Episode 9 - My Dumb Luck
29 March 2012
Synopsis: Carla and Elliot try to save Dr Kelso’s job. Jordan advises them to get all the hospital’s important personnel to approach the board. But no one will help because they are scared of Dr Cox who wants Kelso to leave. Dr Cox is struggling to diagnose a patient and is annoyed when JD and Turk find the answer. Dr Kelso reminisces all day to an intern called Boone. Dr Cox realises that the enemy he knows is better than then one he doesn’t and they manage to save Kelso’s job. But in the end he leaves anyway, happy to go out on his own terms.
The Good: If this is the end for Dr Kelso, then it is a good send-off. The way he takes the time to reminisce gives us one last long look at his character just as he takes one last look at the hospital.
His speech about his first kill is particularly fitting and marks the right tone for his goodbye and the show as a whole. Scrubs has reinforced the message about life and death consistently through its seven years, including the pilot episode when JD confronts his first corpse. But still seven seasons later seeing Kelso talk with real feeling about what it is like to kill someone by omission is touching.
As is his reminder that he has to make one unpopular decision after another just to keep the hospital running. It has been the saving grace of Kelso’s character that we have slowly understood how much he cares about the hospital and why he does the mean things he does. His heartfelt thanks to Ted at the end was very much needed to conclude their relationship on a positive note. Seeing Kelso smiling and seemingly at peace at the end is a very pleasant goodbye to one of the best characters on the show. He manages to stay more believable and consistently funny than many of the characters. He will be missed by viewers.
Turk getting distracted by how cool he looks in a fedora is funny.
The Bad: Otherwise this episode is not up to much. The battle to convince Dr Cox to help Dr Kelso should have been more character based than this. We know that Kelso and Cox have hated each other over the years but recently we have seen them become much closer. This season alone we have had them jointly meddling in Turk’s affairs while Cox tried to help Kelso not put on weight (707). This seemed a prime opportunity to bring out why Dr Cox sees value in Kelso as chief of medicine. An acknowledgement of their relationship is really missing here. Instead we get a plot about a patient which leads to Dr Cox realising that better the devil you know than the devil you don’t. That’s a very weak way of convincing him when we have seven years of back story to work with.
The attempts at humour are all silly or unnecessary. JD getting hit by a bike bungee is puerile, the love train seems pointless and the Janitor’s mind control is more nonsense. Poor Ted gets humiliated and run over for no good reason. Characters like Ted and the Janitor are funnier in small does. Why should we take any pleasure from Ted, a loser, being run over and seriously hurt? Or for that matter by a deranged cleaner who himself doesn’t really believe he can control people’s actions.
Comic Highlight: Kelso approaches Ted and seems genuinely impressed with his jacket. He feels it all over and asks what it is made of. Ted seems pleased and asks if he really likes it. Kelso replies “No. Bathroom’s just out of paper towels.”
Diagnosis: Dr Kelso receives a very well written last episode. Which I hope it is because they could only spoil their good work by bringing him back. But Scrubs' pathetic humour drags this one down and they force a patient’s story in rather than give some depth to Dr Cox’ feelings.
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