Where the first season of the Scrubs revival felt like a show trying to find a new voice and direction, season two has explicitly doubled down on the tenets of the original series (albeit with fewer cutaways), to the point it almost feels like a ninth season of the original series (as I say every week – justice for OG season nine!), a feeling that is both endearing in its embrace of its own traditions – and maddeningly limiting, with the first three episodes either leaning heavily on Cox’s presence as a patient, or on storylines the show’s already told before, through the lens of the less developed new generation – or in the case of Elliot, just through herself, as she embarks on yet another search to find purpose in her professional and personal lives (in that order, of course). “My Chief” continues in that trend, abandoning its new generation in another round of pointless romantic subplots foregrounded by a pair of stories around Elliot and Turk that are certainly well-meaning, but repetitive in ways that are ultimately disappointing.
The new generation of residents continues to be the most underwhelming, head-scratching element of Nu Scrubs; it honestly feels like the show can’t decide how much it wants us to invest in these characters week to week – and the very obvious attempts to save budget on cast also show, because it ensures we don’t see any of the residents for more than an episode or two at a time. When they do float to the forefront, Scrubs seems to insist on giving each one the same exact romantic plot: resident starts crushing on another resident because… reasons, awkward hijinks ensue. It’s the same blueprint this show has used no less than four times with the residents, most of the time with Amara in the middle, for some odd reason; in season one it was Asher briefly hooking up with her while she pined for Blake, in season two it is Grant suddenly deciding he’s into Amara… who is still pining for Blake, finally taking a step in this episode to ask him out on a date (of sorts, bone-jumping optional).
So that means we spend a considerable portion of the episode with Grant, who is a barely-established character whose only character notes are “supportive guy” and “does random bits”. In the first four episodes of the season, Scrubs really hasn’t given a good reason to justify his presence (especially when replacing someone like Dr. Park, who had more obvious, interesting parallels to J.D. and Cox), and once again he spends the episode meandering around doing bits that feel vaguely improvised, which just feels out of place in Scrubs’ meticulously paced, punchline-driven comedy. Having him yearn for Amara for the whole episode is also another incredibly random attempt to drum up romantic drama amongst the younger doctors, all of which have been incredibly underwhelming to this point – putting him in the middle of Amara’s feelings for Blake just adds an unnecessary layer of one-sided tension… and also begs the question of why Amara finding her voice only seems to come in the context of how she behaves around the men in her world (a plot point that kind of exists in this episode, though it ultimately seems to serve Turk and Grant more than her own character).
J.D.’s time with Grant in “My Chief” is far out shadowed by his scenes with Turk, where he tries to use the power of his spiraling sports ball to get Turk to open up, after Turk makes an error in discharging a patient who returns with an infection (a patient whose face we never see or story we ever get, another stark difference between the Scrubs of old and today). Turk’s existential angst has been an intermittent undercurrent in both seasons of the revival, and though “My Chief” doesn’t do much but put Turk in even MORE therapy as he works through his emotional issues, it at least presents a character on Scrubs who may be capable of taking a step forward. Without it, the core trio have regressed to the same limbos they existed in during the show’s later seasons: J.D. struggles to be an effective mentor – and on the other side of the episode, Elliot once again tries to find a path for herself where she can achieve the status of her male counterparts at Sacred Heart.
Taken at face value, I like that Dr. Reid’s story focuses on a prisoner who lies to the prison nurses so she can try to get to a doctor who can help her son, and gives Dr. Reid a bit of direction, tethering her idea of success to something other than a title around the hospital and the vague “more responsible” bit that makes Turk and J.D.’s evolution as characters feel more suggested than actually inhabited. Unfortunately, how the story is written and expressed, where it is introduced and resolved in about 2.5 scenes, feels rushed in a way that makes the whole exercise incredibly pandering and desperate, an attempt to The Pitt-ify Scrubs in a way that feels incredibly unnatural to the way both versions of Scrubs have explored the relationship between ambition, duty, and sacrifice across nearly 200 episodes. It ends up feeling more reductive, for both patient and doctor, than intended – and sets up Scrubs to try its hand at more of these socially responsible stories, in a way that could unbalance the series if it becomes more preachy about the system it portrays, rather than effusive about the flawed people who are trying to define themselves in a system trying to strip them of the very essence of who they are.
Dr. Reid’s story is too suddenly introduced and resolved to ever really feel like anything but a gesture towards a more meaningful story; and with a middling Turk and Grant story supporting it, it’s no surprise that “My Chief” feels like a middling episode, especially in how it continues to minimize the presence of its younger doctors, with the only complicating point of their lives being how others perceive them, and who they’ve slept with. And while I completely understand the revival’s desire to return to more familiar, safe avenues of storytelling, there are other ways to honor its legacy and characters in ways that don’t feel repetitive (Elliot), unnecessarily maudlin (Turk), or just completely aimless (J.D.), ways that “My Chief” oddly seems uninterested in finding.
Other thoughts/observations:
- so… did Turk get disciplined, or did I miss that?
- Also – hilarious to think a hospital in 2026 can just start a mobile free clinic on a whim. Who cares about budgets!
- I was never big on the late-season Janitor subplots, so his presence and parentage to the new janitor does nothing for me.
- Hooch’s surgeries start on time: “I got a tee time, bitch.”
- Janitor: “Your mom made you muffins – they’re not very good, but it’s good to see her back on her foot.”
- J.D. has named Turk’s head vein Raymond, and he speaks like Aaron Neville.
- Blake was a failed country music star? Why does he need to have such a complicated backstory?
- “We have to leave it to people who know us better…” as usual, Scrubs ending voiceovers are mostly nonsense, because how does this apply to the new generation and their stories in this episode.
- Tosh thought prison was an outlet mall… not touching that with a ten foot pole!
- Also, Asher wants to go on vacation with Tosh – did he learn nothing last season?
- The Dee story is so incredibly rushed; she has about 45 seconds of screen time, yet is treated as the emotional anchor for Elliot. It is so poorly presented, it really feels like pandering in a way Scrubs usually isn’t.