Great Minds Think Different

Good episode.

Thankfully, Bill Lawrence did not ruin everything. In fact, he was pretty darn good. The setting really helped — it wouldn’t have worked nearly as well if he’d been in a Sacred Heart episode. The fact that they’re in the Bahamas for a mostly-ridiculous wedding fits a lot better with his character.

They have not laid off the Turk/JD gay jokes, which I of course appreciate to no end. “Elliot, I love you more than Turk.” They played that one perfectly.

All in all, this episode reminded me a lot of those episodes in seasons 2 and 3, where everyone’s having some kind of problem and they’re all oddly parallel and tied together by JD’s narration, right down to the acoustic guitar music at the end. (I particularly remember this kind of thing happening in season 3 because there were two episodes that concluded with music by Tammany Hall NYC, who I suddenly started liking a lot recently.)

Carla was a lot better in this episode. (Except: where did her pregnancy go? Obviously you can’t fake being pregnant in a bikini, but it was kind of jarring.) Unfortunately Elliot didn’t do so well, probably in part because she was supposed to be annoying the whole time. She was good in the final scene, though, recognizing the significance of JD loving her more than he loves Turk.

One surprise standout in this episode was Lady. She’s been head and shoulders above most of the random guests on Scrubs, and is an especially good foil for the Janitor (who had more of a dramatic role in this episode than comedic, if that’s even conceivable).

They managed to stretch out the mermaid joke (which has been around since season 3 episode 22) in hilarious fashion, culminating in Turk attempting to speak in mermaid language. Usually this kind of joke-stretching falls flat, but I’m glad this one didn’t since it’s an extension of what was a really good throwaway gag from an early season.

I’m still not convinced that Everybody Goes On Vacation episodes are a good idea, but at least this one was a step in the right direction from last week.

A look at the Internet reveals that the season will conclude with an hour-long two-episode finale: episodes 18 and 19. This means: 80 total minutes of Scrubs remain. I really hope they’re mostly good ones.