Scrubs has juggled a handful of different tones across its first season; heartfelt character study, slapstick comedy, homage to classic sitcom, existential medical drama… to some degree, all of these genres are part of the show’s complex DNA, which explains why it takes such a confluence of factors for an individual episode of Scrubs to feel truly aligned and harmonious. By harnessing all of those different, sometimes competing elements, and funneling them through the show’s other burgeoning talent (utilizing guest stars, as recently seen with Scott Foley in “My Sacrificial Clam”), “My Occurrence” is the finest distillation of Scrubs‘s storytelling ambitions so far in its young run, anchoring its emotional final reveal to a risky plot trick and an unconventional, though incredibly endearing, guest performance from Brendan Fraser as Jordan’s brother Ben.
Scrubs‘s long run of high-profile guest stars was still in its infancy when Fraser first appears in “My Occurrence”, as an ER patient whose nail gun usage put him under the care of his former brother-in-law at Sacred Heart. It’s impressive how quickly he’s woven right into the fabric of Scrubs, picking on J.D. while teasing Cox about his divorce from Jordan, his quirky disposition (he spends the episode taking candid photos of everyone around the hospital) sliding naturally into the dynamics of the main ensemble. It’s a tough trick to pull off, but by using him to disarm Cox, it opens the episode up for the emotional turn it takes in the middle of the episode, when J.D. and Cox realize Ben’s hand hasn’t stopped bleeding, and might be a sign of something much more serious.
All the while, “My Occurrence” tries to keep Turk and Elliot busy in parallel plots, both of which see their patients, one of whom is Nicole Sullivan’s Jill, returning after her first appearance in “My Nickname”, affected by simple administrative screw ups. Though both of these stories – which see Turk nearly remove the testicle of the wrong patient, and Elliot accidentally push Jill to confess to her fiancé she’s been cheating on him – are a bit undercooked and mostly abandoned halfway through the episode, they still work well to provide the thematic backdrop for J.D. and Cox’s story, putting the two doctors in a place where there was no saving grace for their patient, no accidental administrative mix-up causing someone to nearly lost a body part (or in the case of Jill, to lose her new fiancé with a single awkward phone call), no magic cure for the enduring pain of telling someone close to you they have leukemia.
There’s no denying Scrubs sticks the landing with the end of “My Occurrence”, with the three reactions – Ben, Cox, and J.D.’s – to the results of Ben’s blood tests providing a rather devastating final image before we cut to a “to be continued” card. However, how Scrubs gets to that moment, by putting J.D. into a dream sequence for half the episode where he fights to get Ben’s tests run again to get the ‘right’ results, is a lot more debatable in its effectiveness. While the moment ultimately works, it is certainly not due to the strange construction of the moment: while I appreciate Scrubs trying to make its mark as an ambitious comedy not willing to settle for the same rhythms and structures of its contemporaries, the vehicle it uses to try and shock the audience into an emotional response feels a bit unnecessary and showboat-y, a series gaining confidence and getting a tiny bit too high on its own supply in the process.
By invalidating half the episode, and only revealing it at the very end, Scrubs never gets to contend or sit in its uncomfortable reveal, and it undercuts the empathy Scrubs wants us to feel for its two doctors. This dream sequence is strictly about J.D.’s perspective and inability to deal with the darker side of his chosen profession (in what’s becoming a louder and louder theme as the season winds down), basically rendering Turk and Elliot’s entire presence through most of the episode completely superfluous once “My Occurrence” reveals their activities have just been a complex part of the simulation playing out in J.D.’s brain. Again, it’s an odd choice, one that feels ingenious in the moment, but begins to crumble apart a bit if you really start to pick at it and question it.
Regardless, Scrubs‘s first attempt at a two-parter ends in an intriguing place, setting up Cox and J.D. to face a problem that neither of them can wash away with a conventional resolution, either medically or narratively, presenting them with the most unique shared opportunity for storytelling they’ve had since Jordan’s appearance in “My Bad”. It just comes in the form of a twist that is undeniably effective, but feels a bit show-y and melodramatic in ways that undercut its emotional potency just enough to be noticeable. It’s not a major complaint, but the creative choice in the final thirty seconds certainly helps shape and contextualize 21 and a half minutes preceding it; at worst, it is a young series stretching its creative legs a bit and feeling confident, which is certainly not the worst thing to see as it heads into the final two episodes of its freshman season.
Other thoughts/observations:
- Only two episodes left in the Scrubs Second Look! After those finish out, we’ll rank the season one episodes, finish out the rest of season ten, and then bid Scrubs adieu for now. If you’ve enjoyed the reviews and want to see coverage of season 11 (or a season two Second Look), let me know in the comments below.
- “Oh dear god, she’s getting woozy. Quick, show her the bloody side!”
- I really wish we got some more time with Jill in this episode, especially knowing that her story does not survive the post-“to be continued” leap into “My Hero”.
- Todd eating a banana; never not funny.
- Kelso: “too much haha, pretty soon boohoo.”
- Carla propositioning J.D. (falsely) to make a point is… an incredibly weird way to do it? Though I guess understanding this is J.D.’s subconscious talking to him, this vehicle is not entirely unrealistic.
- Dr. Fred… Bob?
- Elliot’s cry scene is a great one – again, another reason why the reveal all of this didn’t happen is so frustrating and shortsighted!
- High Five Count: Todd stands strong at 13 high fives of 15 total this season.
- Up next: Scrubs focuses its attention on Ben once again in “My Hero”.