Second Look: Scrubs Season 1, Episode 16 – “My Heavy Meddle”

Scrubs Season 1, Episode 16 “My Heavy Meddle”
Written by Mike Schwartz
Directed by Will Mackenzie
Aired February 26, 2002 on NBC

If “My Bed Banter and Beyond” was explicitly designed to speed through the inevitable relationship arc between J.D. and Elliot, condensing a season’s worth of emotional arc into 22 minutes, then “My Heavy Meddle” is its counterpart, constructed to resolve the broader strokes of J.D. and Elliot’s breakup, in order to return Scrubs back to some semblance of status quo before heading into season one’s final act. The difference? “My Heavy Meddle” does a much stronger job of utilizing its other two stories in concert with J.D. and Elliot, as it focused on a handful of characters unable to finally let go.

Though Carla’s story may seem like the most isolated among them – she spends the entire episode fighting Kelso over playing Poison’s “Talk Dirty to Me” to a comatose patient before their death – it quietly provides the emotional foundation of the episode, manifesting the idea of letting go in the very physical act of dying; moving on is not a process that anyone is capable of doing themselves, whether its grieving the end of a relationship, dealing with the existential weight of everyday life – or, in Carla’s case, in helping someone find their way to the other side, giving a very real, tangible weight to an episode of silly Kelso jokes (fueled by his old-school anger towards rock music), and providing a strong foundation for the rest of the episode to build on.

The rest of “My Heavy Meddle” uses J.D. as an intersecting point for two separate stories; Dr. Cox’s semi-regular mental breakdowns over his life and career, and Elliot and J.D. dealing with the fallout of their brief, intense relationship. Though Scrubs probably didn’t know it at the time, these would eventually become two of the show’s most regularly recurring subplots, to varying degrees of effect. These stories would come in various forms over the years, of course (Cox becoming a husband and father, Elliot changing career paths and relationships, etc.), but in its first season, it is a palpable mix of the familiar (a sitcom trying to unwind itself from the suddenly-complicated dynamics of a broken relationship in the main ensemble) and the new, as Cox begins tapping into an internal anger that would define a lot of his character’s arc in the early season (and has already been alluded to in previous episodes, like Jordan’s first appearance in “My Own Personal Jesus”).

For the most part, “My Heavy Meddle” centers J.D.’s reactions to Elliot and J.D. as he tries to navigate his new world, one where his friend is now an awkward stranger, and his mentor devolves into a self-destructive ball of anger, trashing a lab and dragging J.D. out of bed to go drink at a bar – only to walk back into work like everything’s back to normal the next day. And while these stories take on incredibly different tenors – Elliot’s being the melodramatic companion to Cox’s punchline-fueled rage – they once again ground themselves in the shared idea that neither Elliot or Cox have a chance to resolve the anger inside themselves until they confront the things bothering them.

For Elliot, that’s rather easy, since her and J.D. spend so much time together (and get forced to see each other even more, thanks to Turk’s underhanded, misinterpreted attempt to work with Elliot on a research project to keep her around J.D.) – but for Cox, that’s a little more difficult, requiring a man of his particular brand of self-loathing and anger to reflect, and to reach out to another human being in a healthy manner. He’s clearly not capable of doing this, of course, and instead uses a pajamed-J.D. as a punching bag rather than a shoulder to lean on.

And though the episode does resolve both of those stories, there are cogent suggestions that things will not quite be the same again; after throwing watermelons off the roof together, Elliot and J.D. don’t hug when Carla and Turk start to celebrate, a reminder that there’s a degree of closeness lost, at least for the moment, in their new friendship. It completes a rather deft two-episode arc, one many would’ve assumed would last at least a half-season; unfortunately, we know Scrubs would inevitably (and repeatedly) fall back on the lessons it taught itself in both this episode and “My Bed Banter and Beyond” – but for at least a moment, it pretty succinctly introduces and closes a significant arc in a single breath, allowing the series to expand and expound on other stories before heading into season one’s endgame.

What “My Heavy Meddle” achieves with Cox is a bit more amorphous, at least in the confines of this half hour; his behavior is almost manic in its nature, first a brooding pit of self-loathing depression that bleeds away overnight into the whip smart, cynically cheerful attending everyone knows Cox to be. The only real flaw of “My Heavy Meddle” is it just doesn’t have enough time to really sink its teeth into the mid-life crisis bubbling just underneath Cox’s alarmingly (and suddenly) unstable surface; it’s more a flag being planted for later, its resolution more coming from Cox’s brief ability to find a valve for his anger (by trashing the lab, and seemingly getting away with) rather than leaning towards the inevitable breakdown awaiting Cox if he continues down this particular path – though to its credit, Carla and others’ uninterested reaction does suggest this is a cyclical, spiritual thing only Cox knows how to deal with (albeit unhealthily).

Although it feels like “My Heavy Meddle” backs away from some of the larger conflicts it hints towards with both Cox and Elliot, the episode still does a great job of introducing these tensions, and offering all of its characters salves and resolutions for their frustrations, at least temporarily (given both stories end up being a bit of red herring, as each is walked back by the end of season one), and hinting through its other story that the real resolution, the difficult act of truly letting go, is something that eludes just about everyone except Carla in the course of another strong freshman Scrubs episode.

Grade: B+

Other thoughts/observations:

• Ted is an All-Star in this episode anytime he is around Carla, before and after they sing a wonderful duet of “Talk Dirty to Me.”
  
• Turk and Elliot work together on a study: there’s a hint of a bigger story when Todd says the surgical interns hire medical nerds to do co-studies with, but it turns out Turk just did it so J.D. and Elliot would have to confront each other.
  
• High Five Count: None – Todd is denied his only high five attempt. Todd’s count remains at 11, with the total count at 13.
  
• “Ha! She said rubber thingy.”
  
• Turk and Elliot don’t have time to study, but they have time to make up a fun little dance.
  
• Carla doesn’t get impressions: “Who is that, Arsenio?” she asks when Turk does an obvious Cosby impression.
  
• Janitor: “Girl problems?” J.D.: “Yeah, how’d you know?” Janitor: “You look like you have a problem… you’re a girl… girl problems!”
  
• Elliot shares too much: “I’m a nervous poo-er.”
  
• Turk’s dream night: fast food after work, home at 7pm, on the toilet from 8pm to 11:15pm, then bedtime!
  
• Ted: “Noone expects me to be anywhere.”
  
• Red Dawn jokes!
  
• Dr. Kelso’s hatred of heavy metal (“my son is a bit of a headbanger”) provides the title’s word play: he won’t let Carla play Poison for a coma patient, because “half the staff will have genital piercings, and I don’t need them fornicating in vans.”
  
• Up next: J.D. the mentee becomes J.D. the reluctant mentor in “My Student”.