TVSquad

(S07E03) Based on the first two episodes, I was tentatively hopeful that the final season of Scrubs was going to be a good one. Now, after this third episode, my confidence in Bill Lawrence and company is almost fully restored after last season's awkwardness and inconsistency.

What worked this week? Well, having Tom Cavanagh come back to play J.D.'s older brother Dan always helps. But, like last week, we had a refreshing lack of insanity, punctuated by some funny situations that came out of the characters' personalities instead of zippy lines.

As I mentioned, there weren't many repeatable lines in this episode, except for maybe sad-sack Ted's description of how his mom rides with him on his bike. And the most interesting visual joke was the head-shaped sweat stain Ted leaves on Kelso's pillow. But otherwise, nothing that stuck out. The one fantasy sequence, where Turk and J.D. suffer the consequences of asking Carla to get on the new patient scale (below left) didn't quite land the way it should have.

What was funny in the cold open was Cox's effort to drown J.D.'s whining out with white noise, and the horrific prank Turk and Dan played on J.D.

Back to the Dorian brothers in a second. It's interesting that so far this season, there's been a limited amount of J.D. / Cox interaction. Yes, last week Cox gave J.D. a Coxian talk about being a parent, and this week he told J.D. in no uncertain terms that he needs to grow up. But those scenes are the only meaty ones between mentor and mentee. I miss 'em. Seeing Cox bait and ridicule Elliot about being a hypocrite about a patient who isn't eating just didn't have the same impact as even past Cox/Reid showdowns, much less the harangues he gives J.D. Maybe it's because Elliot deserved this one, getting self-righteous about how all the doctors are hypocrites. And Cox's lifting and carrying of Elliot over to the scale made me feel a wee bit uncomfortable. If this was real life, Elliot would have sued Cox in an eye blink.

Because the show was part of NBC's "Green is Universal" week, they needed some environmental plot. So it seemed fitting to give it to the Janitor, driver of an ancient gas-guzzling van and stuffer of dead animals. I thought his best punishment was the wasp's nest in the cars of people who parked in the carpoolers' spots. Turk didn't seem to get too swollen from all the stings, though...

Ok, now on to the main plot. Yes, J.D. needs to grow up. He can't drive a scooter to go see his kid, who Kim has conveniently moved 40 miles away (which means we likely won't see little Sammy until the finale). The "Hedging Symphony" was an interesting way to show that everyone -- including Elliot! -- felt the same way as the audience in general has for some time. I thought it worked OK; I just liked the looks on everyone's faces as they hesitated to tell J.D. the truth (Sarah Chalke's faces were the best... she looked like she was in pain at times). It was a nice turn of events to have former loser Dan tell his little brother that he needs to grow up. And watching Cavanagh do a funny dance and ask a lot of questions didn't hurt matters, at all. In fact, I kind of wanted to see more of Dan, on this episode and on the show in general; it's hard to believe that it's been almost two years since been on the show.

Oh, now that I think of it, Turk's basketball face and the fake bouncing J.D. was doing with it was pretty funny, especially when J.D. went "between the legs." Also, any reference by Carla to how much more intense J.D. and Turk's guy love is than the one she and Turk have is always amusing.

And when Carla told Elliot and Janitor that all they're doing is being human, I was saying to myself, "didn't Carla just say that a couple of weeks ago?" Of course she did, and we flashed back to that moment, with Carla saying "pay attention so I don't have to say this again in two weeks." Nice circular moment by the writers; I wonder if they inserted that joke in the premiere at the last minute when they realized what was going to happen in episode three.

So we're going down the path of J.D. finally becoming a man (for crissakes, it's about time; the guy is 32!). I'm very curious to see where we're going with this. Even if we *do* get that J.D. / Elliot reunion that only half the fans really want, at least both people might be better able to handle the relationship. Otherwise, what's the point of getting them together again, right?