I'll never forget watching this show and thinking about pursuing a medical career. Here I am as a resident and I think about how I am happy I chose this field. Scrubs is still the most accurate TV medical show IMO.
Also want to mention that Turk and JD have one of the healthiest depictions of a straight male friendship on TV and one of the core emotional spines of the show. Even on a more mediocre Ep, their dynamic is always a high point
@@radhiadeedou8286 The fact you interpreted a comment about healthy friendships into a veiled slight of female relationships speaks volumes, given there was no mention of females here. Look into counseling.
Scrubs really was a special show. Even just seeing little clips of certain episodes makes me want to cry. They really handled death well and made so many of them feel real, if just for that week.
Regardless of how Elliot came off throughout the years, I’d argue she had the best character growth. From being socially awkward and spoiled by daddy, to a hot mess with incredibly low self-esteem, to a, to a neurotic control freak, to finally a confident sage and insightful attending physician was so great to see. It’s the perfect depiction of your 20s vs your 30s
My favorite episodes were when Clara was dealing with Postpartum depression in plain sight, and nobody could tell that an anything was different with her. It really threw light on high functioning mental disorders, something I was going through at that very moment and didn’t have words to explain it by.
I do wish that they explored the condition a little more. Having Jordan come in and share her experience was a good way to deal with it, as Turk couldnt quite connect with the way she was feeling. But then having it basically be all wrapped up after that scene like it was just cured was pretty sitcomy and unrealistic.
@@KotoCrashthe problem with sitcoms, they have to balance serious with the return to formula. Sitcoms can tell wonderful stories, but the genre also has walls that often box it on. Whether it's a choice of writers, execs, expectations of what the audience will accept, or a mix of all that
Brendan Fraser's guest staring was perfect. A lot of people like me who where watching the show also grew up watching Brenden Fraser star in all our favorite movies. We all knew and loved him, much like the characters in Scrubs knew and loved him in their own world. So when they lose him it felt like we lost him too. The internal torment of losing a loved one was able to reverberate in a lot of us viewers because we also had a connection to him.
The way they handled his death in his second appearance is still one of the most shocking and impactful twists for me personally that I've seen a TV show. I know they give more than a few hints, but I did not see it coming at all, and it hit me like a truck when it did. I was pretty emotionally distraught for quite awhile afterward, and it was definitely in large part because his character, and Brenden Fraser himself, are so likeable. It really felt like losing a friend, at least for a moment, while I processed what happened.
Scrubs was the first time i saw Brendan and he was the best. I grew up with scrubs every day after school i watched scrubs, his death every time i hear "winter" it breaks me. I love this show soo much
My favorite Janitor moment was in the first episode of the med school season. J.D. asks Turk what happened to the Janitor and a flashback shows him asking for J.D. the morning after the previous season's finale. When Turk tells him that J.D. is gone, the Janitor hands Turk his mop and walks away. Then Turk explains that a search of the records showed they had no janitor on staff matching his description.
I never caught that last bit about him not being on record. I was probably laughing too hard at the thought of this guy just walking off from a job because his torture muse had stopped working there.
My favorite Janitor scene is right after JD's dad passed away. JD goes to walk into the hospital & the Janitor moves out of the way & nods his head to him. It's subtle, but it humanizes the Janitor.
My favourite Janitor scenes are the ones where he trolls JD for suggesting he use the word 'mop' to finish a sentence as if being a janitor meant he couldn't think of anything else - 'Wahh, me can't eat soup!' will always have me rolling!
I will always remember Cox from one of the first episodes delivering a smackdown to JD for prematurely delivering good news to a patient's family. The patient ends up dying and JD has to go apologize to the family. Or something like that, it was really cool understanding that Cox isn't just a bully, but caring and passionate to a fault.
I think you're thinking of a later episode where Kelso tells Carla not to give the news too early (Not a dying patient but a burn victim going to graduation) In retrospect it actually would have made more sense as a Cox/JD story
@@KotoCrash Burn Victim going to Graduation, is about Eliot telling that to JD not to do so (Season 7 episode 6, I believe) Kelso telling Carla not to tell good news way too early, was to a Patient, that I, remember, was going to a Wedding, and once she told her patient, that they should keep him here, Kelso showed up and became a Good guy, in eyes of a Patient Kelso telling Eliot, not to bring hope to dying patient, resulted in not only Patient dying, but also in Kelso acknowledging Eliot as his Colleague (which doesn't matter, since he hates his Colleagues). Cox and JD situation, I am trying to remember where it was?
ok, going down through all "First episodes" (aka season 1) Episode 1 "My first day" - Dr. Cox just introduces himself, and the conflict isn't about delivering good news. Conflict is about JD literally trying to use a Syringe. Episode 2 "My mentor" - Dr Cox teaches JD, that he should not feel tourmented about every "Drunk, Drug addict, Smoker" and instead to deal with the fact, that he have to cure people, even if they return for the second time Episode 3 "My Best Friends mistake" - It is more focused on Turk and JD conflict, of him being not able to spend more time with him (plus him trying to Kiss Elliot within 48 hours) Episode 4 "My Old lady" - Episode about Three Patients dying. Cox is not part of the conflict, not to mention the fact, that it was JD patient decision to die. Episode 5 "My Two dads" - episode, where JD have to choose between being Dog of Kelso, or Bend rules like Cox Episode 6 "My Bad" - as a climax of Previous episode, Cox was temporarily fired, so JD tries to get him back and accidentally has sex with Cox ex wife Episode 7 "My super Ego" - conflict between JD and new guy, who is just better then him in every way. Episode 8 "My fifteen minutes" - Episode about Dr Cox teaching JD, about the fact, that he is not supposed to be the one, who finds good things about JD, but JD himself should find good things about himself (also episode about Turk being exploited as a Black Doctor) Episode 9 "My day off" - Episode where JD have to delete his Appendix, or he'll die. Epispde 10 "My nickname" - episode about Carla and JD, how he almost ruins their friendship Episode 11 "My own personal Jesus" - Episode about JD screwing up tape with birth of Cox friends child Episode 12 "My Blind date" - Episode about Cox having a Marathon of not dying patients, till start of a new day. Elliote helps him out on second half, since JD have to be with Alex (the lawyer girl) Episode 13 "My Balancing act" - about JD balancing love life with Work, and Cox pointing out, that JD idea of being like Him, is awful, because "Even he doesn't want to be himself" (I love this moment so much) Episode 14 "My Drug Buddy" - an episode about Cox becoming "friends" with Turk, and JD balancing between Eliot and Alex. Episode 15 "My Bed Banter and beyond" - about Eliot and JD hooking up and breaking up by the end of the episode. Episode 16 "My Heavy Meddle" - about Cox teaching JD to vent himself somehow Episode 17 "My new Student" - about JD becoming a Cox from first episode and trying to teach his incompetent fool of a student. Episode 18 "My Tuscaloosa heart" - about JD learning to appreciate even awful patients. Episode 19 "My old man" - episode about Parent issues. Episode 20 "My way on the Highway" - episode where Turk and JD fight Episode 21 "My Sacrificial claim" - episode where JD afraid of infections, because he recently got a Syringe with Possible Hepatitis C planted on his face. Episode 22 "My Occurance" - Episode about Ben Episode 23 "My hero" - episode about Ben, and Cox being scared of showing up if something goes wrong Episode 24 "My Last day" - episode where Turk Elliot and JD are trying to help an Oldman and are scared that they are becoming thing, they swore they wouldn't become
I just wanna add, in the Turk-Carla relationship part... One little thing that I find so sweet is that when everybody is fantasyzibg being married to Elliot, in Turk's fantasy he cheated her with Carla because he can only think about her that context.
This show literally carried me through Med school. I remember doing marathons and rewatches before hard exams, and low key looking up to the characters as role models. Now, after 3 years of covid and 2 years deep in my own residency I believe it is time for another go with it.
i'm at the start of m4 now and same!! i also remember the first time I was watching scrubs and started getting pimp questions on rounds right and knowing the answer, it really felt like something that used to just be jargon was starting to make sense and then I was really learning important stuff
The rabies episode ending just broke me when I first saw it. Not just the sorrow, but the out of control chaos of it, the camera shaking around the music with the fast pace.
I also wanted to chime in. Having Carla be such a strong figure in Scrubs encouraged me to be a nurse. I was honestly disgusted with Grey's Anatomy and other medical related shows in their descriptions of what nurses do. Scrubs, although not an amazingly accurate depiction of Healthcare, really got close with the relationship nurses have with doctors. Some episodes handled how death and the healthcare system effects its workers with such accuracy it is scary. Overall, I'm thankful this series was created so I can laugh one minute and cry the next. Thank you for covering this show, José. ❤
Scrubs' depiction of nurses as basically propping up what doctors and hospitals/clinics/practices are able to do, but for less money and less social cache, is so accurate (although IRL, way too many of them can be New Age types, or even anti-vaxxers. Also, if you're a chronically ill person, especially if you're also ND, you probably live in fear of pissing off the wrong nurse and ending up being labeled "uncooperative" or "noncompliant," and thus getting worse medical care and less attention than "well-behaved" patients). Of course, part of that is that I've come across a lot of doctors who basically don't have any skills other than medicine/their specialty in medicine, and sometimes not even in that. They literally aren't required to have any "soft" skills or bedside manner, or any skills outside pure medical knowledge (and again, sometimes not even that). So nurses have to cover for them, and supplement everything else that patients naturally need from their healthcare providers. Even the way nurses go on strike, when they have to, is really cool and reflects this; they don't technically withdraw their labor/stop taking care of patients, they just basically take over scheduling shifts and organizing patient care themselves, rather than it happening through the hospital's normal chain of command.
@@eriktatos As a nurse that is what I love about this new generation of doctors. Like sure there is still a hierarchy to practicing medicine but they dont just view nurses as underlings anymore. There's more of a team mentality with patient care now while still respecting everyone's role. Congrats on your residency!
@@sholem_bond I always want nurses to do most procedures. I've had a doctor struggle to take a blood test on a vein a nurse put a PVC in in under 10 seconds. Also nurses are sp much better at talking you through it.
This show honestly saved my life. I was going through a rough time, and this show was the only thing that brought a smile to me. Each night I would watch one episode, end my day on a high note, and go to sleep. It will hold a special place in my heart.
This show makes me so sad. Not only was the show tear wrenchingly heartbreaking to watch, but now It reminds me of the zeitgeist of the 2000s and the nostalgia is unbearable.
I'm a little disappointed you didn't mention Laverne (Nurse Roberts). The episode where she passed was a heartbreaker. (And it was nice to see her pop up as nurse Shirley when the series was renewed for another season.)
The video was already nearly two hours long - I wish there could have been more deep dives into lots of side characters, but I understand why there couldn't be. Maybe we'll get lucky and get a second part.
I’m a registered nurse in a non clinical setting and a coworker asked me once what working in a hospital setting was like. I told them to watch Scrubs. Still one of my favourite shows and surprisingly close to how hospitals actually work.
@@j.2512 get a life, man. I'm sorry you had a bad experience and can't get over it, but nobody needs to hear your irrational jaded ranting besides a therapist.
@@j.2512 You people are so triggered by that, it's so sad. In 2020, medical staff were put through ten times more stress and tragedy than your fragile ego can even handle, but fuck them for trying to find that little bit of joy in the day to help them handle things better. Did you even watch the damn video?
I have never donated to a TH-camr, but José continually brings high-quality, well- researched and well-written content. It’s a breath of fresh air that deserves support. Thank you!
