Review: Bad Monkey, "Nobody Said He Was Alvin Einstein" | Season 1, Episode 3

Like many producers, Bill Lawrence likes to keep his collaborators in the family. Sometimes that means his literal family—Charlotte Lawrence, who plays Caitlin on Bad Monkey, is his daughter with his wife, Scrubs and Shrinking actress Christa Miller—and sometimes that means previous collaborators like Zach Braff, who guest stars in Bad Monkey Episode 3 as crooked surgeon Dr. Israel “Izzy” O’Peele in an ironic callback to his signature role as Dr. John “J.D.” Dorian on Scrubs. O’Peele is the anti-J.D. On Lawrence’s well-regarded medical dramedy series, Braff’s character is a goofy but compassionate and competent doctor. Izzy O’Peele is none of those things. He’s a sad man whose substance problems and Medicare scams have gotten him in trouble with the Florida Board of Medicine. He helped Nick Stripling fake his own death by surgically removing his arm, which ultimately leads to Nick shooting O’Peele in the back of the head to keep the corrupt doctor from unburdening his conscience to Andrew Yancy. 

It’s a clever way to use present-day Zach Braff, whose most prominent on-screen role of late is starring in T-Mobile commercials with Donald Faison that traffic in Scrubs nostalgia. It’s impossible to not imagine O’Peele as J.D. fallen on hard times. His career didn’t turn out how he expected after he made Garden State—er, left Sacred Heart Hospital. Braff can joke about it because he’s doing OK overall; he’s directed episodes of Ted Lasso and Shrinking and wrote, directed, and produced a movie in 2023 called A Good Person. He seems like a good candidate for a resurgence to me; after making career-juicing shows with other softboy comedy stars of the 2000s Jason Sudeikis and Jason Segel, wouldn’t it make sense for Bill Lawrence to do the same with Zach Braff? If anyone at Warner Bros. or Apple TV+ would like to offer me a job as a development exec, please reply to this email. But I digress. The point is, the thing that seems to be most important to Bill Lawrence is that Bad Monkey is fun, and it was fun to see Zach Braff—and based on episodic photos Apple TV+ has released, this won’t be the last we’ll see of him.