Episode 7 - My New Role
26 March 2012
Synopsis: Dr Cox assumes his duties as Chief of Medicine and gets advice from Dr Kelso. He finds himself besieged by employees looking for favours, paperwork and the janitor annoying him. JD needs a favour and Dr Kelso explains that he must now badger Dr Cox into doing what’s right. Meanwhile Carla helps Elliott treat the nurses with more respect.
The Good: In the last episode Dr Cox finally became Dr Kelso. This week JD becomes Dr Cox. Scrubs does a great job of driving home the “circle of life” philosophy which makes the hospital work. Now that Dr Cox is making the tough decisions about money it is up to JD to alert him when a patient is in real need of extra help. The result for JD is that Dr Cox will hate him, something he has fought against for the length of the entire show. It’s part of the tragic story which Scrubs has been telling for eight seasons. There will be no happy ending or friendly compromise between JD and Dr Cox. Just like the patients struggling to stay alive, their struggle over money and resources will never end. Kelso plays his part really well and he has come full circle from the cartoon devil he was portrayed as in the pilot episode. We now know that Dr Cox will soon be viewed as the evil one by the new interns and of course the truth is not that simple.
Seeing Dr Cox in an office and his new friendship with Kelso really does drive home the change to the show which could make this final season pretty enjoyable and different.
Carla teaching Elliott to respect nurses is very much a back to basics season one story. The other nurses’ resentment of Carla makes perfect sense (considering who her friends were) and is written well.
The Bad: The details of the Elliott and Carla story is pretty silly. A kick boxing nurse is typically lazy writing because you can’t have a character damaging hospital property or threatening doctors with physical violence. Elliott and Carla’s dialogue is littered with random annoying “chatter” rather than exploring the issues between doctors and nurses more thoroughly.
Then we have the janitor who is an obnoxious waste of time throughout the episode. At least they give an explanation for why he is in Dr Cox’ office. But there is no logic as to why Cox doesn’t just throw him out for being annoying.
The random coincidental bongo beat which convinces Dr Cox that JD planned it for him is ridiculous. It’s so contrived and not remotely funny.
Comic Highlight: Ted walking into Dr Cox’ office to find Dr Kelso in his chair and freaking out.
Diagnosis: The overall story being told is good. The way it is told and the forced humour is pretty annoying at times.
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