Thanksgiving isn’t really the primary focus of Scrubs; step back, however, and it almost becomes a running commentary on Thanksgiving episodes of comedies, using the familiar framework of family gatherings on sitcoms, and the generalizations they rely on to create the aura of family (and familiarity with the audience). To do this, shows have to rely on broad characters, who, over the course of a long running series, become parodies of themselves; like the protagonists on many of these shows, their characters aren’t given any room to grow, and thus continuously act out the same cycles of behavior and expression.
Scrubs, like any running comedy, would fall victim to these comfortable, simplistic rhythms at times in later seasons – in “My Day Off,” those established traits and relationships come under the microscope, in a strangely powerful half hour about the danger of becoming entrenched in a specific definition of self. When J.D. ends up in the care of his friend and colleagues after developing appendicitis, Scrubs immediately begins to reverse some of its still-growing dynamics; the doctor becomes the patient, while Dr. Cox’s patient, a former Sacred Heart chief of medicine, similarly turns him into the J.D. of his own relationship, when the semi-dismissive former chief becomes a patient of Cox and Kelso.
By doing this, “My Day Off” allows characters to step outside their well-defined boundaries, thus providing the avenue for self-discovery; tying those two stories together is Elliot’s inability to connect with her patients, due to a variety of factors including her cold hands, and Turk feeling insulted when J.D. doesn’t want him doing surgery on him. Again, Scrubs bites off more than it can chew narratively; however, the emotional undercurrent running through all these stories – that is, each character struggling against the definitions of self and others they’ve entrenched their minds in – embodies these stories with life, finding a neat thematic parallel to drive home the episode’s climatic moments, after Carla’s advice once again proves to be fruitful (and once again, nobody decides to take it, and ends up paying the price).
Of all these stories, Cox’s is probably the best; Elliot’s is mostly used as comic foil between the bromance of J.D. and Turk, a conflict that seems out of place the moment it was introduced (J.D. can only see Turk as a drinking frat boy, even after working together for months?). As always, McGinley is up to the task of silently carrying the emotional weight of the episode: when Dr. Benson tells Cox that he’s disappointed in his inability to progress his career, “My Day Off” catapults from a decent episode to a very, very good one, mostly because McGinley embodies Cox’s need to consistently undermine himself (as he points out with his friendship with Carla) with such pathos, unscrewing so much of Cox’s backstory without ever saying a word in direct reference to it. We can feel how desperate he is to show Benson that he’s a good doctor (even trying to parade J.D. around as his shiny protege), that it becomes all the more revealing when Benson expresses his frustration after Cox plays another prank on Kelso. Cox’s “hard” character comes from a place of great emotional insecurity, something “My Day Off” doesn’t try hard to highlight, but comes to life in vivid detail through JCM’s performance.
Oddly, “My Day Off” doesn’t try to reach so far with the other resolutions of the episode; J.D. and Turk make up rather effortlessly – and once Elliot helps out a patient, she begins to feel better about her performance as a doctor (though this is a bit of a hint towards stories to play out later this season, and next). However, the linking idea between them of shedding comfortable, simplistic identities for something a little more nuanced is an exciting one, and one that brings the idea of Thanksgiving into the final act into a meaningful way, even while Scrubs is undercutting it with a closing joke about alcohol and awkward silences being the hallmark of a family holiday. The idea of never allowing oneself to be tied down by a certain flaw or preconception is powerful; how “My Day Off” quietly expresses it borders on poetic at times, even though ultimately, the episode’s comedic intentions outweigh the dramatic, lessening the impact of a powerful Cox story and a number of intriguing examinations of established personas.
Other thoughts/observations:
– J.D.’s racial ignorance makes an appearance around Carla: “You guys have a Chicago?”
– The baseball uniform Cox wears the entire episode is distracting, and not worth the joke that he’s wearing it to spite a memo Kelso sent around.
– “You’re like school in July – no class.” *Fat Albert cutaway*
– There’s a weird joke Dr. Benson makes about having a dumb 22-year-old wife. What the what?
– To J.D., Turk is “the same goofball who tells me how to look cool.” Never has J.D. sounded so pathetic in a VO.
– Michael McDonald makes his first appearance in this episode, as a patient who got beat up by his father (in a wheelchair) and thrown down the stairs by his mother (after he called her fat and boring).
[Photo via NBC]
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Man, I miss this show.