just in time to be the major jackass he seems to have become. (I know he always had some attitude problems, but he's really been out of control lately.) ''They want to talk about loving each other as if that prepares them for having a baby,'' he said of the super-sweet sensitive couple, right in front of them. Bailey admonished him: ''Right now you're feeling all your feelings out in the open. I need you to stuff them back in.'' Which was ironic, of course, because he really was stuffing his feelings in. The ones that really mattered.

Cristina, too, was trying to learn more about feelings. ''I want to talk,'' she announced at the lunch table. ''I have 15 minutes to hear about your feelings.'' Alex mumbled something about Ava/whatever-her-name-is being married. ''Does that hurt, that she's married?'' Cristina asked. ''Does that hurt your heart?'' Callie popped in to ask Cristina and Meredith if anyone ever thinks they're a couple. ''No,'' Meredith answered. ''Because we screw boys like whores on tequila.'' And thus I officially declared my Grey's Anatomy was on its game again. I was even digging the lesbian story line a little now, and I hate late-onset lesbianism as a plot device. I'm sure we'll get to talk more about that in the coming weeks. Yay.

I even liked the night's third and final pregnancy story line, the HIV-positive chick who was pregnant. I liked the idea of a cranky, not-particularly-inspiring HIV-positive patient. I mean, I'd be a little surly too. I liked that we learned interesting facts about HIV without it seeming preachy; I had no idea that HIV moms are 98 percent likely to have perfectly healthy babies if they're on meds. I also liked that Izzie finally hit a genuine character-change moment, out of annoyingness and into taking charge: She marched in and used her authority to persuade the patient not to abort the baby, and she whipped her whiny interns back into shape. Nicely done.

NEXT: An elevator classic


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