What a beautiful walk through and analysis. Especially on Kelso and the system, it’s very easy to write him off as a one note character, but he has such nuances that really works so beautifully
The biggest takeaway I always took from scrubs is how much being silly or choosing to focus on the lighter side of life really makes the emotional heavy hitting moments hit so much harder. The show being primarily a comedy means that almost every time it delves into drama and pathos I'm so much more invested and more affected than in shows where it's all drama and tension every episode all episode long. To me, 10-20% drama and 80-90% comedy is a more effective drama than 80-90% drama and 10-20% comedy balance.
This show even in retrospective form still has a special talent for making me cry. Wasn’t expecting to cry during a Jose video but Scrubs just does that to me o guess. Scrubs holds a special place in my heart and is easily my favorite medical show of all time.
I swear…in a formative time in my life, this show taught me how to feel real emotions. Not just as a reaction to good or bad things, But just to truly feel big feelings that you have to sit with for a while and learn to have and carry with you.
Jordan gets a bad rap, but she's a take-no-shit fighter with ambition. She PUSHES Perry to improve. and she's RELENTLESS. she isnt just mean for no reason, she's a person who feels vulnerable when she isnt being on the attack, and her viciousness reflects that insecurity. Perry is the only person who sees this about her and this is the trade that makes their relationship works. Perry and Jordan's oppositional relationship is a bedrock for Perry because, like Jordan, he NEEDS opposition to function. he needs an antagonist and their relationship works because he loves Jordan and likes fighting with her in a way different from how he feels fighting Bob. it's not often you see relationships like this get coded as healthy, but i actually think they are really wholesome and cute together, and Kristen's performances as Jordan also consistently slap, of course.
there's a super characterizing moment for Jordan at the end of Season 1. Jordan comes to lunch and airs out the gang's dirty laundry. on its face this is super mean and aggro. and it totally is. but Jordan also forces everybody to be HONEST. and she is begrudged for it. and she never gets a redemption arc because she doesnt need it. she's really mean but it isnt just pointless and antisocial. her meanness, at its best, is actually productive and pro-social, and often serves to shatter the ego-driven grandeur threatening to ruin things for everyone. and she didnt even exclude herself. her big reveal when she stirs things up includes outing her indiscretion with JD to Perry. this is a scary thing to do, but her mean is her armor and makes her confident enough to risk her already-tenuous relationship for the benefit of JD and Cox's own relationship. this moment of chaos is caused by Jordan's HONESTY and i think that's something important in a show where so much of the runtime is taken up with fantasy. Jordan is a harbinger of reality and truth.
@@HadalStreetlights Came here to say basically this without as much detail. It's a totally annoying trope that male characters can be a hard-ass with a heart of gold, while female characters are just a hard-ass, and it's one that replicates itself in real life too. I've lost count of the times in my life a female manager has taken over from a male manager, are no better or worse than the previous manager in the way they go about their job but get called a bitch constantly. And then it's doubly annoying that progressive fans of the show compound it with lines like "She's a witch, with a capital B". See also: Walter and Skylar.
@@bulletproofblouse i think there's a bit at the end where José talks about how important fantasies are as a coping mechanism and i think it should be expanded on a little here because i think Jordan represents such a grounded character. her attitude surrounding honesty represents a counterpoint against fantasy. that even though reality can seem cruel and uncaring, ultimately it just is what it is, and it has its own appeal to! the conflict between reality and fantasy isnt one that should be 'won.' Jordan is a super cool character and, like Cuddy from House, or Irene Adler from Sherlock Holmes (not BBC tho) is a genuine foil to our character Bob-Perry-JD chain. makes me think about Enid-Jordan-Eliot possibly being an analog but im not sure.
@@HadalStreetlights decidedly agreed. Most often "I'm just being honest" is just a cover for petty meannes. But for Jordan "I'm just being mean" is a cover for honesty. She's also my fave character.
Glenn Matthews was my inspiration for going into the handyman/janitorial professions. He was anonymous, yet held a considerable amount of power behind the scenes. His comedy certainly bled into my own, somewhere between zany and dark. And Neil Flynn showed to me that even a "bit part" character can have long lasting impacts on a series. Dr. Jan Itor, I salute you.
mad respect. custodians, cleaners, maintenance people, and janitors do not get as much clout and consideration as they deserve, despite their unions, and for jobs frequently cast as "undesirable" they are absolutely critical to so many of the places they operate. schools, hospitals, research facilities, etc, these places NEED yall. your service to them is invaluable and without you, we would suffer plague and misfortune. youre like the editors of real life. correcting issues and errors, cleaning things up, and improving things behind the scenes like real heroes who dont get the spotlight, but are the reason the show is pulled off without hitch.
I always appreciate how compassionate this series was. It managed to stay goofy while being much more emotionally impactful than 'serious' television like Greg's Anatomy and Private Practice.
The episode where Cox loses patient after patient after patient and he just explodes is probably one of the best of the series; the scene was just so.... It just felt so fucking raw.
I watched that episode in 2009, and for the whole year whenever the song "How to Save a Life" came up I just started crying. It played once in Borders, a now-defunct bookstore, and I just had to run out.
@@toanoradian It's a phenomenal scene that I just a couple days ago went back and watched again and to me, what makes the scene is Carla looking absolutely helpless for the first time possibly in her life as she watches someone who she possibly sees as a father just absolutely collapse.
@@DiegoAlvarezBeltran1993. That's a mostly real reaction btw, John improvised that and only told Judy right before they filmed so that she wouldn't get hurt
The only thing i feel is bad about it is how quickly they resolve the situation. Having some lasting impact on cox, and for instance, having him out of his job for the rest of the season or the likes, would have made the whole situation much more impactful
I don't even know how many times I felt myself tearing up throughout this video. Just seeing so many of these brief clips brings back all the emotion I felt back when I first watched the show. So many moments... but the Brendan Fraser episode absolutely devastated me when it first aired. Just a blubbering mess on the couch next to my wife (then girlfriend).
I lost my wife three years ago and have re-watched Scrubs since then. That episode destroyed me. And even here, just hearing it talked about had me crying again. It is such a gut-wrenching set of scenes.
Hell I couldn’t stop either in fact I didn’t lol it felt like reuniting with old friends and remembering their ups and downs, this show really is special
The whole brendan frazier arc in the show makes me cry every time; it was so well written. I didn't start watching it until I had joined the Air Force as a medic, and the whole feel of it has captivated me ever since. I don't rewatch shows often, but I've probably seen every episode a good five times.
My mom loved this show. She was BSN and met my dad when he was a resident. She always said it captured the feel of their first few years. She's gone now, but my dad is a mix of Dr. Kelso and Dr. Cox. Last weekend reminded me of why I am so proud of him: I overheard him figuring out work arounds to keep Blue Cross from denying patients treatment. I know he's a great doctor, but it's his work as an administrator that does the most good. Most rural hospitals struggle to make ends meet, but he helped his make the right investments. As Chief of Medicine, he oversaw the planning and construction of a new hospital, and set them up so that the hospital is donating a new field house to the city. I was lucky to have two great parents.
@@saraa.4295 bachelor of science in nursing. It's the highest level of nurse other than nurse anesthetist or nurse practitioners. In military terms, they would be your NCOs: leading the registered nurses and CNAs. My sister is a BSN, and my brother was one before he went to medical school (he's now an ER doctor).
I remember watching this show when I was younger. My dad and I loved it and never missed an episode. I loved it, but didn’t have any desire to step into the medical field. Then Dr. Clock, the psychiatrist, came in and I fell in love with the idea of psychiatry. I’m now a licensed clinical mental health counselor and start my doctorate in June 2023!
Where Scrubs stood out was in how quickly it could take you from laughing to crying, in a second. I still haven't found another series that does it so well.
The episode/arc where Cox loses three patients due to bad transplants is one of the single greatest depictions of male grief in media. The ways the other characters try to console, distract, comfort etc. and his utter refusal to be moved by it is so damn affecting. Love this show. Can make you belly laugh and ugly-cry within minutes of each other
I've been a nurse for 12 years... This show changed my life. I think I've watched the entire series through 3 times. The healthcare field is hard to stick with thanks to our system. 💕 Even these clips still make me tear up.
I always believed Janitor was actually the CEO of the hospital doing an undercover boss scheme, not for PR hype, but rather, to actually make sure his hospital is staying true to its purpose and the doctors keep their oaths.
It would explain just why Kelso let him get away with all the shit he pulled... (assuming Kelso and then maybe later Cox were the only ones who knew) And I could see it being something the janitor would do... OK its now my head canon.
@@Cheesusful Yeah, but I hate to rain on the parade with that... but remember one of the first things Maddox did when she came to Sacred Heart.. she fired him.
This is my favorite sitcom ever, I watched it all throughout the "8" Seasons of the show. Lots of happy and sad tears taught me as a guy that is okay to show your friends affection which in turn saved the life of a friend of mine as it stopped him from committing suicide. Great show, and taught me many life lessons. Thanks, Jose for covering it.
I really loved Perry. I liked his friendship with Carla - he was a little softer with her than the others. Though the loving antagonism he had with Jordan was freaking great! The way he guided JD but in an... unconventional?... way, was cool. JD just worshipped him which was warranted as we saw how caring of a physician he truly was.
@@Xondar11223344 my mom is a nurse and out of all doctors she'd worked with, the most skilled and knowledgeable ones treated her the best, so you might be onto something here
Even having watched the series over and over, even with the added layer of separation afforded by this being a review/retrospective, even knowing full well EXACTLY how the second episode with Ben ends, JD's question to Cox and Cox turning around STILL gets me choked up and teary eyed. I can't think of another example of anything, in any media, that produces such a repeatable and powerful response. Truly incredible television.
One of the funniest lines of the show was when Dr Cox said something like "I spent the last week sitting on my couch trying to drink myself to death in hopes that I would be reunited with my 3 victims in the afterlife so they could get the revenge they deserve."
I think mine is when Kelso neets Coxs son. "Hey there lil'slugger, howre you?" "Your face is wrinkly!" "Oh yeah? Well that shirt youre wearing is gay" *Walks away smiling*
This show really was a lot to witness happen. Between JDs constant fantasies and the bond between him and Turk. The deep relationships and constant juxtaposition of comedy but also realness. Everybody played their roles to a T. Losing characters like Laverne really hurt……God..I feel a binge watch coming
I didn't watch Scrubs when it was airing (wrote it off as a silly comedy show -- boy was i wrong). When House MD ended, i found myself craving more medical shows and i decided to binge watch all of Scrubs. Its now one of my favorite shows of all time. This retrospective really covers a lot of why i loved the show: that balance between conedy and medical drama, the characters and the dynamics between them all. Youve gained another new subscriber. Excellent work!
1:37 You're not kidding that the one-camera perspective has incredible dramatic power. Just seeing that shot of JD sitting at Mrs. Tanner's bedside makes me tear up. Scrubs is so much more than a wonderful comedy, but a wonderful comedy it surely is. (Edit: after watching the entirety of this video, I can confirm that I sobbed a whole lot throughout the video because holy fuck, Scrubs is a powerful show)
Right? He managed to show so many of the strongest, most emotional scenes Scrubs had. How near laughter and tears were in this show, how we watched them mature and develop as we ourselves did, what powerful and perfectly fitting music choices* they made, the love for the detail all over the series and their phenomenal finale. Scrubs is just great. (*Overkill, How to safe a life, Winter, Book of love, Hey ya, Rollercoaster, Light and Day, Good Life)
@@Vracka i play overkill almost daily thanks to this show Josh radin the song's writer was a friend of zach and the song was an almost last minute addition
1 - Thanks! 2 - It's all about picking shows with chill distributors. And on occasion some behind the scenes stuff I'm not silly enough to leave in a TH-cam comment.
