As the first episode since season one’s “My Best Friend’s Barbecue” to not feature Dr. Cox, “My Ex’s Ex” is a chance to examine Scrubs after its post-Cox tone shift and light retooling for season two, with its increased emphasis on stories that are primarily callbacks for the OG cast… or callbacks of OG cast stories through the new generation. And without Dr. Cox visible for 22 minutes, it forces Scrubs into a place where it has to derive its emotional poignancy from somewhere other than the ailing Cox; and that’s where the revival noticeably continues to struggle, with a pair of regurgitated plot lines for its leads that relegates the more intimate, internal beats of the episode’s other plot – J.D. and Grant guiding Blake to the right fellowship – mostly to the background, reducing the impact of one of the revival’s single strongest moments (across either season) to date.
The big focus, of course, with “My Ex’s Ex” is the return of Sean, who has left SeaWorld (realizing that the orcas were not smiling about being in captivity) and now works at a local aquarium, where J.D. and Charlie find him. Putting aside the whole “what happened to Sean dating J.D.’s baby mama and step-dadding the son that seems to have been retconned out of the series, despite being a major emotional arc of J.D.’s character across multiple seasons” of it all, the return of Scott Foley is a curious one, despite how much fun he’s been as a recurring character throughout the series. His past with Elliot, and J.D., is so incredibly messy, even without the resolution the revival wants us to forget about; so when “My Ex’s Ex” unceremoniously writes off Boring Wes the Pilot over a single text message (seriously – remember when he got an entire subplot?) and Elliot reluctantly agrees to go on a date with Sean, one can immediately see where this story is heading.
And though it tries to throw a brief twist in, with Elliot acting disinterested in romance now that she’s finally decided to embrace some amorphous new phase of her career (which is… medical podcasting? Still not sure what’s going on here), it’s pretty clear Scrubs is not committing to a plot about Elliot’s professional life. At least the return of Sean allows Sarah Chalke to tap back into some of the physical comedy skills the revival’s left mostly dormant; her awkwardness around men returns in full force, leading to a hilarious scene where she nearly knocks herself out in the cafeteria. But as a narrative, it’s pretty weak potatoes, especially when the episode ultimately backs down from its own convictions – which it was obviously going to do, because you don’t put Scott Foley in the season trailer, just to bring him back for a single episode (that would’ve been a bolder move, something this version of Scrubs seems to be actively avoiding).
At the very least, Sean and Elliot’s rekindled romance allows Scrubs to awkwardly put to bed some of the lingering tension around Elliot and J.D.’s divorce (though every time they talk in friendly tones about how difficult it is, it becomes even stranger that the show is unwilling to really dig into what happened so it could revert to its mid-to-late era status quo); Turk and Carla’s plot, which turns them into the exact kind of TV therapy nonsense I’m more than tired of seeing (we’ve been doing therapy plot lines on Bill Lawrence series since Cougar Town at this point, and it gets worse each time), doesn’t even offer that, a plot about Turk learning the phrase “weaponized incompetence” and pulling some bullshit that would’ve been more familiar to OG season two Turk than revival season two Turk. Honestly, it just makes Turk seem miserable in his marriage, and reduces Carla to someone who is a nagging shrew, but is also willing to be completely walked over by her surgeon husband; their dynamic is not an endearing one – and though it fits the narrative of Scrubs Redux to repurpose old plot lines through a 2026 filter (which, in this case, means adding Therapy Speak into the show), it feels like an incredibly dated, soulless plot for two characters who deserve better, for themselves and for each other.
Both of these plots get in the way of the real meat and potatoes of “My Ex’s Ex” – which is not J.D. trying to get his ex-wife to date her and his ex-baby mama’s ex-boyfriend, but is about J.D. teaching Grant a lesson about mentorship, when the latter suggests Blake might not be a good candidate for the career path he’s considering pursuing seriously. This is exactly the kind of plot I expected from this series; a story where J.D. becomes the mentor of Sacred Heart, learning about himself through the eyes of his own interns. And here, it’s pretty wonderfully executed, from Grant’s analytical, dismissive approach to Grant’s potential career paths to the third act realization that while J.D. and Grant might both be wrong about Blake’s desires, they may have guided him directly to the work where his passion and dedication could have a real personal and professional impact – palliative care.
There are two components that work particularly well; J.D. trying to guide Grant into understanding the nature of anticipation and intention in leadership is great, and leads to one of the revival’s best scenes, when Blake sits down with a dying patient and pretends to be her son (who we’ve learned can’t make it from Europe in time to say goodbye), a moment that allows his mother some closure in her last moments – and more importantly, allows Scrubs to trace Blake’s path from the moment Lillian dies to when his own mother died, the moment Blake says defined his desires to get into medicine. I still don’t understand why Scrubs has to be so facetious about Blake’s backstory, but that moment, where Blake’s teary-eyed face softens and he feels a sense of connection with his mother through Lillian, is haunting and beautiful… and everything the other two stories aren’t, which begs the question why it feels like this story is sitting in the passenger seat next to the other, more familiar and repetitive story beats drive the pace of “My Ex’s Ex”.
It speaks again to what I’ve harped on in recent reviews; why is Scrubs so resistant to develop its new generation into anything meaningful? If Scrubs is going to ignore its own canon, but also refuse to invest in its own future, then what is it but some sick, Frankenstein-ed version of itself, that is tethered only to a very specific, crystallized vision of its legacy characters. The Blake plot is a perfect example of the potential Scrubs is blatantly sidelining in order for more empty wish fulfillment in season two’s opening trio of episodes, which have backtracked on anything it teed up in its first season for something that might be more familiar (and more consistently funny), but is also much less risk-averse and ploying in its attempts to recreate its signature blend of slapstick, sincerity, and profundity.
Other thoughts/observations:
- Why bring Tosh into the main cast, if she’s just going to have two lines in an episode like this one?
- We are seeing more of surgical nurse Mimi, who is quickly developing a great comedic rapport with Turk.
- Sarah Chalke’s delivery of “I’m sorry, you have to die alone”… just phenomenal.
- While I don’t need another disaster Sean plot, I do like their weird dynamic and impeccable comedic timing still holds up.
- When Grant gives Blake bad news, I like that his character sits back in his chair, instead of doing the typical Scrubs “storm off to tell another character” bit. Another bit that distinguishes his character a little more, which all of the newer characters need.
- I am already not liking how the show is managing its recurring set of new doctors; Amara’s been absent all season, Dashana vanishes into thin air, Blake is back all of a sudden, and Asher is…. is he locked in a closet somewhere?
- Scrubs‘ random plotline about “Doctors have been dismissing women’s pain for centuries” is something I didn’t discuss above; it’s because it is terrible and thinly written, and feels more like a short PSA than a developed plotline. Plus, it feels like Scrubs trying to be The Pitt in a way that the original Scrubs would make fun of for being so self-serious. I appreciate the point it’s trying to make, but it was written with all the creativity of a school lesson from the middle of the 20th century.
- Elliot: “I can’t go back to Cross Fit. They make you flip tires!”
- Grant’s running form – also hilarious.