Scrubs Season 10, Episode 3 Review – “My Rom-Com”

Conceptually, “My Rom-Com” is the strongest of the first three episodes of the Scrubs revival: there’s a strong focus on Elliot and J.D. (one that stands to finally move their characters forward in new directions), a reflective Turk plotline – and perhaps most importantly, the first patient case of the season with the potential to breathe life into its collection of half-baked story lines and one-dimensional supporting characters. Unfortunately, “My Rom-Com” takes all of these intriguing ideas and filters them through the same saccharine, superficial lens of the first two episodes, muting all of its core tensions as it rushes towards a series of incredibly trite conclusions, a growing reminder that there’s a lot different about this iteration of Sacred Heart, and not for the better.

At its core, “My Rom-Com” is an episode about J.D., Elliot, and Turk deciding how they want to approach the next phase of their lives as doctors; J.D. as he attempts to balance being a boss to his ex-wife while managing the complex interests and finances of Sacred Heart, Turk while he guides the next generation of surgeons into new technology – and Elliot, as she once again gets shoved into a story that sidelines her character, life, and motivations, solely to focus on her reaction to the end of her marriage with J.D.

Elliot was always such a rewarding character for Scrubs: as someone whose personality was far less malleable and impressionistic than J.D.’s, Elliot’s personal and professional breakthroughs across the series, along with her romantic failings, could be felt more acutely – from her struggles to get Dr. Kelso to respect her, to the assertive nature her character took in the middle seasons, both with her career and her personal life (some of which came from the infamous marketing department demands that Elliot be sexier to draw a younger male demographic, but this change was weaved into the arc of her character), her character’s arc, at least through the show’s first six seasons, was perhaps the show’s most poignant (and all for a character who was an outspoken Republican, when that meant an entirely different thing than it does in 2026).

While seasons seven and eight did a lot to soften and regress parts of her character, her divorce from J.D. between the original series and revival gave Scrubs an incredible opportunity to rediscover the character, who had moved away from strictly patient practice, divorced the father of her child (…. is that kid still alive? I feel like their baby got retconned out of the series somewhere), and came back to the hospital that gave her such drive and purpose. Instead, what we get is a character who has been reduced to her pratfalls and romantic shortcomings, any sense of personal or professional poignancy thrown away so she can be an afterthought of a subplot, to season ten’s central question: what kind of hospital administrator does J.D. want to be?

While the J.D. question is, in itself, an inherently uninteresting one, what the past 20 years have done to Elliot, the only one of the central trio of interns who isn’t a chief of something, being an absolute nothing, is a massive missed opportunity for New Scrubs to redefine itself – and quite honestly, give the new generation of interns something tangible to reflect on from their bosses and mentors, that might push the revival beyond just repeating less intriguing, soulless versions of plots we’ve already seen the series do before (old people with STD’s? season six’s “My Cold Shower”. Turk and J.D. figuring out how to mentor different personalities? No less than six different plots between seasons six and nine).

Unfortunately, everything Elliot-related in these first three episodes is either filtered through J.D., or explicitly in service of his character: when Elliot, distraught over a patient who is ready to die alone, cries to J.D. in a Sacred Heart bathroom, it exposes just how empty and one-dimensional the Scrubs revival is treating its story and characters, opting for a path of least resistance, in order to reach aggravatingly limp endings: here, it’s J.D. and Elliot shrugging over any sense of compelling material with Elliot’s fears of dying alone, which is such an intriguing arc for a control freak like Elliot. But it is one the episode never explores with any kind of intention; seeing J.D. dismiss it as ridiculous is rather telling, and the episode’s immediate pivot back to how he’s handling his new position in life (both as a single man, and in the job of his mentor) further cements the show’s shocking disinterest in engaging with perhaps its most interesting, unique character.

Elsewhere, “My Rom-Com” is mostly a forgettable wash; Turk is background fodder for a subplot with Dashana, this generation’s black surgical intern, who herself gets tied into a mini-existential crisis Amara has when she realizes she can’t drive (and thus, doesn’t think she can operate using Turk’s new surgical robot that was the center of conflict in “My 2nd First Day”). Again, Scrubs exposes just how flat season ten’s construction is: after tearing into a grape, Amara immediately has complete doubt in herself and her abilities – that is, until a scene later, when Dashana convinces her and Turk alike that a bit of compassion goes a long way in training. Not only does this story do nothing for Dashana (am I supposed to be impressed she’s letting Amara using the new device first? I don’t understand why she would care in the first place), but it further flattens Amara into a ball of generic neuroses – and on top of it, begins to tease an entirely random, unfounded romantic subplot with the equally-sheepish Asher, the only one of these interns getting consistent screen time and dialogue in the first three episodes).

Though I’ve consistently kept my hopes low for the Scrubs revival since that awful teaser trailer came out, I can’t help but be disappointed with each of the season’s first three episodes, which feel like pale, over-lit facsimiles of a much better show, one that rushes through narrative ideas, cuts a staggering amount of corners with its emotional arcs, and undercooks its resolutions, somehow unable to fill running times that are consistently 3-4 minutes shorter than the show’s first run of episodes. Scrubs was always inconsistent, always imperfect, and always a bit scattered – but those decisions were means to an end, when the show not only offered more potent, engaging emotional arcs, but consistently surprised audiences with plot twists and elaborate cutaway gags, a comedy that became memorable not out of pure ingenuity, but a combination of talent and effort. New Scrubs is trying to ride on those coattails incredibly hard – but the result has only felt lazy and trite, its small, infrequent bits of amusing humor often obfuscated by the show’s rather astonishing empty soul.

Grade: D

Other thoughts/observations:

• No Dr. Park in this episode? Odd choice.
  
• Todd gets another successful high five – already two for the season, that boy is on a roll!
  
• I could write for another 400 words on Turk and how there’s absolutely no way in hell he would ever, EVER be a Dungeons & Dragons master. But again, this is New Scrubs: it doesn’t really have a lot to say about its characters that make sense, so it is just saying random shit that other shows have already done better, or have been done to death (this week alone, freaking Ted of all shows did a Dungeons & Dragons episode. Enough already!)
  
• The whole episode hinges on a rather lame reveal, with the estranged husband of Elliot’s patient arriving at the last minute to tell her off. In the original series, this scene would’ve happened early in the second act to propel its characters emotionally, not been some throwaway reveal while the credits roll. What a waste.