Scrubs Review: I Am Afraid To Die
The irreverent medical comedy returns to ABC.
The original Scrubs series ran from 2001 to 2008 and produced over 160 episodes. Today I woke up in the hospital. What has happened to me?
The first sensation I can recall is the taste of vomit. Then my head spinning in a blind haze, waves of nausea pinning me against wet fabric. I opened my eyes expecting to find myself floating on a raft, perhaps caught in a whirlpool in a sunken cave. Instead my eyeballs burned under the power of a terrible white light. And I knew instantly where I was.
I was inside the television show Scrubs.
The quirky comedy series was a sleeper hit that defined millennial humor, its influence stretching from Ted Lasso to possibly other shows. But as I tried to remember the twee antics of J.D. and Turk I became aware of bits of undigested food clinging to the back of my throat and struggled not to puke.
A familiar man standing nearby stared into his phone.
“Are you Dr. John Dorian?” I gasped.
“No, I’m Zach Braff,” he replied, not looking up from his phone.
His words were as crisp and clear as the indietronica soundtrack of Garden State and cut through the fog produced by my pounding head. As I reached out my quivering hand to touch him he scoffed and leaped backwards.
“Watch it! This is a $5,000 shirt, dipshit.”
His beautiful face had contorted into pure disgust, his turquoise eyes containing a depth of hatred that told me everything there is to know about the person reflected there: He is weak. He is poor. He is sick. He is nothing.
And so I remembered who I am.
I had begun working for Mr. Braff three weeks earlier. I was warned he tore through assistants quickly but I was grateful for the opportunity. I had the naive belief that my creative talents would somehow shine through and impress the big TV star, even though I was mostly just picking up salad orders.
He didn’t really even look at me until the fifth day, when I neglected to provide him a napkin with his Miso Salmon Caesar Salad. He nudged Neil Flynn, the actor who plays The Janitor, and pointed in my face.
“Look at this guy, he’s got to be our age. Why’s he bringing us salad?"
But I am only in my mid-thirties. My life has yet to begin.
“If we’re going to hire failed actors can’t we get one who isn’t [unwise]?” Braff said, laughing. He then mimed talking into a phone using his thumb and pinky. “Yes, hello? Could you send over a different old loser to bring us lunch? Maybe this one could have an I.Q. higher than his age?”
Neil Flynn had been studying the script and simply nodded in my direction and walked away, apparently used to these sudden comedic monologues from his costar. But I had to admit that Zach Braff still had the stuff, his improvised performance was as inspiring as it was humiliating.
Still, I felt the need to issue a correction.
“Actually, Zach, I’m not a failed actor. I’m a failed writer,” I said, smirking sheepishly and hoping to impress him with light-hearted banter.
I instantly transposed a fantasy over the previous scene and imagined it had been J.D. lovingly roasting a new doctor at Sacred Heart hospital; and so I tried to embody the type of plucky sad-sack that might fit into the Scrubs universe, or at least some other Bill Lawrence production.
Braff’s demeanor shifted as Neil Flynn left, his shoulders dropping as he returned his attention to the salad. He seemed to vibrate slightly.
“Somebody better get me a fucking napkin,” he said towards the floor in front of me. Clearly, I was not worth bantering with.
It was no surprise later when a production coordinator informed me that I had been fired. But the next day I received a call from Braff’s new assistant, Adina, who asked me to come by the set.
When I arrived she told me that in fact Mr. Braff wanted me to keep working for him, though my responsibilities would change slightly. From then on instead of picking up salads I would be the person who gets Mr. Braff his lunch napkin. This would be my sole duty. Also, I would not be getting paid. We would instead consider this an informal internship.
Given that the rest of my personal and professional life had imploded over the previous year and I had alienated all of my friends with industry connections, I decided to stick it out. It’s never too late to turn it all around.
So I spent the next week laying low on set, leaping into action only when I saw Adina heading Braff’s way with a salad. I would match her gait and smoothly hand her a napkin out of the tote I now carried, imagining I was handing an important briefing to an advisor on her way to see the president.
Braff would watch me do this and poke whoever was standing nearby and laugh. Which was exhilarating. My pathetic behavior had actually produced joy in the director of 2023’s A Good Person, starring Florence Pugh and Morgan Freeman. I was sure we would soon be friends.
One afternoon there was a break in filming and Adina told me the boss wanted to see me in the writers’ room. My heart was racing even before she grabbed my hand and gave it a quick pump, then sent me off with a wink. She had been rooting for me the whole time.
As I counted the steps to the writers’ room I imagined Adina once had a handsome older brother who died of an overdose, very sad, and she longed to see his thwarted potential redeemed in me. It was likely we would soon be lovers. But I promised myself I wouldn’t let our relationship get in the way of my career.
The smell of feces struck me as I entered the writers’ room and a step later I slipped and slid into the conference table, the corner smashing my nuts. Three sounds at once: barking, laughter and a pained howl coming from my own throat.
Zach Braff had just filmed me stepping on dog shit and was wiping tears from his eyes. I forced a smile, happy to play along. Bouncing off my shins were a Pomeranian, a Yorkshire Terrier and a Toy Poodle. I looked towards the door and saw that someone, perhaps Braff himself, had placed the small dogs’ small turds in a battle formation; anyone who entered not knowing about the trap would become its victim.
Realizing I was in a sacred place, I attempted to absorb the magic of the writers’ room despite the ridicule, the smell, the barking. I saw that the whiteboard, a place for story beats and character arcs, was blank.
“Where are the writers?” I asked.
“Unemployed,” he said, grinning. “We used ChatGPT.”
I suddenly felt like I was melting into a puddle of warm liquid, as if my being had lost the ability to maintain its form upon hearing this depressing revelation. But really it was just that one of the dogs was pissing on me.
Braff continued: “Oh we had a big enough budget to pay them, that wasn’t an issue. I just hate writers. If it were up to me they’d all be fucking dead.”
Unsure if he was joking, I attempted a chuckle, but he hit me with a palm strike to the gut that dropped me to my knees and sent the dogs scurrying with frightened whines. He then picked me up by the scruff and tossed me onto the table with the ease of someone shooing a fly.
I moaned in agony, holding my gut in one hand and rubbing my bruised spine with the other. I was afraid that in a moment Adina would enter the room, where she would laugh and hi-five Zach Braff, then the two of them would begin having sex on top of my broken body.
Braff leaned into my face. “Your weakness inspires me,” he said. “Come with me to Vegas.”
To be continued.