I've never watched this show and I vaguely knew about it. Yet you made me sob twice during this video. Thank you for another great one, José. Much love from Latin America.
What i love about the janitor is a joke they did in the german version: When he pretends to be the chief of the hospital and gives out his name the translation of janitor to Hausmeister comes in handy. Haus means House and Meister means Master. So he was introducing himself as doctor house... master (Haus... Meister). The reference it is now, is a fun little joke imo.
Glad to see that pun didn't get lost in translation for the overseas dubs! In the original English, he introduces himself as Dr. Jan Itor, pronounced as if it were a German name.
Scrubs is honestly such a long & dense text that for me this video recontextualizes how much work your previous sitcom analysis videos have been. As a Jordan fan, I would have maybe liked to see some attention to the conversation Jordan & Carla had abt postpartum depression. It gives a lot of context for Carla's personal struggles & humanizes Jordan w/o removing her bitchy persona. It's also a rare moment of maternal solidarity that is rarely depicted in mainstream media. But also, this video is plenty long & I understand why one wouldn't want to address that in this format. Overall, great video. Thank you. Michael-Giuliana (they/them)
Thanks for mentioning that. I remember noting and appreciating that when I was watching the series, but couldn't find a place for it in the video. I'm glad you brought it up though.
I was just thinking that after my recent rewatch! Jordan had so much going on for her in the earlier seasons. It really felt like the writers reduced her lines in later seasons to be just, "I'm bored", "I don't care about any of this." She was a big favorite of mine as well.
That mysterious blue jay guy just can’t seem to miss with these insightful sitcom retrospectives. So insightful, this was as good as a rewatch for me but in a fraction of the time. I actually missed the later seasons because in Australia the free to air network that had the fist run broadcast rights decided to shaft it after the first three or so seasons by shoving it off to a later, more inconvenient time to watch to accommodate some hot new show they figured would generate excitement and increased ratings. Broadcast tv in the early two thousands was kinda shitty over here and ya had to be pretty dedicated to be recording all the good stuff that got shunted off into the late night graveyard. Strangely friends and frasier were allowed to remain in prime time all the way to their finale but shows like scrubs, futurama, that seventies show, arrested development and many others weren’t so lucky. Anyway retrospectives like this help me to understand what I missed out on and everything before season 9 looks worth my time and I’ll get around to watching it in full someday. But in this streaming age we live in there is an ocean of content out there to consume and only so many hours in the day.
I think the best single scene in Scrubs, is when doctor Cox loses his third patient to rabies from the transplant he authorised. He’s sat with JD, and the pager goes off… the whole scene looks normal. And then the switch. The camera style changes to a handheld, shakycam. The lighting is different. We get close ups of peoples faces, and action, everything’s moving, Cox gets angry, and starts punching the equipment… and then it slows down as the horrible weight of what’s happened is revealed, and we’re left with Cox sat there, angry, emotional… It’s perfect. It’s the perfect switch. It was handled so well, and it makes me cry every single time. Even hearing How To Save A Life can get me teary sometimes.
Yeah, me too. In fact, the second the song that plays when they enter the cemetery (Winter by Joshua Radin) is playing anywhere I'm tearing up. Definitely my favorite episode of Scrubs.
was tearing up just from you mentioning my old lady, the Ben episodes, and my fallen idol, let alone the finale. scrubs is still my favourite show all these years later, thanks for putting out this retrospective and taking me through it again ☺️
I adore Carla, she reminds me so much of my sister who is also in the medical field. The postpartum storyline really got to me because Judy really wanted to be a mother and yet she still dealt with anxiety and depression postpartum. Also Judy Reyes identfies as a Black latina and Black latinas rarely represent us in media.
Thanks for pointing it out she is Dominican which is also where I'm from too.There are many races in Latino culture. Black people are not a monolith either. They are in a intercultural relationship which is really nice to see for that time in television when I was a kid.🇩🇴 But this was an insightful video
I was never a huge Scrubs fan when it was on air, but now that I've been a nurse for 10 years it's hard to watch. Not because it's bad, but honestly because in a lot of ways it's too good. The emotional lows the shows takes you too sometimes is just too real for me. I had to watch this video in a few parts just because a few of the moments in it hit a little too close to home. That final bit in particular was tough. I worked in an ICU that handled heart transplant patients and I saw that exact scenario play out more times than I can count.
I couldn’t watch it after starting practice for similar reasons, seeing tough moments I experienced in real life was too hard. Indeed although Jose didn’t mention this moment the death of Nurse Roberts would now be the hardest. Loosing a colleague, it’s just the worst.
Janitor predicting where Bin Laden was hiding is truly a poetic bit of serendipity, since part of the character's shtick is being uncannily prescient and clever despite being incredibly strange. The writers really stumbled into a good character moment there completely by accident, years ahead of time.
I’m sorry I missed this video when you first made it, but I just wanna say thanks for doing so. I don’t think I ever missed an episode of this show growing up, and I remember even rooting for the season 9 spin-off to go well, or get better because I didn’t want to see the show come to an end. Even when most of the stories have been told, and it’s always better to go out with a shout, rather than a whimper. But the fact that you mentioned there could be a movie, or a reboot with the original cast would be fantastic, and I hope it’s still a possibility even after the writers strike occurred! Anyways thanks again for the great content!
Found this in my recommendations after looking up various clips, You really put a lot of thought and care into this retrospective, I love this show and I am currently on season 3 of my first rewatch of the show. The actors are phenomenal, and it balances comedy and drama so damn well.
Whelp I ended up crying four times listening to this as I drove around running errands today. Touching base on some of the most heartwarming episodes was one thing, however Jose I must say, your eloquence and prose you put into these retrospectives is truly something magical. You are a gift to the internet
I have loved all of your sitcom retrospectives but this retrospective on Scrubs hits incredibly close to home for me I was the biggest fan of the show when I was a teenager and I forget just how hard the show hits at times
for me Scrubs was the comedy show that used songs effectively and abundantly. it had so many songs i filled my MP3 player playlist with just the songs used in the show. combined with the themes and songs made for the show there was just so many moods to be had every episode the likes of which i haven't experienced in another sitcom yet.
Yes, I remember it shaping my musical taste in my early teens and same kind of music is continually used in Garden State as well. If I am not misremembering things, Zach Braff kind of helped the show get good but not expensive indie songs. I think the creator of this video rewatched the show in one of the streaming services and he did not realize that most of those good songs were removed from the series because of licencing aggreements coming to an end. The DVD version of the series should have the original songs if you guys watched it when it was first aired. Or that he is not a fan of indie music, because I don't think the music in the show is an afterthought, it is one of the main selling points.
Scrubs holds a special place in my heart. More than any other piece of fiction, it made me develop a deep respect and appreciation for anyone involved in medicine. It somehow remains, simultaneously, the funniest, most accurate, and hardest hitting medical show ever aired (at least for me)
I remember loving the show, but frankly, really didn't enjoy it as much as I used to when I rewatched it recently. Good lord were the writers horny af. XD
1:14:42 the biggest part about this is JD intentionally leaves out “that aren’t your fault” because it really was Dr. Cox’ fault that those 3 other patients died, even if it wasn’t intentional. It could’ve broken him really, especially after he was the one who gave that advice
I dunno about that. IRL, they’d have all been at separate specialized facilities instead of one hospital, but say they were all there. They were hours away from death and the test for rabies is over 99% negative. Usually, you run that test and the patient dies and you’re on the hook for wasting time and medical resources. It was just a bizarre and horrible coincidence. Something similar happened IRL and it was big news, because it was just so unlikely.
I don't agree that it was his fault. You make every decision with the information you have at the time. If there was something you couldn't have known about that then influenced that decision's outcome, that outcome isn't your fault, even if it's still your responsibility to handle the fallout. There was nothing Cox arguably did wrong. Ideally, he could have waited to get the autopsy back before doing the transplants, but if he had, then at least some of the patients would still have died (waiting for the new organs they needed that weren't available until the autopsy was done). 9 times out of 10, waiting and denying people life-saving transplants (a time-sensitive decision to make) would seem like a worse decision, than doing the transplants ASAP if you have the organs and no reason to believe the donor died of anything infectious/toxic. I don't know/remember enough statistics to be able to say "yeah it was indefensibly risky to do the transplants before the autopsy came back" or "no, most of the time there's no issue with cases like this and it would turn out fine to rush to the transplants." But it's definitely an understandable call for anyone to make, especially since most people don't know or care to do the odds on either option's chance of success.
Oh hey finally one of these on a series I've actually watched... Start to finish... Four times. It was a fantastic video, and I appreciated the more thematically focused structure. Especially for a show with such a focus on it's emotionally resonant themes. One thing I'd like to mention that I actually really appreciated about the show was the 2 episodes in season 3 with Dr. Kevin Casey, Michael J Fox's character, as a doctor with severe OCD that depicted the condition honestly, especially as a person with very few OCD themes around contamination, which is usually the only kind of OCD themes that get depicted. (And never well) I adore his introduction, having to reenter the hospital over and over to fulfill some deeply frustrated need you know absolutely no one in the room will get and making a joke about it so everyone finally stops looking at you like you're as crazy as you are. Particularly, I think it touches me because every single other depiction I've seen focuses on the very external element of rituals because that's how it affects and inconveniences the lives of other people. And scrubs initially presents it this way, with Dr. Casey being quirky and making a big joke of all the little nonsense things he has to do, at one point almost making it out to be a superpower that he knows every single page of every medical textbook he's read. But the mask eventually comes off when JD walks in on him still stuck scrubbing out 2 hours after surgery, screaming and broken in a way that a person can only be after two hours of fight or flight against phantoms, and tells JD "This is a weak moment, nobody's supposed to see this" and it puts into grim context all the little jokes earlier in the episode. His rituals are only quirky and funny because he puts an enormous amount of energy into presenting them that way. He knows every page in the medical textbook because he'd have to read and reread every single page probably for hours before he could move on. It's not perfect, I have a lot of criticisms, but it means a lot to me.
I love Turk and JD’s friendship! When you were talking about the bromance I was reminded of psych and it’s such a good show so I would love to see you review it!
Here I am, 45 minutes into ANOTHER retrospective about a show I've never seen.......feeling like no time has passed, enjoying every second of it. Fantastic video, yet again!!!! *Really hping to eventually see "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia", "Arrested Development", or maybe even "Veep" get the Jose treatment one day!?!? Until then, I'll happily watch whatever he puts out.
You should really get Scrubs a shot. It’s more silly than other contemporary hospital shows, but it’s easily the best. Even better than Gray’s Anatomy and House MD imo
@@4X4StudiosHR Hey you made the comparison! I was just agreeing that it was great. The fact that we still talk about having a "house moment" is testament to that. I liked Scrubs too. I'm enjoying this retrospective.
When I was going through a rough patch I bought the first season on DVD and watched it through, my best friend helped me "acquire" the rest and became addicted to it himself, Dr. Cox in particular. This show became a staple background show when we would hang out, usually watching this in between bouts of gaming, or while playing poker which we were obsessed with at the time. He got into it in time to catch the series end and after we started it from the beginning again. He passed away during the chaos of the last couple years, and this was a very nice and very emotional visit to my past that I had been avoiding, but needed. I haven't been ready to watch the show again, knowing it would destroy me, but this was the right dose.
