Scrubs episode 4
I mean technically there was an episode 3 last night too, but honestly it hardly matters. It was unremarkable except for a couple of truly epic Janitor rants.
The reason episode 3 hardly matters is because of what happened in episode 4. I didn’t see it coming: I didn’t expect them to confront JD-Elliot so early in the season, and so directly. They took all those years of pent-up complexity that I mentioned and turned them inside-out. They acknowledged the special significance of it with the blacked-out set. That was an excellent idea, and probably the only way to really do the thing properly.
JD and Elliot’s conversation about their relationship struck the right note. They come to grips with the complexity of their relationship without just stating it as if it were a synopsis on the Wikipedia page. And the feeling it left me with was a pretty accurate summary, and in a way reflects how the characters must feel. I really wish the thing could work out… even in the face of all the concrete evidence that it can’t. At the end of the episode I felt satisfied but with a lingering unease, much like I imagine the characters must feel. You can feel hopeful that they have in fact learned from their mistakes, and grown up as people, like they mentioned during the Talk, but you don’t know if that’s going to be enough to clear the hurdles they encountered all those other times.
The conversation even revealed a couple of things to me that I hadn’t realized, like Elliot’s penchant for “safe but boring guys” ever since the end of season 3, and that JD has undergone character changes almost as deep as Elliot’s. It all combines into a somewhat frightening realization: JD and Elliot are the only ones who could possibly make each other truly happy, but it’s not clear that it’s possible at all. And therein lies the central question of their whole relationship, which I can only hope the rest of the season will answer adequately.
I’m afraid there’s going to be a relapse of a problem that has plagued Scrubs in its later years: the shitty continuation. One episode will build up an important plot, and the episode ends on a high note, with the important plot to be continued in the next episode. Then the next episode takes that plot, drops it into the toilet and pees on it. This happened notably after “My Lunch” (the super-serious episode of season 5) and across the end of season 6-beginning of season 7. I think the next episode will treat this new development with too much levity, and possibly just knock it all down and restore the status quo before the first commercial break. Of course, they could always surprise me. But I believe something like that will happen before the end of the season — there’s too much left of the season for this to be “happily ever after”.
Actually, I just had an idea. What if the next episode were filled with very subtle homages to season 1 episode 15, “My Bed Banter and Beyond”? In the episode before that one, there had been a similar plot development. Never mind, this is a bad idea. I don’t trust this show to do self-homages any more, given the grievously ham-handed homage to “My Sex Buddy” in this episode. Jesus, talk about breaking the mood. Speaking of breaking the mood: the outtakes at the end. See my point?
And apart from that, it’s surprisingly pleasant and natural to have Dr. Kelso acting like a real person. He’s no longer JD and Elliot’s boss, so it makes sense for him to treat them more as equals. He doesn’t even browbeat Ted, which I guess is why Ted feels the need to browbeat himself. In the later years of the show it became clear that Kelso had a human side, and now it’s become his default. His concern for JD and Elliot’s happiness is a startling change, but makes their decision to give their relationship a try that much more satisfying. You can tell the show is winding down when Cox and Kelso are both mellowing out (the other overarching theme of this episode).
Now that the ridiculous literary analysis of a sitcom is over with, here are some miscellaneous notes. Remember in the last post, I mentioned the Scrubs teleport? Well guess what, it happened in episode 3, and they came very close to meta-commentary on it. There’s also a disheartening epidemic of stupidly predictable jokes. In episode 3, I saw the “same dress” gag coming the second Elliot spilled coffee on herself, and that joke wasn’t even funny the first time. In episode 4, as soon as JD said, “I’ve changed too,” I said, “I have a beard now,” and he said, “I have a beard now”. And, of course, the setup at the beginning of the episode for JD and Elliot’s talk was eye-rollingly obvious. I suppose there’s not much that can be done about that, but still, it hurt me on the inside.
The analysis resumes next week! Keep your eye out.
Oh, one last thing. I found another inconsistency:
- Elliot, season 2, episode 16:
I talk to myself. I talk to my cat. I talk to three separate shrinks about the fact that often my cats respond to me in my mother’s voice.
Elliot, season 3, episode 5:
I don’t know what it is, but all cats hate me. I mean, if I even make eye contact with them, they freak out.
