The ‘Scrubs’ Revival’s Most Important Rule Just Ruined One of Its Funniest Moments

Warning! Spoilers ahead for the Scrubs revival Season 2, Episode 5, “My Best Friend’s Birthday.”Watching the Scrubs revival, it’s pretty easy to work out that the writers have come up with a bible of sorts to restore the sitcom to its golden age. For instance, the legacy cast can never be pushed totally to the fringes as they were in Season 9. While some of these rules need to be gleaned from context, leading man/director/executive producer Zach Braff has discussed one of them at length.

One of the cornerstones of Scrubs has always been its fantasy sequences, most of which originate from JD’s chaotic mind. At the beginning of the original series, it was always easy to tell where these fantasies began and ended. Oftentimes, they were so wild that they couldn’t possibly have happened in reality. However, as the show progressed, the line between JD’s daydreams and the real world began to blur. Braff and company have made a conscious effort not to allow this to happen in the revival.

The ‘Scrubs’ Revival’s Fantasy Rule, Explained

Zach Braff as JD dressed as a wrestler in Scrubs

Braff has spoken about JD’s Scrubs fantasies on several occasions ahead of and during the revival. One such instance came while co-hosting the official Scrubs rewatch podcast, Fake Doctors, Real Friends. He cited Season 5’s “My Big Bird,” which features a gang of organized ostriches that hold Turk (Donald Faison) and JD hostage, as one of the prime examples of a scene that should probably have been a fantasy rather than part of official Scrubs lore.

He doesn’t deny that it’s hilarious; he only states the scene was too unusually bizarre to have actually taken place in a reality even as heightened as the one in Scrubs. As such, Braff and company are determined not to let this kind of thing happen in the revival. So far, I think it’s been a good creative decision. The fantasies are still there, but now the line between them and actual events has been restored. One of JD’s more recent musings just adhered to this new rule too strictly, though.

JD’s Patient Showing up in His Trunk Would Be So Much Funner If It Actually Happened

JD looking at a patient in his trunk in Scrubs

In many ways, Scrubs did need to be regrounded for the revival. Organized ostriches and JD’s ability to fit into Turk’s backpack are probably a little too silly to exist in a world like Scrubs, which isn’t supposed to be inherently fantastical. Then again, some of those more off-the-wall moments were only so hilarious because they broke the rules of what was assumed to be possible. The moment with JD’s UTI patient in the new episode, “My Best Friend’s Birthday,” should have fallen into a similar category.

Not only does it try to fake out the audience by omitting the white flash that typically marks the start of a fantasy sequence, but the reveal that a patient has stowed away in JD’s trunk to ruin his day off is absolutely something I could accept as canon while also pushing the boundaries of realism. It still did make me laugh, but the flash out of the fantasy also made me roll my eyes a little. Regrounding the show by keeping a watchful eye on the line between real and fantasy is an understandable move, but it shouldn’t be applied with such absolute strictness.

If anything, JD being forced to take the patient back to the hospital would have been an equally effective way to end his day off with Charlie (Rachel Bilson) as the page summoning him to the hospital was. The couple’s future would still have been thrown into doubt due to JD’s demanding medical career. It would also have come with an addition to the signature “real-world” offbeat moments that helped Scrubs become the hit that it is today.