Episode 4 - My Identity Crisis
29 March 2012
Synopsis: An episode about changing identities. Carla dreams in English for the first time and worries that she is losing connection to her Latin roots. Jordan takes the children to stay with her mother for a week and Dr Cox misses them. He worries he is not the lone wolf anymore. The Janitor challenges JD about being a man of the people and so JD agrees to learn the names of everyone in the hospital.
The Good: A really nice character episode where we see two serious plots and a third less serious one which compliments the other two.
Dr Cox very plausibly misses his family and then worries that he has lost the independence he once held so proudly. It’s a nice story because he seems to have lost the anger and depression which plagued him in earlier seasons. His family have clearly helped him to grow and having been with them for so long now it is understandable that he finds it odd to be without them. Last episode I complained that we have seen the same lessons being learnt by the characters over and over. Well this week, one has sunk in and it is nice to see Dr Cox develop in this way and find happiness with his family.
Meanwhile Carla’s worries about losing her Latina heritage are equally understandable. They are solved by Turk’s reassurance pretty quickly but his decision to learn Spanish is very sweet.
Finally JD learning the names of the hospital employees is a fun idea. It fits his character’s belief that everyone likes him and leads to some easy jokes. It also fits the episode theme of identity very nicely.
There are lots of small comedy moments to enjoy. Dr Cox and Jordan mocking each other is good character based comedy. JD sucking up to Dr Cox while he tries to lie to Elliot is fun. Carla picking the hospital geneticist when trying to prove a point is kind of funny. There is a nice use of Ted’s acapella group to show the characters questioning their identities and JD becoming like the Janitor at the end is decent.
The Bad: However nothing resembles a belly laugh except the Risky Business joke (see Comic Highlight).
Someone tell me why on earth Laverne is back as “new” nurse Shirley? Get it? Laverne and Shirley, Ha ha.
Comic Highlight: JD imagines what Dr Cox might do alone on his day off. He sees Dr Cox doing Tom Cruise’s dancing from Risky Business. He and Turk both slide in after him much to his chagrin. Then the Todd slides in wearing one of his banana hammocks and asks “Fellas why are you wearing such giant underwear?”
Diagnosis: Scrubs is still capable of writing stories which fit the characters. They do a good job here of showing the characters growing in ways which the audience can relate to. However the comedy is not good enough to make this funny as well. The show long ago lost the ability to blend the two together.
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