Grey's Anatomy recap: 'You Can Look (But You'd Better Not Touch)'

ABC/Byron Cohen

If you've been counting down to the return of TGIT in hopes you'd learn whether or not Alex heard that epic monologue of a voicemail message from Meredith and if he took a plea deal that would send him to prison, you'll have to wait a little bit longer. We got no answers on that front during tonight's midseason premiere—and I'd feel saltier about the delay in resolution if we weren't treated to this thoughtful bottle episode instead.

Arizona, Bailey, and Wilson step outside the walls of Grey Sloan for a very unique kind of house call: Their patient is Kristen, a pregnant 16-year-old whose ultrasound showed signs of TRAP syndrome, a diagnosis they're on their way to confirm and then treat. The big twist, though, is this teen is in a prison hospital ward. On the drive over there, Bailey asks Jo if she's okay and she deflects, saying whatever happens at the trial tomorrow happens and she can't do anything about it.

Kristen's attorney meets them at the prison and introduces the trio to Kristen's no-nonsense doctor, Dr. Eldridge, who lays down some ground rules—the girl can't initiate physical contact; they should only update the doctor on her condition because bad news would set her off; and if she goes into labor, she gets 24 hours with the baby, max.

The warnings on her hospital room door label Kristen as violent and unpredictable, and she attacks Dr. Eldridge as soon as they're inside the room—which does nothing to ease Bailey's uneasiness about making this trip in the first place. As the girl's cuffed to the bed by her hands and feet, Bailey bolts under the pretense of "helping" Eldridge, who sees right through her. "You spook easy," she tells her. Bailey offers to set her broken finger, but the woman tells her not to waste the splint, DOES IT HERSELF (ouch), and tells her to get back to her patient.

Back in the room, Kristen is having none of Arizona's cheerfulness and startles when she touches her belly without warning her first. ("No sudden moves," a guard watching from the corner warns.) The ultrasound confirms an acardiac twin—a mass that is forcing the baby's heart to work twice as hard. Kristen was under the impression they'd be delivering the baby today and gets super upset when she learns they're just doing a procedure to separate the healthy baby from the mass in utero—her mom would get to come if she was in labor, and it's clear she'd been hoping for that. The goal, the attorney reminds her, is to have a healthy baby so her mom can adopt her and bring the baby when she visits.

Jo tries to reassure Kristen by talking about her own troubled past before she turned her life around and became a doctor, but the girl says she's not someone from the wrong side of the tracks, like they might have been expecting: she had a perfect, privileged upbringing, with an all-girls prep school and a big bedroom with her own TV. And now her baby, whom she wants to name Ellie, will get all that. As that happens, Arizona is called out to talk with Kristen's mother, who is downstairs in a waiting room—and doesn't want her daughter to know she's there. Her plan is to adopt the baby once she's born and never bring her back to visit. That news would crush Kristen, and the doctors debate whether or not to tell her.

NEXT: Bailey has a confession

The procedure is a success, but Kristen gets upset when she senses Arizona is keeping a secret, and next thing you know, her water breaks and she's in labor, asking for her mom during a stressful/scary life moment like any kid would. But despite Arizona's pleading, the mom won't budge—she warns Arizona to keep an eye on her own daughter, because Kristen was perfect but has become someone she thinks her future granddaughter would be better off not ever knowing.

Kristen keeps questioning where her attorney is and why they're keeping her mother from her, pleading with Jo to tell her what's happening and getting increasingly distraught. Wilson finally levels with her: Her mother is here, but won't see her. Through contractions, she asks for answers—calling them liars, refusing to believe it's true, and finally just crying that she wants her mom. It's Bailey who goes straight into mom mode and grabs her (still handcuffed) hand and won't let go, getting her through the final pushes that bring her baby girl into the world.

After initially not wanting to hold her daughter, Kristen gives Ellie a tearful hello and goodbye all in one. She tells her to be good, not like her, and that she loves her. ("I'm your mama. Remember me, okay?") She lets them take her away, and Jo consoles her with stories of how her baby will grow up in that big room, doing cartwheels on the beach, and will miss her every day. Kristen's mother, meanwhile, plans to call the baby Hannah—which Arizona can't bring herself to say as she answers the mother's final questions down in that waiting room. And then she asks one of her own: If this little girl turns out bad, will she leave her too?

Outside Kristen's room, the doctors ask what happens to Kristen now, and Eldridge says she'll recover for a few days before going back to the regular prison population for the rest of her sentence, which is 20 years to life. Do they want to know what she did, she asks? Bailey doesn't, and we don't find out either.

It ends as they drive back in what looks like the early hours of the morning. Bailey turns to Jo and admits she was wrong about Kristen, that sometimes stuff just does happen to people, and they don't bring it on themselves. She then tells Jo that Karev went to see her last night, and she tells her about his plan to take the plea deal and go to prison. Jo makes them pull over so she can be sick, then gets back in and says to keep driving.

With these three now en route back to Seattle and Grey Sloan after this self-contained story, we'll hopefully pick back up with what happens to Alex. But just what will that be? Did Alex get Mer's voicemail in time? Did he take the plea deal?

Hopefully we'll know more next week. In the meantime, I'm gonna go hug my mom.