Kate Walsh‘s highly anticipated return to Grey’s Anatomy had all the emotional highs and lows fans were expecting.
On the ABC medical drama’s Thursday, Oct. 14 episode, Addison Montgomery was back at Grey Sloan Memorial, marking Kate’s reappearance after leaving as a series regular at the end of season three.
The big reunion with Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) came quickly, with Addison telling Richard (James Pickens Jr.) once the hospital’s air filtration system went out, “Get me Meredith Grey.”
After Addison and Meredith teamed up for a successful transplant surgery, they were in an elevator together when the neonatal surgeon tearfully broke down over her grief from the loss of ex-husband Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey).
“I thought coming back here—to Seattle, to Grey Sloan—that he’d be here, that I would be able to feel that he was still here in the city that he loved, with the people he loved, but he isn’t,” Addison lamented. “And it’s real—he’s not here.”