There’s nothing to mess up the rhythms of a young comedy like some aggressive stunt casting; nine episodes into Scrubs, and here comes Jack McFar- I mean, Sean Hayes, popping in for a visit at Sacred Heart. While every network has an unhealthy addiction to stunt casting (even in this day and age), NBC’s syngeristic tendencies always provided for some awkward pairings in the 1990s; that hangover extends to “My Super Ego,” which takes Sean Hayes from Will and Grace, and basically recreates his character in the Scrubs world, as an overzealous, supremely talented doctor who suddenly falls apart emotionally at the end of the episode.
To say the arc of Nick Murdoch in “My Super Ego” is swift is a slight understatement: outside of the well-hidden running conversation with him and Nurse Roberts over a child patient in a few scenes, Nick’s downfall is sudden and unexpected. I suppose this is by nature, both because Hayews was only appearing in a single episode, and how it adds to the sudden shock of someone abandoning a career they’d worked a decade to begin; however, without any appearances in the first eight episodes to establish Nick as a character, Scrubs has to rely on our emotional connection with the other three protagonists to bring its abrupt conclusion to life. Without that foundation, the shock of Nick suddenly leaving the hospital after a child patient becomes terminally ill just isn’t as powerful, no matter how much of the 22 minutes is spent building up a rivalry with him and J.D.
Also, Nick Murdoch is a one-dimensional character; his skills are revealed to be overcompensation for his own personal shortcomings as a doctor, creating a contradiction that doesn’t quite come to life. For all the time spent around Nick, so much of “My Super Ego” exists in J.D.’s head, which makes it impossible to relate to Nick in any way except as an antagonist, especially after he has that super weird interaction with Elliot, where he asks her out via voicemail before they even have a conversation (yeah, that’s a little odd, no?). And as an antagonist – one who doesn’t have the benefit of multiple appearances to build out his sympathetic traits – his decision to quit at the end of the episode feels like some odd moral victory for J.D., one that is both unearned and out of place with the supposed priorities of the episode.
This ineffectiveness to connect pervades the rest of the episode; like Nick, we don’t quite understand Cox’s motivations when it comes to his clear hatred for Turk. Like the grinning “weak” doctor, there are a lot of attempts to be subtle about Dr. Cox’s true feelings about Carla (and life in general), but “My Super Ego” is too busy being coy about these things to make any of it feel impactful. Transitioning Cox from the reluctant seer into something more humanized is a process that will take Scrubs a little while to figure out; it’s first attempt here is less than impressive, ending with him humiliating Turk by setting up an audience outside the bathroom where he is giving himself “the downtown Lester Brown” (something Cox himself suggested Turk do before surgery, part of his plan to convince him Carla wasn’t his good luck charm in the OR).
The conflict “My Super Ego” aims for is an interesting one; but it’s not an idea the show had presented at all previously (outside of J.D. mentioning his debt once, the toll of their long education is not really a topic Scrubs would ever explore), and certainly not one the show would revisit for a number of seasons, never with the return of Nick Murdoch. And maybe that’s the way Scrubs wants it; the story’s attempt to speak the experiences we have with relative strangers that affect our worldview is an encouraging one – however, its execution of that idea leaves a lot to be desired. But thus is the nature with a lot of ‘dramatic’ Scrubs story lines; for every “My Old Lady,” there is a “My Super Ego,” itself hardly the lowest point for Scrubs‘ attempt to bring dramatic poignancy to the experience of life as a doctor.
Other thoughts/observations:
– First sighting of Snoop Dogg Intern!
– There’s a B-story about Turk getting cold feet in the OR, but it’s mostly some BS to give his story a rough parallel to J.D., bringing them back down to earth and such.
– Doug the Intern also makes his first notable appearance, accidentally passing a soda instead of a urine sample during a handy little Scrubs montage.
– Elliot’s instantaneous self-rejection with Nick is classic Sarah Chalke: “ugh, I already blew it!”
– J.D.’s (still unseen) brother used to make him play out M.A.S.H. plot lines: “I don’t wanna be Hot Lips again!”
– “My Super Ego” is the first, but not the last, time we’d see Donald Faison dance.
– Todd, ruining surgery: “I farted, sir. That smell is from the fart I made.”
[Photo via NBC]
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