Last night’s episode of Grey’s Anatomy was called “Forever Young,” and the overall message was that despite being successful surgeons, all of the main doctors at Seattle Grace aren’t that far removed from the awkward teenagers that they were in high school.

The main incident of the night was a bus crash that brought numerous high school victims to the hospital. Each one conveniently fit a clique and conveniently paralleled what our favorite docs are currently going through.

Bailey: The chaperone on the school bus happened to be an old high school friend of Bailey’s named Marcus. He recognized “Mandy” as soon as he was wheeled into the ER, so she dropped everything to take over his case. They spend a lot of time reminiscing about the old days, and from their conversation we gather that Bailey was a total brainiac in high school, but didn’t have much of a social life. She tutored Marcus, who was the good-looking track star that all the girls wanted to get with.

As is usually the case with these situations, Bailey had a crush on Marcus, but he never once thought about asking her out. That’s just not how boys looked at her back then. Instead, Marcus used his charm to get Miranda to do his homework, taking her for granted once he was in the clear.

It turns out that Marcus hasn’t changed at all, as he gets Bailey to fill out his patient forms even though she’s not supposed to handle that sort of thing. Bailey sees that he hasn’t changed at all, which causes her to break down/lash out at Shepherd, who just happened to be around to listen. Shepherd reveals that he was a band geek in high school too, so the two of them bond over that moment.

Sloan/Callie: These two treat the cheerleading captain for several broken bones and a severe face laceration. The cheerleader was another stereotype, the kind of girl who would do anything to maintain her position on the team even though she doesn’t really like the other girls or all the backstabbing involved with being in that clique.

Sloan, a football player in high school, understands where the girl is coming from, saying that it’s part of her identity and she wouldn’t know who she was without the team. Callie, of course, thinks the girl is way off base. She tells the girl that things usually have a way of working out no matter what, so don’t stress over it too much.

Derek/Izzie: They treated the most stomach-turning patient of the night, the kid with a pencil stuck through his eyeball. The pencil hit some part of his brain, which meant Derek had to go in and do some surgery. This didn’t go as smoothly as he could have hoped, and the patient ended up with a burst artery that put him in a long-term coma. Derek then had to break the horrible news to the kid’s best friend, who, since they were both outsiders, would have no one else to lean on for her remaining school years (and beyond).

Lexie/Meredith: Thatcher shows up in the ER, drunk and belligerent after putting his hand through a window. Lexie blows off Alex when he tries to tell her that her father is there, so Karev gets Meredith instead. Thatcher is actually nice and charming around Meredith this time, making her all but forgive him for what happened in their last meeting (when he slapped her and banned her from Susan’s funeral).

Later, Meredith tells Lexie that Thatcher was upset because it was Susan’s birthday and she (Lexie) should do a better job of monitoring him. Lexie goes ballistic, saying that Susan’s birthday is in March, that Thatcher is drunk every day, and that she deals with his crap all the time.

Cristina/Hahn: Cristina is back on Hahn’s rotation, but spends too much time kissing her ass. Hahn is not receptive to this, so Callie advises Cristina to back off. She does, and at the end, actually gets something to do.

George/Izzie: Rumors that these two aren’t even speaking anymore are flying around the hospital. They have a heart to heart and decide that they were probably better off as friends. They both want things to go back to the way they were.

My Reaction: I know this was pretty much Grey’s Anatomy Lite, but I still liked it better than many of the other episodes that have aired this season. I didn’t think it was necessary for the writers to be so heavy-handed with the patient parallels this week, but the overall theme — that SGH is more like a high school than a professional environment — was spot on. The place is totally clique-y and has been since the show started. I liked that it was just dealt with openly this week.

How gross was that patient with the pencil in his eye? I don’t watch previews or promos, so I had no idea that was coming. I had to turn away as soon as the Dixie cup was removed, and couldn’t look directly at the screen anytime the kid was on. Plus, there was another gross-out moment during his surgery when they showed his brain swelling through the hole in his skull. How nasty!!

I read some negative fan reaction about Bailey’s meltdown scene with Derek. Basically, people were saying that there’s no way that she would act like that over a high school crush. But I’ve seen this happen with people in real life, and know that it’s perfectly plausible, maybe even common. Some people were hurt so much by what happened in high school that they have trouble getting past it, no matter how successful they become later on.

I’m glad the relationship crap was kept to a minimum this week. I think that’s why I liked the episode so much. There was very little Mer-Der angst, only a bit of Izzie/George, and just a smattering of Alex/Lexie. The perfect combination, I guess!