This is one of the best shows ever. Shockingly accurate as well, I remember when my wife went in for her emergency C-section the sergeant started playing Dancing Queen by ABBA, when my wife said I didn't expect them to be playing music in there I said You've seen shrubs they're always jamming in the operation room. To me and my wife our daughter will always be our dancing queen. She still loves music almost 7 years later.
Ok, I let the autoplay run while I was cooking and listening to some video essays, and ended up watching with interest more than an hour and a half of an analysis of a show I haven't ever watched a single minute of. And maybe you have just convinced me to watch Scrubs.
46:10 While I see your point on color blindness, I do think it's also important to consider escapism. Marginalized groups of people don't always like being reminded of their struggles with discrimination and predjudice every time they are featured in something. There are other ways to acknowledge race such as cultural differences, but I don't think it's inherently as cut and dry as "this show doesn't tackle racism so it must be trying to make white audiences comfortable."
This is something I've been struggling with a lot. I'm an artist and trying to write Comic and I want the cast to be super diverse. Mainly focusing on moving away from the "default" setting of having an almost all white cast and one or two token poc. And while I already have all the characters I constantly think about how to do them justice. As a white person the experiences of racism and discrimination aren't my story to tell and I silmutaneously don't want to take away from poc sharing their culture. So I'm constantly thinking about having the story be completely removed from color and/or only occassionally sprinkling in some aspects of culture (though that latter part is also difficult sonce there are so little authentic sources to pull from).
@@frauleinzuckerguss1906if you're still working on it, I recommend checking out Writing with Color. It has Q and A writing advice from people of color. It's a pretty good resource.
I grew up with episodes of scrubs on in the background but I never really saw more than a few episodes at a time. As a kid I liked the gags but the more emotional side of the show never really got through to me. Damn, now I have another show to watch. Thanks for the amazing video.
Scrubs is unique in that it is literally the only show I can think of where the emotional beats land with me as hard the 15th time I see them as they did the first. I haven't the faintest idea why since I have absolutely no connection to the characters or the setting but every time the show goes in for the heart strings it works perfectly for me.
Thank you, José, for making this beautiful video about my, and so many other's favorite show - You really reminded me of why I love Scrubs so much. The show really hit home in a very personal way for so many viewers and you dissect the key elements as to why perfectly. The people that worked on the show (even season 9) really are heroes because of what they created and how big of a positive impact the show has had, and still has, on all of us.
Out of all TH-cam creators you probably do the second best retrospectives. No dis, that's a high bar. So many people just give a synopsis with no real look or analysis of the show. You're doing a great job, keep it up.
Colin Hay's song "Waiting for My Real Life to Begin", was used and performed brilliantly in Scrubs. It was a highlight in a show full of highlights. Mr Hay had a few other songs in Scrubs too. A great songwriter. Thanks for the excellent retrospective on this wonderful show, José.
This was a great watch! I loved Scrubs and still do and it was such a pleasure to have this summary. I was too young to grasp the complexity of the hospital dynamics that you brought up especially between Cox and Kelso, but I now appreciate it. And I even more appreciate the genius of the show; it being able to portray humor and such dire situations all in one. Thank you so much for this!
Scrubs really shaped me as a late teen (17-19) when I watched the entire series. I've seen it all so many times now that I know all of them by heart. I'm pretty sure I learned a lot from watching it at a formative age. It was never perfect as you point out wonderfully. Watching is always brings me back to a safe little cocoon for a little while, a reminder of a time when I was still young enough to see the world through the lens of a sitcom like this. My Bed, Banter and Beyond is one of my all-time favorite episodes.
The music on Scrubs has always been one of my favorite parts of the show. When Elliot and JD hook up before Elliot's wedding and Say Anything's "Alive With The Glory of Love" plays... That was the moment that introduced me to my favorite band. A fact I didn't even realize until I was doing a rewatch of the show several years later. Scrubs has always been one of those shows I go back to and I was glad I did another rewatch late last year. The finale of the 8th season was such a great episode that I missed in the past when I would rewatch it, and I'm glad I finished the show out this time.
"JOSE: "There's also the beloved musical episode, which introduced the world to the very special song..." ME: "Everything comes down to poop?" JOSE: " Guy love" ME: "Dang, that wasn't even my second guess...."
When Scrubs ended, I was in my last year of university I remember watching that episode, and the ending really hit me. I wasn't studying to be a doctor, but seeing JD envisioning his future, made me, for the first time in my life, realize that after uni was finished, I had the same things to look forward to. It made me really excited about what life had in store for me. Also, Peter Gabriel's Book of Love is still a banger!
As the daughter of a doctor (not from the US though): I must say that the matter of "medicine being run like a business" is very true both today and in other countries of the world. Even though my father is a doctor in a country that provides its citizens with welfare services (including health services), he still often has to fight the system in order to provide treatment. He has the option to earn much more money and work much less, through the provision of private medical services, Al is not willing to do this in principle. He believes that his patients and their families go through enough difficulties and do not have to deal with a greater financial burden than they already have to deal with, as well as longer waiting times for consultations and service provision from him. He is truly and forever my hero. But - it takes all his time and attention. The number of important moments in which he was not present is innumerable, The number of times I didn't see him for whole days when we lived in the same house because he would leave early in the morning before the rest of the family woke up and come back at night when we were all already asleep, And his never-ending exhaustion after long and hard years of non-stop work to help people... He is an amazing doctor, an amazing person and an amazing father - and I appreciate him and love him deeply. I had some sort of mental breaking point when I noticed how much he missed out on from his personal life in order to help other people. How many hobbies he never expanded on, how many places he never visited, how many friends he didn't have time to meet with and how much calm, peace and pleasure he consciously sacrificed in order to help people. This is only the tip of the iceberg - but my point is that there is a lot of nuance to the medical profession and in my opinion there should be even more appreciation for what the people of the medical world sacrifice, deal with and do for us.
This bought back so many memories, i used to watch scrubs every week, had all the dvd sets,it was me and my late wife's comfort show,for that reason i've not been able to face a proper rewatch,but it'll always hold a special place in my heart, thank you for the great video!
I'll never forget watching this show and thinking about pursuing a medical career. Here I am as a resident and I think about how I am happy I chose this field. Scrubs is still the most accurate TV medical show IMO.
Seconded!
Same but now I’m the janitor
@@davyjones2994 I put it there.
*I* put the penny in there!
Big mood. Now in residency and feelin' like Scrubs has aged like the finest wine.
I loved Scrubs. An Ex of mine preferred Greys Anatomy. She's currently on track for med school 😂
Also want to mention that Turk and JD have one of the healthiest depictions of a straight male friendship on TV and one of the core emotional spines of the show. Even on a more mediocre Ep, their dynamic is always a high point
Why is depicting a male friendship like a female friendship healthy?
@@radhiadeedou8286 You may be too young to understand this.
@@radhiadeedou8286 The fact you interpreted a comment about healthy friendships into a veiled slight of female relationships speaks volumes, given there was no mention of females here. Look into counseling.
It's just Guy love, between two guys...
@@radhiadeedou8286because you're so secure in your sexuality that you can love a man that hard and it's straight.
Scrubs really was a special show. Even just seeing little clips of certain episodes makes me want to cry. They really handled death well and made so many of them feel real, if just for that week.
That one where Cox trashes a room in front of Carla after losing a patient... Man, that broke me. I still think of it to this day, it was SO raw.
agreed this show was not only funny, but really emotional and educational.
@@butHomeisNowhere___ just the song How to Save a Life is enough to remind me of that episode and make me sad, it never fails.
I did cry when Cox said "he wasn't about to die". That scene hits so hard.
The last season is a mixed bag, but the episode where JD and Turk stay up all night with a dying patient is one of the highlights of the entire run
Regardless of how Elliot came off throughout the years, I’d argue she had the best character growth. From being socially awkward and spoiled by daddy, to a hot mess with incredibly low self-esteem, to a, to a neurotic control freak, to finally a confident sage and insightful attending physician was so great to see.
It’s the perfect depiction of your 20s vs your 30s
yess
She literally said to an obese man that it was his fault he had to be sent to the zoo for an MRI.
She was my least favorite of the main core cast because I saw myself in her as the low self esteem one. Ugh.
She's the absolute worse. She's the only character that doesn't get any repercussions for the shitty stuff she does
@@haleymist09 Lmao
"Where do you think you are?"
That gutted all of us.
it still hits
My favorite episodes were when Clara was dealing with Postpartum depression in plain sight, and nobody could tell that an anything was different with her.
It really threw light on high functioning mental disorders, something I was going through at that very moment and didn’t have words to explain it by.
I do wish that they explored the condition a little more. Having Jordan come in and share her experience was a good way to deal with it, as Turk couldnt quite connect with the way she was feeling. But then having it basically be all wrapped up after that scene like it was just cured was pretty sitcomy and unrealistic.
@@KotoCrashthe problem with sitcoms, they have to balance serious with the return to formula.
Sitcoms can tell wonderful stories, but the genre also has walls that often box it on. Whether it's a choice of writers, execs, expectations of what the audience will accept, or a mix of all that
carla?
Brendan Fraser's guest staring was perfect. A lot of people like me who where watching the show also grew up watching Brenden Fraser star in all our favorite movies. We all knew and loved him, much like the characters in Scrubs knew and loved him in their own world. So when they lose him it felt like we lost him too. The internal torment of losing a loved one was able to reverberate in a lot of us viewers because we also had a connection to him.
That scene of Cox coming to terms with the loss, sticks with me...and I feel like that losing people close to me...
Loved what they did with his death plot-wise, it still hits so hard upon the third rewatch as it did the first time around
The way they handled his death in his second appearance is still one of the most shocking and impactful twists for me personally that I've seen a TV show. I know they give more than a few hints, but I did not see it coming at all, and it hit me like a truck when it did.
I was pretty emotionally distraught for quite awhile afterward, and it was definitely in large part because his character, and Brenden Fraser himself, are so likeable. It really felt like losing a friend, at least for a moment, while I processed what happened.
Scrubs was the first time i saw Brendan and he was the best. I grew up with scrubs every day after school i watched scrubs, his death every time i hear "winter" it breaks me. I love this show soo much
Where do you think we are?
My favorite Janitor moment was in the first episode of the med school season. J.D. asks Turk what happened to the Janitor and a flashback shows him asking for J.D. the morning after the previous season's finale. When Turk tells him that J.D. is gone, the Janitor hands Turk his mop and walks away. Then Turk explains that a search of the records showed they had no janitor on staff matching his description.
I never caught that last bit about him not being on record. I was probably laughing too hard at the thought of this guy just walking off from a job because his torture muse had stopped working there.
Thats hillarious
My favorite Janitor scene is right after JD's dad passed away. JD goes to walk into the hospital & the Janitor moves out of the way & nods his head to him. It's subtle, but it humanizes the Janitor.
The address the hospital had for him was 1313 Mockingbird lane
My favourite Janitor scenes are the ones where he trolls JD for suggesting he use the word 'mop' to finish a sentence as if being a janitor meant he couldn't think of anything else - 'Wahh, me can't eat soup!' will always have me rolling!
