Here Are All the Easter Eggs in ‘Grey’s Anatomy’s 300th Episode

Grey’s Anatomy celebrated a major milestone in a big way on Thursday. Fans knew that the show’s 300th episode would bring back three beloved characters (at least in spirit) — but the entire episode was laced with Easter eggs for the seasoned Grey’s viewer.

During the episode that paid homage to the 299 that came before it, an accident at a county fair brought in a variety of patients who spark memories from the doctors’ pasts, including original Fab Five look-a-likes Cristina (Sandra Oh), George (T.R. Knight), and Izzie (Katherine Heigl).

Read on to discover all the fun throwbacks and significant moments from Grey’s Anatomy‘s 300th episode.

Grey’s Anatomy 300th episode Easter eggs

The 300th episode opened with a version of “Young Folks,” a song first heard in the sixth episode of the third season.

Meredith is riding a ferry boat, which longtime fans know her late husband loved.

The new class of interns is seen camped out in the tunnel that the Fab Five previously called home, with “Glasses” even tripping like George did in the pilot when they get a page. They subsequently run across the catwalk, where Meredith and Alex are telling them to slow down — something they were once told to do back in the pilot.

Two of the roller coaster accident patients look like George and Cristina, with a third looking like Izzie, who exclaims “seriously,” a common word used in the early seasons. The three are actually second-year residents at Seattle Presbyterian.

The paramedics who bring in the roller coaster crash patients, Nicole and Ray, have both appeared in many episodes of the show.

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The opening scene ended with the show’s original theme song, “Cosy in the Rocket,” by Psapp.

Amelia pushes for a head CT on a patient. Her brother Derek ultimately died because his doctors didn’t do a head CT. When Owen declines to do it, Amelia pushes for it to happen during the surgery and ends up being right.

During the episode “Into You Like a Train,” the patients were stuck together via a pole and the doctors could not remove one without risking injury to the other, much like these George and Cristina look-a-likes.

Jo says “seriously” while Alex is showing her the Izzie look-a-like.

The episode utilizes another old song, “They,” by Jem.

The George look-a-like is shocked to discover that George died a hero. For those who forgot, George was actually hit by a bus while saving a woman just after he enlisted in the Army, 

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The Izzie look-a-like asks Alex to stay by her side, which is eerily similar to how close he got to Rebecca following the ferry crash. (When “Izzie” passed out, Alex carried her like he did after Denny died.)

The Cristina look-a-like calls Meredith and Jackson surgeon royalty, which is what her fellow interns said of Meredith’s mom in the pilot.

When one of the interns mentions to Dr. Shepherd that the patient’s family is there, it’s a line verbatim from the pilot.

Though she’s about to go into surgery, the Izzie look-a-like brings up silver linings and is as positive as ever — something the real Izzie always did.

DeLuca and one of the new interns, with whom he has a past, hook up in an on-call room.

Meredith mentions that Cristina Yang, of all people, would know how badly she would want to win a Harper Avery. Yes, so badly that Cristina left Grey Sloan in order to win one.

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When asked about Sofia’s father, Arizona mentions he’s dead (fans will remember that Mark Sloan died following the plane crash) and then does a spot-on impression of him.

When Maggie says Zola must get her intelligence from her mother, Zola says it comes from her dad, too, whom she misses.

During the big round robin of surgical scenes, Ingrid Michaelson’s “Keep Breathing,” another classic song, is playing.

While working on the George look-a-like, Webber mentions it will be nice to save this O’Malley — George died just after the doctors discovered they were working on their fellow doctor.

Even though Alex hasn’t spoken to Izzie in years, he’s imagined that she’s married with kids, living somewhere woodsy, her house smells like muffins, and that she’s happy. He doesn’t want to call her, because he doesn’t want that vision to be shattered.

Because Meredith didn’t make it to the Harper Avery Awards, Webber and Bailey set up a video feed so Meredith could find out she won. As she’s watching the feed, she looks up to see her late mother — the returning Kate Burton as Ellis Grey — in the OR gallery. In addition to mentioning Ellis during his speech, Jackson also brings up the losses of Meredith’s sister, Lexie (Chyler Leigh), and Meredith’s husband, Derek.

Upon returning home, Sofia mentions missing her mom, Callie (Sara Ramirez). Arizona gives her three different flavors of ice cream, something Mark had previously mentioned. And then the camera shows a photo of Callie, Arizona and Mark on the wall.

One of the final songs is Rilo Kiley’s “Portions for Foxes,” which is the first song played in the pilot.

Alex and Meredith return to the tunnel, where Meredith gets a call from Cristina.