The Scrubs revival’s second season continues to be a strange, disappointing journey with “My Best Friend’s Birthday”, an episode that repeats not one, not two, but no less than three previous Scrubs plots – and does so with little new to say, not much to do, and barely even feigns at being the cutaway-laden, emotional roller coaster ride of a sitcom that made the original such a driven, entertaining, endearingly flawed series. “My Best Friend’s Birthday” might just be the worst episode of the revival, a half hour that reveals Sean’s resurgence to be pointless, the addition of Charlie to be meaningless – and most disappointingly, the presence of the new interns to do nothing but go through the motions of storytelling with an underwhelming rehash of an intern’s first night shift (and the infamous Sacred Heart fruit cups).
What’s really frustrating is that there are actually strong ideas at the heart of each of the stories in “My Best Friend’s Birthday”; however, the delivery and pacing of these stories are all over the place, and they all feel like a sitcom unexcitedly going through old routines, as if it had nothing left to say or do with its own hospital setting. Turk’s birthday is a great opportunity for Scrubs to take a bit of stock on where Turk’s personal journey is at, and by proxy, how J.D. and Elliot are adjusting to their new relationships; instead, the episode becomes a referendum on the tired fact that doctors struggle to have personal lives – and that, over two decades in, Elliot and J.D. are still unable to draw a healthy line anywhere between the two worlds they live in.
Except, the episode really isn’t about that either: in a way, “My Best Friend’s Birthday” is about how J.D. and Elliot are never going to change as long as they’re in each other’s orbits, perhaps the most disappointing route Scrubs could’ve taken in the revival – especially considering the core creative decision to break them up between the end of season nine and “My Return”, a decision it almost feels like Scrubs is starting to unwind yet again (if they put the two of them back together again, I’m out). Conspiracy theories aside, there’s nothing entertaining about watching J.D. hijack Turk’s dinner so he can be a dick to Sean, force Turk into Party Mode – only to see them leave in the world’s most obvious setup to have Sean hook up with another one of J.D.’s exes, when Sean and Charlie decide that they’re tired of hanging around waiting for their partners, and decide to be together after spending approximately fifteen seconds together.
It’s an entirely empty exercise, one that completely sidelines Turk’s burgeoning midlife crisis for yet another round of J.D.’s romantic histrionics – which do not play as well when the main character is pushing 50. Frankly, it’s boring as hell, and makes the decision to bring back Sean for a handful of meaningless scenes across two episodes feel pretty nakedly desperate, as if bringing back a parade of former recurring characters and millennial-friendly guest stars (they could’ve cast anyone from The O.C., the end effect would’ve been the same) would somehow reverse the incredibly shortsighted decision to undo the hard work and progress season one of the revival did to start finding its own voice, and double down on versions of the main characters we’ve already seen, going through stories we’ve already experienced alongside them.
The whole thing makes the revival feel soulless; and though the group of new interns are trying to give the revival a foothold in something new, every week the stories and depictions of these young doctors feels increasingly miscalibrated. There are two plots going on here: the one with Amara and Dashana isn’t very exciting, but it’s fine – it would be nice to see this conflict and how it actually manifests outside of Sacred Heart, even if only for a scene, but I do appreciate Scrubs doing the work to build a lasting, strong dynamic between Turk’s two female surgical interns.
Everything else with the younger generation, however, continues to be an embarrassing mess, a revolving door of one-note characters who are very noticeably being pushed aside and underdeveloped, all so Scrubs can double down on superficial regurgitations of old stories with its older characters. I mean, putting aside how little the series has done to make Asher and Tosh a believable, meaningful relationship (she literally looked at him in one episode, and they’ve been dating ever since, even though we never see them do anything but talk for two scenes an episode), how is the audience supposed to see Francis and Tosh’s point of view, that Asher may actually not be cut out to be a doctor? We’ve spent so little time observing him as a doctor this season, it’s impossible to be invested in this story at all – and seeing Tosh baby his feelings, something that ultimately goes unacknowledged by her, feels weird and regressive, reducing a character who is already only known as “British wimp who now has a mustache” into something lesser and smaller. More critically, it is doing it entirely by telling us, and never really showing us – which pairs with the main story in feeling like a series going through the motions of storytelling, but in such a detached, disengaged way it leaves the entire episode feeling utterly void of meaning.
Not a great place for Scrubs to be, as its new formula sputters and its once-strong ratings continue to tank; but with an unnecessary over-retooling and sudden reliance on being as familiar and static as possible (not to mention its use of Dr. Cox, which is borderline pandering, given how drastically the tone’s shifted without him), it feels like a series that’s deliberately unmoored itself from its own foundations, but without a plan for somewhere new to go. So instead, let’s just double down on rehashing the same tired, regressive stories of the past? I don’t know what “My Best Friend’s Birthday” was aiming to do besides engineer an easy way to push Charlie out of the series – but bringing back Sean for such a cheap punchline certainly portends the worst for where Scrubs wants to go in the five remaining episodes of the season.
Other thoughts/observations:
- J.D. brings an ass load of stuff to the beach: “Dorians have been beaching this way since the dawn of sand!”
- Carla didn’t leave Turk after his “weaponized incompetence” sex bullshit? She grows weaker with age.
- Asher’s childhood best friend is a 200-year old ghost, the only character note I’ve enjoyed with him this season (he also can’t have sex twice in a day, which he openly admits?).
- Amara and Dashana have conflict over a patient who randomly dies… the episode barely cares about this, and just wants to remind us Amara is seeing Blake (who is… you guessed it, nowhere to be found yet again).