I will always remember Cox from one of the first episodes delivering a smackdown to JD for prematurely delivering good news to a patient's family. The patient ends up dying and JD has to go apologize to the family. Or something like that, it was really cool understanding that Cox isn't just a bully, but caring and passionate to a fault.
Dr. Cox has a very specific way of showing tough love, and his circle is only the people who see that (JD, Jordan, Carla, etc)
I think you're thinking of a later episode where Kelso tells Carla not to give the news too early (Not a dying patient but a burn victim going to graduation)
In retrospect it actually would have made more sense as a Cox/JD story
@@KotoCrash you're both right. Both things happened.
@@KotoCrash Burn Victim going to Graduation, is about Eliot telling that to JD not to do so (Season 7 episode 6, I believe)
Kelso telling Carla not to tell good news way too early, was to a Patient, that I, remember, was going to a Wedding, and once she told her patient, that they should keep him here, Kelso showed up and became a Good guy, in eyes of a Patient
Kelso telling Eliot, not to bring hope to dying patient, resulted in not only Patient dying, but also in Kelso acknowledging Eliot as his Colleague (which doesn't matter, since he hates his Colleagues).
Cox and JD situation, I am trying to remember where it was?
ok, going down through all "First episodes" (aka season 1)
Episode 1 "My first day" - Dr. Cox just introduces himself, and the conflict isn't about delivering good news. Conflict is about JD literally trying to use a Syringe.
Episode 2 "My mentor" - Dr Cox teaches JD, that he should not feel tourmented about every "Drunk, Drug addict, Smoker" and instead to deal with the fact, that he have to cure people, even if they return for the second time
Episode 3 "My Best Friends mistake" - It is more focused on Turk and JD conflict, of him being not able to spend more time with him (plus him trying to Kiss Elliot within 48 hours)
Episode 4 "My Old lady" - Episode about Three Patients dying. Cox is not part of the conflict, not to mention the fact, that it was JD patient decision to die.
Episode 5 "My Two dads" - episode, where JD have to choose between being Dog of Kelso, or Bend rules like Cox
Episode 6 "My Bad" - as a climax of Previous episode, Cox was temporarily fired, so JD tries to get him back and accidentally has sex with Cox ex wife
Episode 7 "My super Ego" - conflict between JD and new guy, who is just better then him in every way.
Episode 8 "My fifteen minutes" - Episode about Dr Cox teaching JD, about the fact, that he is not supposed to be the one, who finds good things about JD, but JD himself should find good things about himself (also episode about Turk being exploited as a Black Doctor)
Episode 9 "My day off" - Episode where JD have to delete his Appendix, or he'll die.
Epispde 10 "My nickname" - episode about Carla and JD, how he almost ruins their friendship
Episode 11 "My own personal Jesus" - Episode about JD screwing up tape with birth of Cox friends child
Episode 12 "My Blind date" - Episode about Cox having a Marathon of not dying patients, till start of a new day. Elliote helps him out on second half, since JD have to be with Alex (the lawyer girl)
Episode 13 "My Balancing act" - about JD balancing love life with Work, and Cox pointing out, that JD idea of being like Him, is awful, because "Even he doesn't want to be himself" (I love this moment so much)
Episode 14 "My Drug Buddy" - an episode about Cox becoming "friends" with Turk, and JD balancing between Eliot and Alex.
Episode 15 "My Bed Banter and beyond" - about Eliot and JD hooking up and breaking up by the end of the episode.
Episode 16 "My Heavy Meddle" - about Cox teaching JD to vent himself somehow
Episode 17 "My new Student" - about JD becoming a Cox from first episode and trying to teach his incompetent fool of a student.
Episode 18 "My Tuscaloosa heart" - about JD learning to appreciate even awful patients.
Episode 19 "My old man" - episode about Parent issues.
Episode 20 "My way on the Highway" - episode where Turk and JD fight
Episode 21 "My Sacrificial claim" - episode where JD afraid of infections, because he recently got a Syringe with Possible Hepatitis C planted on his face.
Episode 22 "My Occurance" - Episode about Ben
Episode 23 "My hero" - episode about Ben, and Cox being scared of showing up if something goes wrong
Episode 24 "My Last day" - episode where Turk Elliot and JD are trying to help an Oldman and are scared that they are becoming thing, they swore they wouldn't become
I just wanna add, in the Turk-Carla relationship part... One little thing that I find so sweet is that when everybody is fantasyzibg being married to Elliot, in Turk's fantasy he cheated her with Carla because he can only think about her that context.
When this happens to me…I’ll know shes the one
I thought itd have been more sweet if it didn't end with Turk yelling about how whipped he is
Ruh-Roe Triccele!
You forgot to proof-read & spell-check (fantasyzibg)
"I'm so horny I'm fantasizing about having sex with my own wife! It ain't right!"
He also had some dirty dreams with Elliot though.
This show literally carried me through Med school. I remember doing marathons and rewatches before hard exams, and low key looking up to the characters as role models. Now, after 3 years of covid and 2 years deep in my own residency I believe it is time for another go with it.
Thank you for all your hard work and dedication, and for all the people you help, to make the world a better place!
Amen 🙏🏼 same brotha
Hang in there.
i'm at the start of m4 now and same!! i also remember the first time I was watching scrubs and started getting pimp questions on rounds right and knowing the answer, it really felt like something that used to just be jargon was starting to make sense and then I was really learning important stuff
i wish you the best of luck in your endeavors.
The rabies episode ending just broke me when I first saw it. Not just the sorrow, but the out of control chaos of it, the camera shaking around the music with the fast pace.
it's been a long time since I've seen this show, what was the "rabies episode"?
@@alecrutz956 5×20, the one talked about from here 1:13:05
@@resstie thanks
@@alecrutz956 My Lunch
I broke just watching it back in this video.
I also wanted to chime in. Having Carla be such a strong figure in Scrubs encouraged me to be a nurse. I was honestly disgusted with Grey's Anatomy and other medical related shows in their descriptions of what nurses do. Scrubs, although not an amazingly accurate depiction of Healthcare, really got close with the relationship nurses have with doctors. Some episodes handled how death and the healthcare system effects its workers with such accuracy it is scary.
Overall, I'm thankful this series was created so I can laugh one minute and cry the next. Thank you for covering this show, José. ❤
Scrubs' depiction of nurses as basically propping up what doctors and hospitals/clinics/practices are able to do, but for less money and less social cache, is so accurate (although IRL, way too many of them can be New Age types, or even anti-vaxxers. Also, if you're a chronically ill person, especially if you're also ND, you probably live in fear of pissing off the wrong nurse and ending up being labeled "uncooperative" or "noncompliant," and thus getting worse medical care and less attention than "well-behaved" patients).
Of course, part of that is that I've come across a lot of doctors who basically don't have any skills other than medicine/their specialty in medicine, and sometimes not even in that. They literally aren't required to have any "soft" skills or bedside manner, or any skills outside pure medical knowledge (and again, sometimes not even that). So nurses have to cover for them, and supplement everything else that patients naturally need from their healthcare providers. Even the way nurses go on strike, when they have to, is really cool and reflects this; they don't technically withdraw their labor/stop taking care of patients, they just basically take over scheduling shifts and organizing patient care themselves, rather than it happening through the hospital's normal chain of command.
As a resident… nurses honestly are my rock 🪨 love y’all
@@eriktatos As a nurse that is what I love about this new generation of doctors. Like sure there is still a hierarchy to practicing medicine but they dont just view nurses as underlings anymore. There's more of a team mentality with patient care now while still respecting everyone's role. Congrats on your residency!
@@sholem_bond I always want nurses to do most procedures. I've had a doctor struggle to take a blood test on a vein a nurse put a PVC in in under 10 seconds. Also nurses are sp much better at talking you through it.
in what ways did they not accurately depict health care? im not questioning you im genuinely curious ive never worked in a hospital setting. :)
This show honestly saved my life. I was going through a rough time, and this show was the only thing that brought a smile to me. Each night I would watch one episode, end my day on a high note, and go to sleep. It will hold a special place in my heart.
Me too! It’s now my go to when I’m feeling bummed
I can understand. I loved that show too
same.. even at my most depressed..putting this show on could make me feel ok...it was one of the first tv shows to make me cry
This show makes me so sad. Not only was the show tear wrenchingly heartbreaking to watch, but now It reminds me of the zeitgeist of the 2000s and the nostalgia is unbearable.
Cutting onions
I'm a little disappointed you didn't mention Laverne (Nurse Roberts). The episode where she passed was a heartbreaker. (And it was nice to see her pop up as nurse Shirley when the series was renewed for another season.)
Mmm hmm
Imo, she was the emotional spine of the cast and show, not Carla. Carla was more of the mother figure for everyone
@@johnychrist5475 I always felt like Laverne was Carla's Dr. Cox.
The video was already nearly two hours long - I wish there could have been more deep dives into lots of side characters, but I understand why there couldn't be. Maybe we'll get lucky and get a second part.
@@karakas771 JD: What? You don't own that.
I’m a registered nurse in a non clinical setting and a coworker asked me once what working in a hospital setting was like. I told them to watch Scrubs.
Still one of my favourite shows and surprisingly close to how hospitals actually work.
yeah, american doctors and nurses dancing on tik tok while people suffer and are finantially ruined around you is like scrubs i guess
@@j.2512 Seek help
@@j.2512 get a life, man. I'm sorry you had a bad experience and can't get over it, but nobody needs to hear your irrational jaded ranting besides a therapist.
@@j.2512 *financially
@@j.2512 You people are so triggered by that, it's so sad. In 2020, medical staff were put through ten times more stress and tragedy than your fragile ego can even handle, but fuck them for trying to find that little bit of joy in the day to help them handle things better.
Did you even watch the damn video?
I have never donated to a TH-camr, but José continually brings high-quality, well- researched and well-written content. It’s a breath of fresh air that deserves support. Thank you!
Thank you so much! I really appreciate the support and the kind words!
I didn't like video
@@WetBoy how come?
@@TCt83067695 he commented somewhere else that “scrubs is dumb”, so basically just ignore the clown
@@WetBoy sucks to be you
What a beautiful walk through and analysis. Especially on Kelso and the system, it’s very easy to write him off as a one note character, but he has such nuances that really works so beautifully
The biggest takeaway I always took from scrubs is how much being silly or choosing to focus on the lighter side of life really makes the emotional heavy hitting moments hit so much harder. The show being primarily a comedy means that almost every time it delves into drama and pathos I'm so much more invested and more affected than in shows where it's all drama and tension every episode all episode long.
To me, 10-20% drama and 80-90% comedy is a more effective drama than 80-90% drama and 10-20% comedy balance.
This show even in retrospective form still has a special talent for making me cry. Wasn’t expecting to cry during a Jose video but Scrubs just does that to me o guess. Scrubs holds a special place in my heart and is easily my favorite medical show of all time.
Exactly this. There are very few an seldom television moments that break or stop me emotionally. Scrubs has a large proportion of them
same i can’t stop myself what a beautiful show and story
Ive never even seen the show and this made me cry
Same here
I swear…in a formative time in my life, this show taught me how to feel real emotions. Not just as a reaction to good or bad things, But just to truly feel big feelings that you have to sit with for a while and learn to have and carry with you.
