“Scrubs”: My Identity Crisis

Posted by SH

I’ll start off by saying one of my pet peeves about TV shows is when a character has a child, then said child is trotted out only when it’s convenient for the plot. NBC has had its share of offenders in recent years, with Frasier Crane and Ross Geller being perhaps the most absentee fathers in the history of the boob tube. J.D. is nowhere near that point yet — Sammy is just a couple episodes old, after all — but the poor tyke has already suffered his first snub. He’s nowhere to be seen in this week’s show.

That said, this is the first effort of the season that has felt like vintage “Scrubs.” The plotting is tight, the themes consistent and, best of all, everyone acts in character. Beyond that, they’ve finally expanded Carla’s role beyond pep talk duty.

In fact, we forgo the usual J.D. narration opening, and start right off with Carla and Turk messing around in bed. A patient’s bed. When Turk starts to strap her down, she purrs with excitement. But things take a dark turn when J.D. shows up. Turk has invited him there to kill Carla, so the two “guy love” sillies can go live together and give baby Isabella to Elliot, who conspires in the scheme by dialing the electric resuscitators up to the “Kill Carla” setting. Cut to a screaming Carla, waking up in bed at home, realizing it was all a nightmare. But it wasn’t the killing and baby kidnapping that Carla found truly disturbing. It was that the dream came to her in English — which helped the viewing audience tremendously but made Carla fear she was losing touch with her Latin identity, and thus will hamper her from passing it on to her daughter.

Turk consoles her in his usual sensitive way. “Baby, you’re from Chicago! Just get her a deep-dish pizza.”

Carla is upset that people notice only their daughter’s skin tone, and not her Latin traits. Unless it’s the hospital’s new geneticist, who even gets the Dominican Republic origin part right.

Also fearful of losing his identity is Dr. Cox, who is disturbed by how much he misses his wife and kids while they’re away for a week. He’s mourning the loss of his old “jackass,” independent self. Elliot assures him he has nothing to worry about. Family or not, he’s still a jackass.

More literal identity problems strike J.D. when he is confronted with the fact that he has reduced most of the people at Sacred Heart to nicknames. Kinda goes against any “man of the people” image he has of himself. This is the perfect opportunity to learn the real names behind such great monikers as “Colonel Dr.,” “Snoop Dogg Attending” and “Dr. Beardface” (Though we did actually learn a few weeks back that Be-ard-fah-chay’s first name is Seymour). Janitor makes it interesting, betting J.D. that he can’t learn the names of all 310 people at the hospital in one night. The loser has to do Janitor’s job for a day.

The Greek chorus for all this identity trouble is Ted’s “a capella-palooza”-bound barber shop quartet and their rendition of The Who’s “Who Are You.” Excellent.

J.D. comes achingly close, using Cox’s method of Rube Goldberg-esque mnemonic devices to remember the names of a guy named Brandon (“He looks like a serial killer, which is a cereal I wouldn’t want to eat, like Oat Bran. Brandon!), as well as Snoop Dogg Attending (Ronald) and Colonel Dr. (Coleman Sloski). But one name escapes him: Janitor’s. C’mon, you didn’t really think they were going to give it up, did you?

The big winner this episode would have to be Turk, who not only outsmarts Carla by catching her lying about how much Spanish she speaks to their daughter, but manages to reassure her about her Latin connection. He even starts trying to learn Spanish. How nice to see a man portrayed on TV as something other than a brain-dead slob who can’t wait for the next sporting event. Turk has, shall we say, forged his own identity.

One identity I’m still confused about is the nurse who looks just like Laverne (and is played by the same actress). Janitor calls her “Shirley” (“Schlemeel, Schlemazel, Hasenfeffer Incorporated!”), but J.D. goes with “Laverne-again.” Gotta wonder if they’ll address this later on.

Comic highlight: J.D. ponders how Cox will spend his time alone, conjuring up a reenactment of the famous Tom Cruise underwear scene in “Risky Business.” J.D. and Turk show up (also sans drawers) unannounced, along with the Todd (guess what he’s wearing). Cox throws them out. So even in his fantasy life, his mentor rejects him.