TVSquad

(S06E20) It wouldn't be Scrubs without romantic drama. I mean, epic romantic drama. Near-Grey's Anatomy-level romantic drama. And it all usually revolves around J.D.

But, unlike its Thursday medical dopplegänger on ABC, the romantic trip-ups come less from the neurotic navel-gazing of its characters (except for J.D., of course), but via the meanness and underhandedness of these characters' friends and co-workers. It's one of the things that makes Scrubs funny, and it was available in spades in this episode.

It's odd how the picture I posted looks eerily similar to the one I posted for my Gilmore Girls review on Tuesday. It's like they're the same scene, only the Scrubs version is more realistic (and less Yale-y). Well, in the world of TV, it's more realistic. Yes, folks, Kim is back, she still has the baby, and J.D. is pissed. We knew she was still pregnant, of course, but we just didn't know whether we or ol' Johnny was going to see her again. Who knew that the writers had to get J.D. to tag along with Turk to a surgical convention in order for them to run into her? What a coinkydink!

The convention scenes, by the way, were pretty funny. From the boys' name tags ("Vanilla Bear, MD" and "Chocolate Bear, MD"), to Old M.C., the oldest Young M.C. impersonator -- the only thing he could say was "Bust a move" -- to Kelso and his other Chief of Medicine cohorts being the bad boys of the joint. My favorite part was J.D.'s Dr Toilet fantasy. Yes, it was long (it was a "supersized" episode, after all), but God help me, talking toilets are really friggin' funny. And, knowing J.D.'s bowel problems and his love of taking a "twosie," the fact that he'd daydream about sitting down on a sleeping anthropomorphic toilet seems completely in character.

But the only reason he was there was to forget about Elliot and her new engagement to Keith. I think I feel a little better about this Elliot / J.D. thing than I did last week, mainly because there's a real "adult" decision thrown into the works here. It's kind of strange, because that final scene at first looks like a "choose one or the other" dilemma that we've seen in sitcoms and dramas since the dawn of TV. But there's a third choice, one that the usually immature and narcissistic J.D. has never had to face before: keep Kim in his life -- but not romantically -- for the sake of the kid and do the right thing and tell Elliot that she's not making a mistake in marrying Keith. So, there's a chance that he will do the mature thing and still be alone. Will Bill Lawrence and friends let him do that?

I'm not sure. I know Kim was very sincere in her mea culpa to J.D., but how do you forgive someone for leaving you and telling you the baby you were having together miscarried? Those are the type of lies that you just don't recover from. And why did she say she was angry that he left her? Am I not remembering it right, or were her hormones that out of whack? As far as J.D.'s concerned, we've already seen him take off from the convention rather than talk it out, so maturity hasn't been his strong suit to this point.

OK, let's back up a bit and examine why Elliot started the episode deeply involved in planning her two-months-from-now wedding (poor Keith... he never stood a chance on that decision) to wondering whether she's doing this because she loves Keith or just wants to be married. This was Cox's doing, all because he kept refusing to go to her wedding and she kept dangling the use of a SPECT camera as incentive for him to go. What I'm surprised was that in his three rants to her -- two mean and one nice, via Jordan's threat to "lay off the stick or I'll wait 'till you're asleep and cheese-grate your nerps" -- he never brought up J.D.

Sure, the cafeteria rant, where he eliminated all the men one by one, even Ted, who tried to save himself, was funny. But in at least one of them, he should have mentioned the whole history with J.D. Anyway, you wonder if Cox put the idea that Elliot is doing this for all the wrong reason in her head or she was thinking it already. Either way, I always laugh with glee at Cox's simultaneous capacity to verbally gut and soothe a person at the same time, often within the same speech. Oh, and you knew as soon as he said the words "apple thief" when he mocked her vows that he had read them from Elliot's wedding binder.

Elliot's brand of crazy is always entertaining, especially when she utilizes her calligraphy skills. But she's on much more solid ground emotionally than most of the people at Sacred Heart, believe it or not, and the look in her face at the end of the episode, even after Keith made up for something that wasn't even his fault, spoke volumes. That's Sarah Chalke for you; she can go from crazy to subtle in a flash and doesn't even break a sweat. Kudos to her on that.

What else do we have in this episode? Oh, Janitor's turn as the chief of medicine. I think people would rather work for him than Kelso; he seems to be a much nicer person as the fake chief than as the janitor, anyway. And you've got to love Ted's "I'm a follower" philosophy. He was so much happier working for Janitor, wasn't he? God, I love poor, pathetic Ted (and, by extension, Sam Lloyd's consistently sad-sack performance), especially when Janitor framed him after Kelso discovers the scam, then cuts his vacation pay to make it up to the real chief (Dr. Toilet, anyone?)

Good episode. With the pacing problems of earlier in the season gone, we're effectively building toward a finale that's going to put J.D. in a bit of a pickle. The supersizing spread out the laughs more than normal, but a good syndication edit will make that problem disappear. I'll give this one a six.