Jordan gets a bad rap, but she's a take-no-shit fighter with ambition. She PUSHES Perry to improve. and she's RELENTLESS. she isnt just mean for no reason, she's a person who feels vulnerable when she isnt being on the attack, and her viciousness reflects that insecurity. Perry is the only person who sees this about her and this is the trade that makes their relationship works. Perry and Jordan's oppositional relationship is a bedrock for Perry because, like Jordan, he NEEDS opposition to function. he needs an antagonist and their relationship works because he loves Jordan and likes fighting with her in a way different from how he feels fighting Bob.
it's not often you see relationships like this get coded as healthy, but i actually think they are really wholesome and cute together, and Kristen's performances as Jordan also consistently slap, of course.
there's a super characterizing moment for Jordan at the end of Season 1. Jordan comes to lunch and airs out the gang's dirty laundry.
on its face this is super mean and aggro. and it totally is. but Jordan also forces everybody to be HONEST. and she is begrudged for it. and she never gets a redemption arc because she doesnt need it. she's really mean but it isnt just pointless and antisocial. her meanness, at its best, is actually productive and pro-social, and often serves to shatter the ego-driven grandeur threatening to ruin things for everyone.
and she didnt even exclude herself. her big reveal when she stirs things up includes outing her indiscretion with JD to Perry. this is a scary thing to do, but her mean is her armor and makes her confident enough to risk her already-tenuous relationship for the benefit of JD and Cox's own relationship.
this moment of chaos is caused by Jordan's HONESTY and i think that's something important in a show where so much of the runtime is taken up with fantasy. Jordan is a harbinger of reality and truth.
@@HadalStreetlights Came here to say basically this without as much detail. It's a totally annoying trope that male characters can be a hard-ass with a heart of gold, while female characters are just a hard-ass, and it's one that replicates itself in real life too. I've lost count of the times in my life a female manager has taken over from a male manager, are no better or worse than the previous manager in the way they go about their job but get called a bitch constantly.
And then it's doubly annoying that progressive fans of the show compound it with lines like "She's a witch, with a capital B". See also: Walter and Skylar.
@@bulletproofblouse i think there's a bit at the end where José talks about how important fantasies are as a coping mechanism and i think it should be expanded on a little here because i think Jordan represents such a grounded character. her attitude surrounding honesty represents a counterpoint against fantasy. that even though reality can seem cruel and uncaring, ultimately it just is what it is, and it has its own appeal to! the conflict between reality and fantasy isnt one that should be 'won.'
Jordan is a super cool character and, like Cuddy from House, or Irene Adler from Sherlock Holmes (not BBC tho) is a genuine foil to our character Bob-Perry-JD chain. makes me think about Enid-Jordan-Eliot possibly being an analog but im not sure.
absolutely!
@@HadalStreetlights decidedly agreed. Most often "I'm just being honest" is just a cover for petty meannes. But for Jordan "I'm just being mean" is a cover for honesty.
She's also my fave character.
Glenn Matthews was my inspiration for going into the handyman/janitorial professions. He was anonymous, yet held a considerable amount of power behind the scenes. His comedy certainly bled into my own, somewhere between zany and dark. And Neil Flynn showed to me that even a "bit part" character can have long lasting impacts on a series. Dr. Jan Itor, I salute you.
mad respect. custodians, cleaners, maintenance people, and janitors do not get as much clout and consideration as they deserve, despite their unions, and for jobs frequently cast as "undesirable" they are absolutely critical to so many of the places they operate. schools, hospitals, research facilities, etc, these places NEED yall. your service to them is invaluable and without you, we would suffer plague and misfortune.
youre like the editors of real life. correcting issues and errors, cleaning things up, and improving things behind the scenes like real heroes who dont get the spotlight, but are the reason the show is pulled off without hitch.
@@HadalStreetlights I adore that metaphor, because it's 100% correct (95% if there are people actually reporting the issue)
@@_arealla nobody talks about the heroes of the great molasses flood of 1919.
That’s awesome
Glenn Matthews/Janitor/Dr. Jan Itor was the funniest person on the show, tbh. And the show had a lot of funny actors playing funny characters.
I always appreciate how compassionate this series was. It managed to stay goofy while being much more emotionally impactful than 'serious' television like Greg's Anatomy and Private Practice.
Okay, but Turk's dance to Bell Biv DeVoe's Poison is iconic.
The Safety Dance joke was epic
The episode where Cox loses patient after patient after patient and he just explodes is probably one of the best of the series; the scene was just so....
It just felt so fucking raw.
I watched that episode in 2009, and for the whole year whenever the song "How to Save a Life" came up I just started crying. It played once in Borders, a now-defunct bookstore, and I just had to run out.
@@toanoradian
It's a phenomenal scene that I just a couple days ago went back and watched again and to me, what makes the scene is Carla looking absolutely helpless for the first time possibly in her life as she watches someone who she possibly sees as a father just absolutely collapse.
@@DiegoAlvarezBeltran1993. That's a mostly real reaction btw, John improvised that and only told Judy right before they filmed so that she wouldn't get hurt
dr cox does have some episodes that hurt your heart
The only thing i feel is bad about it is how quickly they resolve the situation.
Having some lasting impact on cox, and for instance, having him out of his job for the rest of the season or the likes, would have made the whole situation much more impactful
I don't even know how many times I felt myself tearing up throughout this video. Just seeing so many of these brief clips brings back all the emotion I felt back when I first watched the show. So many moments... but the Brendan Fraser episode absolutely devastated me when it first aired. Just a blubbering mess on the couch next to my wife (then girlfriend).
That last sentence is a beautiful thing, to publicly admit you were blubbering mess by your woman's side. That's a Scrubs fan for sure!
I think the Mrs. Wilk arc got to me just as bad. The way this show dealt with the reality of grief and loss is really incredible.
I lost my wife three years ago and have re-watched Scrubs since then. That episode destroyed me. And even here, just hearing it talked about had me crying again. It is such a gut-wrenching set of scenes.
@@whodafeak i'm so sorry about your wife. I hope you're well, that has to be immensely difficult. Much love to you.
Hell I couldn’t stop either in fact I didn’t lol it felt like reuniting with old friends and remembering their ups and downs, this show really is special
The whole brendan frazier arc in the show makes me cry every time; it was so well written. I didn't start watching it until I had joined the Air Force as a medic, and the whole feel of it has captivated me ever since. I don't rewatch shows often, but I've probably seen every episode a good five times.
my love for this series is eternal. it just has such a perfect balance of comedy and heart
My mom loved this show. She was BSN and met my dad when he was a resident. She always said it captured the feel of their first few years.
She's gone now, but my dad is a mix of Dr. Kelso and Dr. Cox. Last weekend reminded me of why I am so proud of him: I overheard him figuring out work arounds to keep Blue Cross from denying patients treatment.
I know he's a great doctor, but it's his work as an administrator that does the most good. Most rural hospitals struggle to make ends meet, but he helped his make the right investments. As Chief of Medicine, he oversaw the planning and construction of a new hospital, and set them up so that the hospital is donating a new field house to the city.
I was lucky to have two great parents.
What's a bsn?
@@saraa.4295 bachelor of science in nursing. It's the highest level of nurse other than nurse anesthetist or nurse practitioners. In military terms, they would be your NCOs: leading the registered nurses and CNAs.
My sister is a BSN, and my brother was one before he went to medical school (he's now an ER doctor).
@@ThugShakers4Christ thanks!
(I guessed nurse, but couldn't figure out the rest)
You write about your parents so beautifully. Thank you for letting us learn about them 🩷
@@mjjjermaine thank you, that means a lot
I remember watching this show when I was younger. My dad and I loved it and never missed an episode. I loved it, but didn’t have any desire to step into the medical field. Then Dr. Clock, the psychiatrist, came in and I fell in love with the idea of psychiatry. I’m now a licensed clinical mental health counselor and start my doctorate in June 2023!
Just saw this comment in June 2023, I wish you nothing but success in the future.
Where Scrubs stood out was in how quickly it could take you from laughing to crying, in a second. I still haven't found another series that does it so well.
I'd try M*A*S*H, very similar topics of medicine and doctor life, but this time in warzone.
I had to stop watching mash after a very drawn out scene of them basically trying to rape one of the nurses @Mirekluk
Literally the episode with Brendan Fraser
How I met Your Mother is another excellent example of that
The episode/arc where Cox loses three patients due to bad transplants is one of the single greatest depictions of male grief in media. The ways the other characters try to console, distract, comfort etc. and his utter refusal to be moved by it is so damn affecting. Love this show. Can make you belly laugh and ugly-cry within minutes of each other
John C McGinley is such an iconic cast for Dr. Cox; favorite character on the show by far. I could watch a show about him alone
I've been a nurse for 12 years... This show changed my life. I think I've watched the entire series through 3 times. The healthcare field is hard to stick with thanks to our system. 💕
Even these clips still make me tear up.
I always believed Janitor was actually the CEO of the hospital doing an undercover boss scheme, not for PR hype, but rather, to actually make sure his hospital is staying true to its purpose and the doctors keep their oaths.
I'd go with that
Never watch scrubs but that sounds right
It would explain just why Kelso let him get away with all the shit he pulled... (assuming Kelso and then maybe later Cox were the only ones who knew) And I could see it being something the janitor would do... OK its now my head canon.
He has so much money he was just bored and decided to become a Janitor in his own business 😂
@@Cheesusful Yeah, but I hate to rain on the parade with that... but remember one of the first things Maddox did when she came to Sacred Heart.. she fired him.
This is my favorite sitcom ever, I watched it all throughout the "8" Seasons of the show. Lots of happy and sad tears taught me as a guy that is okay to show your friends affection which in turn saved the life of a friend of mine as it stopped him from committing suicide. Great show, and taught me many life lessons. Thanks, Jose for covering it.
I really loved Perry. I liked his friendship with Carla - he was a little softer with her than the others. Though the loving antagonism he had with Jordan was freaking great! The way he guided JD but in an... unconventional?... way, was cool. JD just worshipped him which was warranted as we saw how caring of a physician he truly was.
It's cause overall she was competent and cared for her patients.
I have a personal theory that really good doctors appreciate and respect nurses and treat them like colleagues rather than underlings.
remember all his amazing one liners.
@@Xondar11223344 my mom is a nurse and out of all doctors she'd worked with, the most skilled and knowledgeable ones treated her the best, so you might be onto something here
Even having watched the series over and over, even with the added layer of separation afforded by this being a review/retrospective, even knowing full well EXACTLY how the second episode with Ben ends, JD's question to Cox and Cox turning around STILL gets me choked up and teary eyed. I can't think of another example of anything, in any media, that produces such a repeatable and powerful response. Truly incredible television.
That was the most devastating twist I have ever seen on television. I only wish I could see it the first time again, I cry knowing what is happening
Oh no, you brought back all the episodes that make me cry, and yes, I cried again.
One of the funniest lines of the show was when Dr Cox said something like "I spent the last week sitting on my couch trying to drink myself to death in hopes that I would be reunited with my 3 victims in the afterlife so they could get the revenge they deserve."
I think mine is when Kelso neets Coxs son.
"Hey there lil'slugger, howre you?"
"Your face is wrinkly!"
"Oh yeah? Well that shirt youre wearing is gay"
*Walks away smiling*
Gosh that's a sad hope.
@@PTp1ranha he was blaming himself
This show really was a lot to witness happen. Between JDs constant fantasies and the bond between him and Turk. The deep relationships and constant juxtaposition of comedy but also realness. Everybody played their roles to a T. Losing characters like Laverne really hurt……God..I feel a binge watch coming
Soooo many good memories watching these as a kid with my sister
"I miss you so much it hurts sometimes"
Thank you! I was looking for someone to comment on Laverne's loss. That one really hit me.
ive always wanted to find someone who looks at me the way jd looks at turk.
