Review: Scrubs, "My Rom-Com" | Season 10, Episode 3

Hey free subscribers—it may not be the full 20-episode season we'd prefer, but a reminder that my coverage of the return of Scrubs is heading behind the paywall. Yearly subscriptions—who knows, it could come back in the fall!—are still $44 until I get around to reflecting on our anniversary.

As I noted in my review of the two-episode premiere, Scrubs returned with a need to introduce tension: there has to be conflict, otherwise there’s not really a narrative arc for the show’s central characters.

However, Scrubs is still a revival of a sitcom, and there are elements of that show’s identity that this new version needs to be able to tap into in order to connect to its past viewers. J.D. and Elliot’s marriage ending doesn’t keep the show from being funny (its primary goal), and it helps it at being sad (its secondary goal), but it complicates one path the show had to both: the friendship shared between Turk, J.D., Elliot, and Carla. It’s a piece of the puzzle that is already threatened by the simple fact of Judy Reyes’ role on High Potential, and further complicated by the choice to film in Vancouver when High Potential is based in L.A. “My Rom-Com” takes this extratextual narrative and makes it diegetic, exploring how the once-tight couples are navigating socializing when one couple isn’t a couple anymore.

It raises a hypothetical for me: if Reyes wasn’t otherwise employed, would they have ever considered breaking up Turk and Carla instead? My gut says no—whereas a full series of “will they, won’t they” cast a fair amount of doubt on J.D. and Elliot’s future, the show was fully committed to Turk and Carla from the beginning, and even when they created some tension I never felt like they were in jeopardy. Additionally, even if Reyes were around more, the tension between a nurse and a surgeon is different than the usefulness the show has found in J.D. and Elliot’s conflict intersecting with his administrative responsibilities. His authority over her patients becomes a sticking point here, and her personal struggles with her heart failure patient end up creating massive consequences for J.D.’s running of the hospital when she convinces I.T. to shut down all the systems.