Grey's Anatomy: Forever Young

(S04E08) "You want me to fake a heart attack? I do a great fake heart attack." - Sloan

Oh my god, me writing this is like totally like a term paper! Hellooo stereotypes and clichés! Who thought of this idea? Let's compare the show to high school? Cliques, cheerleaders, nerds, best friends, secrets, sex, and jocks. Weren't these types of comparisons blatantly obvious without all the teeny-boppers running around? The only thing that was missing was a prom... wait, that already happened. It got to the point where I was yelling at the TV, "Ooh ooh, this is gonna be a principal's office joke!" And it was. However, if you can look past the high school level writing that went into this episode, it was actually pretty good.

There was a lot of great stuff, despite the fact that most of it was tainted with some sort of terrible teenage metaphor. Blame the school bus that crashed near Seattle Grace for that one. The injured kids and their teachers came pouring in and characters like Bailey (who had just started to get her Nazi on again) were reduced to what Hahn called "blithering idiots." 24's D.B. Woodside guested as a former high school jock who Bailey used to tutor. She was head over heels for him back then and he took advantage of her to get all his homework done. It was crazy to see how well he still manipulated Bailey all those years later -- she was still smitten.

Talk about a 180° for her. However, her delusions of love almost killed him and part of me wished he had croaked. He was an ass, asking her to fill out all those medical forms after they cut his heart open. I could have done without her "he'll never notice me for who I am" rant at the end of the episode, but finding out that her and Shepherd were both band geeks made it all worth it.

After last week's developments with Izzie taking all of Cristina's time with Hahn, I was really hoping that we'd see some tension between those two. None at all. Izzie wasn't even on Hahn's service thanks to Bailey, and Cristina actually took some advice from Callie to stop brown-nosing and being so damn annoying. That situation diffused kind of quickly. I really wanted to see those two fight at least once.

Speaking of diffusing quickly, iGeorge has continued its downward spiral. George and Izzie can't even talk to each other and the entire hospital is grumbling about how they're already over. Even though it was only partly true, rumors can do damage. That's another cliché... in case you're counting. As I said last week, even though I hate the two of them together, I'm glad the relationship is being killed properly by the writers rather than forgetting about it and acting like it never happened. They're making the effort to just be friends again and I can support that.

On the flip side, adding to the things I don't like, is the continued blossoming of Alexie. Sure they fought a little in this episode, but the whole "we both have drunk fathers" angle is definitely adding to the connection. Alex really wasn't in the episode much, and neither was Lexie. Until the end. Thatcher's drunken return finally gave Lexie an upper hand over Meredith; something we haven't seen all season. Meredith fell for all of Thatcher's drunken BS -- the pride, the I miss yous, the regret. Then Lexie came and smashed it all for Meredith. He says the same things to her every day when he gets wrecked. It was definitely one of the best scenes of the season, seeing Meredith just get defeated like that. Very satisfying for some reason. (Random observation: Thatcher did a lot of apologizing to Meredith, but notice how "the slap" was never brought up? I would have thought that would be near the top of the list, drunk or sober.)

Because I like to make bulleted lists...

• Sydney rejecting Derek is hilarious. The most undesirable people always seem to have the highest expectations for everyone else. Doesn't make sense to me. ("Is she dying?")
• Speaking of Derek -- finally, someone else for him to sleep with! Stop taking Meredith home and get to know this Nurse Rose! She's clearly interested in him and has a way better sense of humor than Meredith could ever hope for.
• Now that Callie and George have been good n' done for a few episodes, anyone else notice how she's sort of slipped back into her pseudo-supportive role that she had when her character first showed up?
• Sloan is old. Ha! He thought he was such hot shit, and then those high school girls said he looked like a dad. Priceless. He's easier to deal with this season. He isn't as much of an ass now that he's no longer competing for Addison, but I still love to see him get ragged on.

So what did we learn? Nothing really. The social rules we all adhere to in high school carry on through pretty much every aspect of life. Even at a hospital. Personally, I learned that I really don't want a No. 2 pencil jammed into my eye. Oh and a note on next week's episode for those that hung around and caught the preview. It's being billed as an "event." You know what that means -- something's gonna crash.