❤
Don't we all 😔
Tbh I want my relationship with my datemates/partner to be like JD and Turk. But without the early-2000s "not-gays," obviously.
I didn't watch Scrubs when it was airing (wrote it off as a silly comedy show -- boy was i wrong). When House MD ended, i found myself craving more medical shows and i decided to binge watch all of Scrubs. Its now one of my favorite shows of all time. This retrospective really covers a lot of why i loved the show: that balance between conedy and medical drama, the characters and the dynamics between them all. Youve gained another new subscriber. Excellent work!
1:37 You're not kidding that the one-camera perspective has incredible dramatic power. Just seeing that shot of JD sitting at Mrs. Tanner's bedside makes me tear up. Scrubs is so much more than a wonderful comedy, but a wonderful comedy it surely is.
(Edit: after watching the entirety of this video, I can confirm that I sobbed a whole lot throughout the video because holy fuck, Scrubs is a powerful show)
Right? He managed to show so many of the strongest, most emotional scenes Scrubs had. How near laughter and tears were in this show, how we watched them mature and develop as we ourselves did, what powerful and perfectly fitting music choices* they made, the love for the detail all over the series and their phenomenal finale. Scrubs is just great.
(*Overkill, How to safe a life, Winter, Book of love, Hey ya, Rollercoaster, Light and Day, Good Life)
@@Vracka i play overkill almost daily thanks to this show
Josh radin the song's writer was a friend of zach and the song was an almost last minute addition
Maybe not when it comes to Season 9
1- Love this show and great video
2- How did you get this past copyright TELL ME YOUR SECRETS!!!
1 - Thanks!
2 - It's all about picking shows with chill distributors. And on occasion some behind the scenes stuff I'm not silly enough to leave in a TH-cam comment.
I see a man of good taste FD
Didnt expect to see FD here, rock on.
Makes me weirdly happy to see that you watch the same things many of us who enjoy you watch.
FD with the seal of approval!
I can't wait to see José do a retrospective of The Nanny.
Hell yeah, I love your sitcom retrospectives. You offer such solid insights and thorough breakdowns
Scrubs got me through some of the most difficult times of my life. I am so grateful to the show for providing laughter and tears during those times.
I've never watched this show and I vaguely knew about it. Yet you made me sob twice during this video. Thank you for another great one, José. Much love from Latin America.
What i love about the janitor is a joke they did in the german version: When he pretends to be the chief of the hospital and gives out his name the translation of janitor to Hausmeister comes in handy. Haus means House and Meister means Master. So he was introducing himself as doctor house... master (Haus... Meister). The reference it is now, is a fun little joke imo.
Glad to see that pun didn't get lost in translation for the overseas dubs!
In the original English, he introduces himself as Dr. Jan Itor, pronounced as if it were a German name.
Scrubs is honestly such a long & dense text that for me this video recontextualizes how much work your previous sitcom analysis videos have been.
As a Jordan fan, I would have maybe liked to see some attention to the conversation Jordan & Carla had abt postpartum depression. It gives a lot of context for Carla's personal struggles & humanizes Jordan w/o removing her bitchy persona. It's also a rare moment of maternal solidarity that is rarely depicted in mainstream media. But also, this video is plenty long & I understand why one wouldn't want to address that in this format.
Overall, great video. Thank you.
Michael-Giuliana
(they/them)
Thanks for mentioning that. I remember noting and appreciating that when I was watching the series, but couldn't find a place for it in the video. I'm glad you brought it up though.
Is it wrong that Jordan was one of my favourite characters when I watched the show?
@@Xondar11223344 she was mine, but I'm also 🏳️🌈 g 🏳️🌈 a 🏳️🌈 y 🏳️🌈 .
I was just thinking that after my recent rewatch! Jordan had so much going on for her in the earlier seasons. It really felt like the writers reduced her lines in later seasons to be just, "I'm bored", "I don't care about any of this." She was a big favorite of mine as well.
@@spuriusbrocoli4701 gay
That mysterious blue jay guy just can’t seem to miss with these insightful sitcom retrospectives. So insightful, this was as good as a rewatch for me but in a fraction of the time. I actually missed the later seasons because in Australia the free to air network that had the fist run broadcast rights decided to shaft it after the first three or so seasons by shoving it off to a later, more inconvenient time to watch to accommodate some hot new show they figured would generate excitement and increased ratings. Broadcast tv in the early two thousands was kinda shitty over here and ya had to be pretty dedicated to be recording all the good stuff that got shunted off into the late night graveyard. Strangely friends and frasier were allowed to remain in prime time all the way to their finale but shows like scrubs, futurama, that seventies show, arrested development and many others weren’t so lucky.
Anyway retrospectives like this help me to understand what I missed out on and everything before season 9 looks worth my time and I’ll get around to watching it in full someday. But in this streaming age we live in there is an ocean of content out there to consume and only so many hours in the day.
Speaking of Frasier, have you seen Little Hoot's analysis of it? If not, I highly recommend checking it out!
@@LustStarrr no i haven’t. Is little hoot a TH-camr?
I think the best single scene in Scrubs, is when doctor Cox loses his third patient to rabies from the transplant he authorised. He’s sat with JD, and the pager goes off… the whole scene looks normal.
And then the switch. The camera style changes to a handheld, shakycam. The lighting is different. We get close ups of peoples faces, and action, everything’s moving, Cox gets angry, and starts punching the equipment… and then it slows down as the horrible weight of what’s happened is revealed, and we’re left with Cox sat there, angry, emotional…
It’s perfect. It’s the perfect switch. It was handled so well, and it makes me cry every single time. Even hearing How To Save A Life can get me teary sometimes.
I love you spend so much time on Kelso, by far the funniest and most engaging character
Damn, that episode with Cox's brother always makes me tear up. Even the clips here.
I hope we get an All In The Family retrospective, but if we don't, this makes me want one for Psych.
That’s Jordan’s brother - Ben is his brother-in-law. That said, it’s implied that he and Ben were best friends long before Cox started dating Jordan.
Yeah, me too. In fact, the second the song that plays when they enter the cemetery (Winter by Joshua Radin) is playing anywhere I'm tearing up. Definitely my favorite episode of Scrubs.
One of the best shows ever. Loved it so much, would always be part of my nightly routine watching this on Fox at 11:30pm in reruns.
*"I CAN'T DO IT AALL ON MY OWN"*
My wholesome 30 min every day before school here in Germany. 😄
Tell Preston to hurry up and finish the book
@@garethwilliams2483 who?
@@OfficialRedTeamReview I heard you guys secretly hate each other. Preston is only making this work for all the money he makes milking you
was tearing up just from you mentioning my old lady, the Ben episodes, and my fallen idol, let alone the finale. scrubs is still my favourite show all these years later, thanks for putting out this retrospective and taking me through it again ☺️
These essays don't come by often but that only makes them sweeter.
I can't even begin to imagine the work you put into these, Jose. Another absolutely incredible video. A stunning tribute, really.
I adore Carla, she reminds me so much of my sister who is also in the medical field. The postpartum storyline really got to me because Judy really wanted to be a mother and yet she still dealt with anxiety and depression postpartum. Also Judy Reyes identfies as a Black latina and Black latinas rarely represent us in media.
Thanks for pointing it out she is Dominican which is also where I'm from too.There are many races in Latino culture. Black people are not a monolith either. They are in a intercultural relationship which is really nice to see for that time in television when I was a kid.🇩🇴 But this was an insightful video
I was never a huge Scrubs fan when it was on air, but now that I've been a nurse for 10 years it's hard to watch. Not because it's bad, but honestly because in a lot of ways it's too good. The emotional lows the shows takes you too sometimes is just too real for me. I had to watch this video in a few parts just because a few of the moments in it hit a little too close to home. That final bit in particular was tough. I worked in an ICU that handled heart transplant patients and I saw that exact scenario play out more times than I can count.
I couldn’t watch it after starting practice for similar reasons, seeing tough moments I experienced in real life was too hard. Indeed although Jose didn’t mention this moment the death of Nurse Roberts would now be the hardest. Loosing a colleague, it’s just the worst.
Janitor predicting where Bin Laden was hiding is truly a poetic bit of serendipity, since part of the character's shtick is being uncannily prescient and clever despite being incredibly strange. The writers really stumbled into a good character moment there completely by accident, years ahead of time.
I’m sorry I missed this video when you first made it, but I just wanna say thanks for doing so. I don’t think I ever missed an episode of this show growing up, and I remember even rooting for the season 9 spin-off to go well, or get better because I didn’t want to see the show come to an end. Even when most of the stories have been told, and it’s always better to go out with a shout, rather than a whimper. But the fact that you mentioned there could be a movie, or a reboot with the original cast would be fantastic, and I hope it’s still a possibility even after the writers strike occurred!
Anyways thanks again for the great content!
Found this in my recommendations after looking up various clips, You really put a lot of thought and care into this retrospective, I love this show and I am currently on season 3 of my first rewatch of the show. The actors are phenomenal, and it balances comedy and drama so damn well.
Whelp I ended up crying four times listening to this as I drove around running errands today. Touching base on some of the most heartwarming episodes was one thing, however Jose I must say, your eloquence and prose you put into these retrospectives is truly something magical. You are a gift to the internet
I have loved all of your sitcom retrospectives but this retrospective on Scrubs hits incredibly close to home for me I was the biggest fan of the show when I was a teenager and I forget just how hard the show hits at times
The way Scrubs could deliver comedy and tragedy in the same episode was brilliant.
for me Scrubs was the comedy show that used songs effectively and abundantly. it had so many songs i filled my MP3 player playlist with just the songs used in the show. combined with the themes and songs made for the show there was just so many moods to be had every episode the likes of which i haven't experienced in another sitcom yet.
Same here. I have Playlist on youtube
Yes, I remember it shaping my musical taste in my early teens and same kind of music is continually used in Garden State as well. If I am not misremembering things, Zach Braff kind of helped the show get good but not expensive indie songs. I think the creator of this video rewatched the show in one of the streaming services and he did not realize that most of those good songs were removed from the series because of licencing aggreements coming to an end. The DVD version of the series should have the original songs if you guys watched it when it was first aired. Or that he is not a fan of indie music, because I don't think the music in the show is an afterthought, it is one of the main selling points.
I literally just needed this in the background. But I'm crying every ten minutes. This show was so great
Scrubs holds a special place in my heart. More than any other piece of fiction, it made me develop a deep respect and appreciation for anyone involved in medicine. It somehow remains, simultaneously, the funniest, most accurate, and hardest hitting medical show ever aired (at least for me)
agreed i always loved this show.
I remember loving the show, but frankly, really didn't enjoy it as much as I used to when I rewatched it recently.
Good lord were the writers horny af. XD
1:14:42 the biggest part about this is JD intentionally leaves out “that aren’t your fault” because it really was Dr. Cox’ fault that those 3 other patients died, even if it wasn’t intentional. It could’ve broken him really, especially after he was the one who gave that advice
I dunno about that. IRL, they’d have all been at separate specialized facilities instead of one hospital, but say they were all there. They were hours away from death and the test for rabies is over 99% negative. Usually, you run that test and the patient dies and you’re on the hook for wasting time and medical resources. It was just a bizarre and horrible coincidence.
Something similar happened IRL and it was big news, because it was just so unlikely.
