Review: Scrubs, "My Best Friend's Barbecue" | Season 10, Episode 7

The reality of Scrubs without Carla isn’t new: Judy Reyes was the one holdout for the reimagined ninth season, not willing to appear in a recurring guest capacity. It created a hole in Turk’s life, and in the dynamic between the characters, but the show mostly worked around it by shifting more focus to the new interns and the new college setting.

But the reality of a revival of Scrubs without Carla is a bit different. A revival is inherently invested in exploring how characters have changed in the intervening years, and to have J.D., Elliot, and Turk all navigate those changes without Carla by their side feels wrong. This time around, Carla may not be completely absent, but appearing in less than half the season’s episodes means she’s forced to take a backseat.

It’s a situation that becomes diegetically useful here, insofar as the story hinges on Carla realizing she needs to cut down her workload as she ages. Would this be a better story if we had seen her menopausal symptoms grow more frustrating over the course of a long season, a slow burn as opposed to a hot flash? Yes. But sudden as it may be, it’s a story that feels true to a character who struggled with postpartum depression despite her tough exterior. We know Carla is prideful to a fault, and so having her struggle with the reality of that is a logical choice of a Carla Story in a season that is probably only going to be able to tell one.