Now in its third season,  Private Practice kicked off with its premiere last night.  The show starts just a few hours after last year’s cliffhanger left off.  A psychotic patient of the practice believes in some demented way that the child Violet is carrying is her own. This woman then comes to Violet’s home and drugs her making her semiconscious and proceeds to cut open her stomach and take her baby.

Violet is found near death and is rushed to the hospital in an attempt to save her life. Addison is the only doctor with the surgical talent who might can save her as she rushes to stop the internal bleeding caused by the psychotic woman’s brutal attack.

Every minute that passes means that it is getting harder and harder to save Violets life, then at a critical juncture in the surgery the psychotic woman actually has one of the other doctor’s called in so that he can take a look at her new born child, which is in reality Violet’s baby.

After the psychotic woman is taken into custody and the child is recovered it is soon discovered that the baby’s life is in jeopardy because as the woman was removing him from Violets’ stomach she damaged his internal organs. Addison is forced to run back and forth between to surgical rooms in an attempt to save them both.

This was a very intense episode of Private Practice. There was a gauntlet of emotions running throughout this episode with people blaming themselves over Violet’s tragedy. There was plenty of near misses and just in time sequences that will keep you tense on your couch. As far as opening the new season with a bang this episode of Private Practice accomplished that and then some.

Here’s the sneak peek at next week’s episode: