“My Celebration” is an episode of Scrubs in an incredibly tough position as the ninth and final episode of a revival that, at the time of its production, still faced an uncertain future. Because of that, “My Celebration” finds itself stuck between a rock and a hard place, trying to wrap up a bunch of stories that were just beginning to blossom, while also squeezing in a bunch of potential elements to develop in a theoretical second season. It makes for an incredibly strange, chaotic 22 minutes, one that is both welcomely and frustratingly unsatisfying – and even though it ends on a strong emotional note, only stands to further exacerbate the unresolved issues at the core of the series.
After two surprisingly focused, redemptive entries, Scrubs was definitely gaining some momentum after stumbling hard out of the gate – just in time, it turns out, for the season to abruptly end. And boy, is “My Celebration” abrupt: entire characters like Blake and Dashana are in the wind for most of the episode, leaving their internal conflicts not only unresolved, but utterly ignored and forgotten – while at the same time, randomly introducing a trio of new romantic plotlines, themselves undercut by the existential tensions of Cox’s story, the one arc carrying over from the show’s penultimate “My Odds”. It’s a strange creative choice; it undercuts the new cast and seems to make it blatantly clear where the show’s creative allegiances still lie – after all, it was only the return of Carla, Cox, and Janitor in the final three episodes that felt like Scrubs was springing to life, and still had something interesting to say about the personalities inhabiting the modern version of Sacred Heart.
The revival’s first six episodes really, really struggled to find that balance; and they never really recovered it, only highlighting the stories of its interns in concert with bigger, more existential stories from its OG ensemble. Some might say this is to be expected – but without Cox around for two-thirds of the season, the new Scrubs failed to embrace the opportunity to flesh out these characters in more than two thin dimensions (at best; at worst, it’s Asher the wimpy mouse, who somehow gets the most ass on the show, despite his only character note being “looks like a deer in headlights”), their only bits of intriguing texture coming in the echoes of the stories around them.
Even those were unevenly applied; Turk’s mid-life crisis fades into nothingness by the season’s end, Elliot basically has one episode where she’s featured prominently, and J.D.’s arc as chief of medicine only finds its voice when he becomes a doctor again, this time to his mentor, who spends the finale trying to hide his potentially terminal illness from Jordan (Christa Miller returns, although her ability to emote as Jordan is… somewhat reduced, let’s say?). It really takes the entirety of the season to find its voice – and really only does so when it gets the old band back together, ending the season without really following through on the intrigue of its characters (or even the not so intriguing parts, like Scrubs making Dr. Tosh an “influencer”, without exploring what the idea means in an episode without a godawful Matt Rife cameo).
That context only makes the finale’s decision to suddenly thrust ALL of its new characters, who are presumably strung out from the long, exhausting process of being medical interns, into new romantic entanglements in the final five minutes of the season even stranger; the show hasn’t had time to explore its characters’ stated idiosyncrasies, much less find compelling reasons to have these characters suddenly sleeping with each other all over the place. Why is Sam suddenly confessing to having a crush on Asher – and why is he getting thrown a SECOND romantic subplot, after being the flattest, meekest character of the entire bunch? Why is Blake suddenly into Amara, and why is Dashana the only one of the bunch who confidently pulls ass at the wedding “reception”?
All great questions, and ones a full season order of episodes would be able to dig into; instead, Scrubs skips the first and second acts of story for its new characters, and the result is disastrous, undercutting the more tangible, viable stories of their mentors and superiors while also setting the show up to either have to untangle itself from a pair of plotlines with little intrigue, or have to quickly find ways to justify why these relationships are interesting (while having precisely one more episode to do so in a second season).
So while there are pieces of “My Celebration” I enjoy – mostly around Cox’s inability to be honest with Jordan, even though the slapstick of this nature is undercut by its self-seriousness – it is a misfitting, rushed season finale, one that finds itself accelerating through a number of underdeveloped stories and character beats, all so it can rush to a feel-good ending that is mostly unearned when it moves away from J.D. and Cox for any extended period of time. It’s not actively discouraging, of course – “My Best Friend’s Barbecue” and “My Odds” both proved that Scrubs still has legs; it just needs to better balance its time between its well-developed personalities and all of the new ones floating around Sacred Heart (I haven’t even talked about Charlie, J.D.’s new romantic interest for next season that is nakedly shoehorned into the finale, played by Rachel Bilson; it’s… fine). “My Celebration” unfortunately betrays that fact that Nü Scrubs is still finding itself in the shadow of its own legacy, able to find itself in fits and starts, but struggling to juggle the many undercooked elements it tries to incorporate into the season at the last possible second.
Other thoughts/observations:
- “My Celebration” also marks the return of Janitor (father to Maintenance Man) to Scrubs. While the show struggles to justify his presence, Neil Flynn’s clearly still got it. Hopefully we get more than three scenes of him in season two (but let’s hope he’s still wearing Janitor by Janitor when he does).
- Still mean and hot five!
- Winston is definitely going into proctology. Here’s hoping for more Winston sightings in season two.
- Turk and Carla’s attempts to wing man for J.D. are really only funny when J.D. tries to talk the same game as Turk.
- Jordan: “I think I can say for all women when I say, maybe try dudes.”
- “it’s a little prick, and it only lasts two minutes.” Jordan: “Is that why Elliot left you?”
- With Joel Kim Booster leaving the cast for season two, “My Celebration” appears to mark a rather milquetoast ending for the once-promising Dr. Park.