Spoilers Ahead!

About two and a half years ago I watched every Scrubs episode in order (minus the anti-season of which we do not speak) for the first time. Prior to this I’d seen basically every episode during runs on Comedy Central as I grew up, and was already very familiar with the story. But this was the first time I’d marathoned it, and at the end I found myself ready to immediately rewatch the entire series from the beginning.

I made myself wait.

If by any chance you haven’t watched Scrubs in its entirety yet, I recommend you stop reading this immediately and go and do so. Whilst spoiling what happens later in the series isn’t as sinful as spoiling, say, Game of Thrones, I would recommend witnessing the character development for yourself, as this show has it in bucketloads.

Scrubs is by far my favourite comedy show that I’ve ever seen, and I think that’s for two main reasons. Firstly, the hospital setting allows for a perfect mix of comedy and tragedy to be mixed together in realistic measures. Comedies and tragedies are both good, but life isn’t always comedic or always tragic. It’s quite often a mix of the two, and Scrubs uses the height of comedy to make the deepest blows of tragedy that much more poignant, and vice versa. One of my favourite examples of this is the Season 8 episode My Last Words, which deals with a terminally ill patient going through the last hours of his life.

“Then what in the hell do I have to hope for?”

“Well if it were me… I would just hope that my last thought was a good one.”

“…what, that’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“You thought that was deep? That wasn’t deep! I’m over here dying, that’s all you can come up with? Hahaha!”

The second reason I love this show so much is because of how much I identify with the characters. Typically I hate saying that, because everyone identifies with protagonists in some way or another – it’s their job to be relatable – but I’ve been considering this for years, and I really do find myself sharing some of the cast’s traits and fundamental flaws. J.D, for example, is always in his own head and is constantly wishing he was more masculine or independent. Elliot obsesses over everything to an insane degree, and while I may not share her hyperactive tendencies I do identify with her neuroses and constant self-doubt. And to a lesser degree, I identify with the Janitor’s weirdness and his position as an outcast figure (though perhaps more in the past).

I rarely find myself laughing out loud at a comedy, or at any particular show, and even some of my favourite Scrubs episodes don’t draw laughter from me. During my latest rewatch, however, I discovered that Doctor Kelso is perhaps the most hilarious character in the series, especially in the later seasons. Early in the show he’s presented as this antagonistic by-the-books chief of medicine, but later episodes see him picking up quirks such as intentionally misnaming Turk “Turkleton”, and abusing his free muffins for life at the local Coffee Bucks.

I actually prefer the later seasons, which is an unpopular opinion from what I can gather. I’m guessing people prefer the earlier days when J.D, Turk and Elliot are interns or residents because their struggles are more relatable, but I find joy in watching them transform as they progress as characters in the later seasons. In the Season 6 episode “My Perspective“, for instance, J.D learns that he leans too much on the sympathy of his friends and doesn’t take enough time sorting out his own problems, which is a character flaw we’ve seen for most of the series. Perhaps it’s because I consider myself to be a similar person, but watching this character come to this realisation is a very cathartic experience.

My Finale is a beautiful end to the series (for nothing comes after, quiet your blasphemous tongue), and while I suppose some of the cast had some rushed storylines to give them happy endings in time for the finale (such as the character of Lady seemingly changing each time she shows up to suit the Janitor), I think it ended at precisely the right time. The montage at the end of the hallway gets me misty-eyed every time, and I just know I’ll be revisiting the series not too many years from now.

And now for my favourite episodes from the top of my head, in chronological order:

S1E4 – My Old Lady
S3E13 – My Porcelain God
S3E14 – My Screw Up
S3E16 – My Butterfly
S4E6 – My Cake
S4E25 – My Changing Ways
S5E13 – My Five Stages
S5E20 – My Lunch
S5E21 – My Fallen Idol
S5E24 – My Transition
S6E9 – My Perspective
S6E14 – My No Good Reason
S6E15 – My Long Goodbye
S6E20 – My Conventional Wisdom
S7E3 – My Inconvenient Truth
S7E8 – My Manhood
S8E4 – My Happy Place
S8E6 – My Cookie Pants
S8E14/15 – My Soul on Fire
S8E16 – My Cuz
S8E18/19 – My Finale