5 Essential Scrubs Episodes To Rewatch Before The Revival

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ABC’s delightful “Scrubs” revival has already been renewed for a second season — or an eleventh, depending on how you’re counting them. The show features the return of JD (Zach Braff), Turk (Donald Faison), and Elliot (Sarah Chalke) as main cast members, with major characters like Carla (Judy Reyes) and Dr. Cox (John C. McGinley) back for smaller, yet still meaningful roles.  

The revival is showrun by Aseem Batra — whose first TV writing job was on the original series — and features a new group of interns for the returning cast to mentor. “[Batra] grew up and stayed on the show; She and I really connected there,” said original “Scrubs” showrunner Bill Lawrence told Deadline. “I think the goal of [Season 10] was to not be a reboot, but a revival and to keep it going with the next wave of characters.”

You may not have time to completely watch the original series before checking out the revival, but there are a handful of episodes that definitely deserve a rewatch. These five episodes don’t cover everything you’ll need to know before heading back to Sacred Heart, but they’ll help refresh you on what makes the series so special.

Although “Scrubs” made it clear from the pilot it was more thoughtful than a typical sitcom, “My Old Lady” was the episode that showed how heavy the series could get. Season 1, Episode 4 centers around its three intern main characters each dealing with their new patient, with JD’s narration warning the viewer that one of the three patients will likely die. 

Showrunner Bill Lawrence revealed in the DVD audio commentary for the episode that NBC didn’t want the show to get as dark as “My Old Lady” did so early in the show’s run, but he committed to his vision for the story anyway. The fans loved its bold conclusion, even if it may have stung to watch, and it paved the way for more ambitious episodes to come.

The episode doesn’t just mark a key moment of maturation for its three main doctors, but shows a turning point in Elliot and Carla’s relationship. The two spend the first three episodes of the show feuding, but they start to become the close friends they are in the revival here. 

Often ranked high on lists of sitcom episodes that leave you in tears, this Emmy-nominated episode is best known for its twist ending. Screenwriter Neil Goldman had been worried that viewers wouldn’t understand the reveal, especially after an NBC executive’s wife reportedly found it too confusing. “I was reminded how important it was to us to have those clues in there, but for no one to be ahead of the twist,” he told the AV Club in 2013. 

The episode highlights the surprising depth of Dr. Cox, a character who cares deeply about those around him, despite his cold, sarcastic veneer. John C. McGinley listed “My Screw Up” as his favorite-ever episode of the show in a 2026 interview with Den of Geek. “That was a very ambitious half hour of television,” McGinley said. “That was a preposterously ambitious tone shift.” 

“My Screw Up” marks the final episode of the series to feature guest star Brendan Fraser, who plays Dr. Cox’s ex-brother-in-law Ben Sullivan. Ben is only in the show for three episodes, but he’s easily one of the sitcom’s most memorable minor characters, to the point where the revival is still referencing him over 20 years later. 

JD’s dynamic with his reluctant mentor, Dr. Cox, is one of the core relationships in “Scrubs.” “My Fallen Idol” explores a rare role reversal where JD must come to Cox’s rescue, culminating in perhaps the most meaningful conversation between them in the entire show. 

Although Dr. Cox is not in all of Season 10, he’s given a similarly weighty storyline in the season’s final episodes, and is expected to play an even bigger role in the next season. To fully appreciate what the revival’s doing with the older JD and Dr. Cox, it feels crucial to return to their most emotionally vulnerable storyline in the original. 

“My Fallen Idol” is also one of the clearest displays of showrunner Bill Lawrence’s love of the ’70s comedy-drama “M*A*S*H,” which he described on X as his “favorite show.” The episode’s format appears to be inspired by the Season 6 “M*A*S*H” episode, “Fallen Idol,” where Radar (Gary Burghoff) is similarly disillusioned with his mentor Hawkeye (Alan Alda), but comes through for him anyway. “I copied [“M*A*S*H”] for ‘Scrubs,'” Lawrence said. “It was my favorite show and I read all the novels.”

Bill Lawrence always wanted to do a musical episode, but held off until one of his writers discovered a real-life medical case where a patient started hearing everything in song form. “Obviously, they weren’t hearing an entire Broadway musical with singing and dancing, but for us in the world of ‘Scrubs,’ that works,” Lawrence told TV Guide in 2007. 

With help from some of the talent behind hit Broadway shows like “Avenue Q” and later “Book of Mormon,” Season 6, Episode 6 took advantage of the cast’s musical backgrounds to create one of the best TV musical episodes of all time. “The sixth season you can find yourself just going through the motions,” Zach Braff later told IGN about the episode, “and this really made us sort of come alive and really find a new energy in the set.” “My Musical” offered a perfect snapshot of all the characters’ relationships. If you want to understand JD and Turk’s friendship, for instance, rewatching their “Guy Love” song will tell you everything you need to know. 

Lawrence credited “M*A*S*H” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” for partially inspiring “My Musical,” noting that both shows pulled off at least one special, high-concept episode a season. “Every year we try to do one show that’s not the normal formula,” he explained. “We did a live-action sitcom once. We re-created ‘Sixth Sense’ with Brendan Fraser once. And I’d always said we will do a musical before the end.”

Not only does Season 8’s final two-parter give every main character a satisfying sendoff, it does a better job setting up where JD will be in the revival’s premiere than anything from Season 9. While the revival keeps some elements from the much-maligned ninth season, like the number of kids JD now has, most of Season 9 is ignored by Season 10, while everything in the Season 8 finale stays intact. 

As far as Bill Lawrence was concerned when it aired, “My Finale” is the true ending of the original run. “Even if the show goes on past this, it won’t be the same show,” he told Premium Hollywood. “After nine years, there’s no way that we wouldn’t get repetitive next year, so even if it does go on, this’ll feel like the end of ‘Scrubs.'”

“My Finale” also highlights how the original show changed by the end. Season 8 was the first to air on ABC instead on NBC; The change in networks coincided with a more serious tone. “I thought the show got a little broad in Seasons 6 and 7,” Lawrence said, “and this year, there’s been a lot of nice people saying, ‘Hey, it’s great, it feels like the show has returned to its real dramatic roots.'”