I don't agree that it was his fault. You make every decision with the information you have at the time. If there was something you couldn't have known about that then influenced that decision's outcome, that outcome isn't your fault, even if it's still your responsibility to handle the fallout.
There was nothing Cox arguably did wrong. Ideally, he could have waited to get the autopsy back before doing the transplants, but if he had, then at least some of the patients would still have died (waiting for the new organs they needed that weren't available until the autopsy was done). 9 times out of 10, waiting and denying people life-saving transplants (a time-sensitive decision to make) would seem like a worse decision, than doing the transplants ASAP if you have the organs and no reason to believe the donor died of anything infectious/toxic.
I don't know/remember enough statistics to be able to say "yeah it was indefensibly risky to do the transplants before the autopsy came back" or "no, most of the time there's no issue with cases like this and it would turn out fine to rush to the transplants." But it's definitely an understandable call for anyone to make, especially since most people don't know or care to do the odds on either option's chance of success.
Oh hey finally one of these on a series I've actually watched... Start to finish... Four times. It was a fantastic video, and I appreciated the more thematically focused structure. Especially for a show with such a focus on it's emotionally resonant themes.
One thing I'd like to mention that I actually really appreciated about the show was the 2 episodes in season 3 with Dr. Kevin Casey, Michael J Fox's character, as a doctor with severe OCD that depicted the condition honestly, especially as a person with very few OCD themes around contamination, which is usually the only kind of OCD themes that get depicted. (And never well) I adore his introduction, having to reenter the hospital over and over to fulfill some deeply frustrated need you know absolutely no one in the room will get and making a joke about it so everyone finally stops looking at you like you're as crazy as you are.
Particularly, I think it touches me because every single other depiction I've seen focuses on the very external element of rituals because that's how it affects and inconveniences the lives of other people. And scrubs initially presents it this way, with Dr. Casey being quirky and making a big joke of all the little nonsense things he has to do, at one point almost making it out to be a superpower that he knows every single page of every medical textbook he's read. But the mask eventually comes off when JD walks in on him still stuck scrubbing out 2 hours after surgery, screaming and broken in a way that a person can only be after two hours of fight or flight against phantoms, and tells JD "This is a weak moment, nobody's supposed to see this" and it puts into grim context all the little jokes earlier in the episode. His rituals are only quirky and funny because he puts an enormous amount of energy into presenting them that way. He knows every page in the medical textbook because he'd have to read and reread every single page probably for hours before he could move on.
It's not perfect, I have a lot of criticisms, but it means a lot to me.
Scrubs was one of few shows that could regularly make you laugh out loud and cry. So amazing.
Thank you so much for the Scrubs rundown. This is one of my absolute favorite shows.
I love Turk and JD’s friendship! When you were talking about the bromance I was reminded of psych and it’s such a good show so I would love to see you review it!
Here I am, 45 minutes into ANOTHER retrospective about a show I've never seen.......feeling like no time has passed, enjoying every second of it. Fantastic video, yet again!!!!
*Really hping to eventually see "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia", "Arrested Development", or maybe even "Veep" get the Jose treatment one day!?!? Until then, I'll happily watch whatever he puts out.
You should really get Scrubs a shot. It’s more silly than other contemporary hospital shows, but it’s easily the best. Even better than Gray’s Anatomy and House MD imo
@@justinb864 Nothing is better than House MD.
@@4X4StudiosHR I loved House. We still talk about things being a "House moment" when someone realizes something and gets that look on their face.
@@Kyarrix To be fair Scrubs is a medical sitcom and House MD is a medical drama. They're not the same, so It's silly to compare them both.
@@4X4StudiosHR Hey you made the comparison! I was just agreeing that it was great. The fact that we still talk about having a "house moment" is testament to that.
I liked Scrubs too. I'm enjoying this retrospective.
When I was going through a rough patch I bought the first season on DVD and watched it through, my best friend helped me "acquire" the rest and became addicted to it himself, Dr. Cox in particular. This show became a staple background show when we would hang out, usually watching this in between bouts of gaming, or while playing poker which we were obsessed with at the time. He got into it in time to catch the series end and after we started it from the beginning again. He passed away during the chaos of the last couple years, and this was a very nice and very emotional visit to my past that I had been avoiding, but needed. I haven't been ready to watch the show again, knowing it would destroy me, but this was the right dose.
💜🧡❤️
Much Love
This is one of the best shows ever. Shockingly accurate as well, I remember when my wife went in for her emergency C-section the sergeant started playing Dancing Queen by ABBA, when my wife said I didn't expect them to be playing music in there I said You've seen shrubs they're always jamming in the operation room. To me and my wife our daughter will always be our dancing queen. She still loves music almost 7 years later.
😭😭 so sweet
Ok, I let the autoplay run while I was cooking and listening to some video essays, and ended up watching with interest more than an hour and a half of an analysis of a show I haven't ever watched a single minute of. And maybe you have just convinced me to watch Scrubs.
Definitely try it!
46:10 While I see your point on color blindness, I do think it's also important to consider escapism. Marginalized groups of people don't always like being reminded of their struggles with discrimination and predjudice every time they are featured in something.
There are other ways to acknowledge race such as cultural differences, but I don't think it's inherently as cut and dry as "this show doesn't tackle racism so it must be trying to make white audiences comfortable."
the dudes bias is showing dw, probably just trying to appeal to modern morons
very good point!!
This is something I've been struggling with a lot. I'm an artist and trying to write Comic and I want the cast to be super diverse. Mainly focusing on moving away from the "default" setting of having an almost all white cast and one or two token poc. And while I already have all the characters I constantly think about how to do them justice. As a white person the experiences of racism and discrimination aren't my story to tell and I silmutaneously don't want to take away from poc sharing their culture. So I'm constantly thinking about having the story be completely removed from color and/or only occassionally sprinkling in some aspects of culture (though that latter part is also difficult sonce there are so little authentic sources to pull from).
@@frauleinzuckerguss1906if you're still working on it, I recommend checking out Writing with Color. It has Q and A writing advice from people of color. It's a pretty good resource.
+1
I grew up with episodes of scrubs on in the background but I never really saw more than a few episodes at a time. As a kid I liked the gags but the more emotional side of the show never really got through to me. Damn, now I have another show to watch. Thanks for the amazing video.
Thanks so much for the support!
Scrubs is unique in that it is literally the only show I can think of where the emotional beats land with me as hard the 15th time I see them as they did the first. I haven't the faintest idea why since I have absolutely no connection to the characters or the setting but every time the show goes in for the heart strings it works perfectly for me.
the explanation is easy:
the design is very human.
Thank you, José, for making this beautiful video about my, and so many other's favorite show - You really reminded me of why I love Scrubs so much. The show really hit home in a very personal way for so many viewers and you dissect the key elements as to why perfectly. The people that worked on the show (even season 9) really are heroes because of what they created and how big of a positive impact the show has had, and still has, on all of us.
I've never experienced a sitcom so juxtaposed with being so mature and actually funny ever.
Out of all TH-cam creators you probably do the second best retrospectives. No dis, that's a high bar. So many people just give a synopsis with no real look or analysis of the show. You're doing a great job, keep it up.
Colin Hay's song "Waiting for My Real Life to Begin", was used and performed brilliantly in Scrubs. It was a highlight in a show full of highlights. Mr Hay had a few other songs in Scrubs too. A great songwriter. Thanks for the excellent retrospective on this wonderful show, José.
scrubs got me into a lot of his music, he was basically a reoccurring character on the show
I always liked “overkill” when JD was hiding from Dr. Cox.
@@paullew4853 I CANT GET TOOOO SLEEP
@@johnychrist5475 I dream about the implicaaations!
@@paullew4853 Yeah, that was great!
Didn't realize how nostalgic this show was for me until I watched this
This was a great watch! I loved Scrubs and still do and it was such a pleasure to have this summary. I was too young to grasp the complexity of the hospital dynamics that you brought up especially between Cox and Kelso, but I now appreciate it. And I even more appreciate the genius of the show; it being able to portray humor and such dire situations all in one. Thank you so much for this!
Wow, just WOW. What an amazing retrospective. You were able to sir up all the emotions this show gave us once again. You have my sub and my gratitude!
Welp, I'm crying. Thank you for always doing such thorough and thoughtful work. I don't have much but I do appreciate you .
Thank you so much for your support!
I've seen a lot of shows about a lot of hospitals, but Scrubs reminds me most of what it's like to be a patient in one.
Scrubs really shaped me as a late teen (17-19) when I watched the entire series. I've seen it all so many times now that I know all of them by heart. I'm pretty sure I learned a lot from watching it at a formative age. It was never perfect as you point out wonderfully. Watching is always brings me back to a safe little cocoon for a little while, a reminder of a time when I was still young enough to see the world through the lens of a sitcom like this. My Bed, Banter and Beyond is one of my all-time favorite episodes.
The music on Scrubs has always been one of my favorite parts of the show. When Elliot and JD hook up before Elliot's wedding and Say Anything's "Alive With The Glory of Love" plays... That was the moment that introduced me to my favorite band. A fact I didn't even realize until I was doing a rewatch of the show several years later. Scrubs has always been one of those shows I go back to and I was glad I did another rewatch late last year. The finale of the 8th season was such a great episode that I missed in the past when I would rewatch it, and I'm glad I finished the show out this time.
“It’s going to be ok” ended up being the song I sing to my kids when they’re sick
"JOSE: "There's also the beloved musical episode, which introduced the world to the very special song..."
ME: "Everything comes down to poop?"
JOSE: " Guy love"
ME: "Dang, that wasn't even my second guess...."
The fact that I cried 2 times during this video of just clips from the show, really shows the power and emotion this show still has on me 💕
When Scrubs ended, I was in my last year of university I remember watching that episode, and the ending really hit me. I wasn't studying to be a doctor, but seeing JD envisioning his future, made me, for the first time in my life, realize that after uni was finished, I had the same things to look forward to. It made me really excited about what life had in store for me. Also, Peter Gabriel's Book of Love is still a banger!
As the daughter of a doctor (not from the US though):
I must say that the matter of "medicine being run like a business" is very true both today and in other countries of the world.
Even though my father is a doctor in a country that provides its citizens with welfare services (including health services), he still often has to fight the system in order to provide treatment.
He has the option to earn much more money and work much less, through the provision of private medical services, Al is not willing to do this in principle.
He believes that his patients and their families go through enough difficulties and do not have to deal with a greater financial burden than they already have to deal with, as well as longer waiting times for consultations and service provision from him.
He is truly and forever my hero.
But - it takes all his time and attention.
The number of important moments in which he was not present is innumerable,
The number of times I didn't see him for whole days when we lived in the same house because he would leave early in the morning before the rest of the family woke up and come back at night when we were all already asleep,
And his never-ending exhaustion after long and hard years of non-stop work to help people...
He is an amazing doctor, an amazing person and an amazing father - and I appreciate him and love him deeply.
I had some sort of mental breaking point when I noticed how much he missed out on from his personal life in order to help other people. How many hobbies he never expanded on, how many places he never visited, how many friends he didn't have time to meet with and how much calm, peace and pleasure he consciously sacrificed in order to help people.
This is only the tip of the iceberg - but my point is that there is a lot of nuance to the medical profession and in my opinion there should be even more appreciation for what the people of the medical world sacrifice, deal with and do for us.
This bought back so many memories, i used to watch scrubs every week, had all the dvd sets,it was me and my late wife's comfort show,for that reason i've not been able to face a proper rewatch,but it'll always hold a special place in my heart, thank you for the great video!