Alright, you guys–I’ve gotta say, I laughed a lot at Scrubs last night.  Probably as much as I would at a regular (pre-med school) episode.  I think that this was probably the week that, had I been on the fence (I really wasn’t), I probably would’ve made up my mind about the show.  I hope other people are deciding to stick with it, because I like having people to watch with. :)

Anyway, maybe I’m alone in this but I find that if shows can get off to strong starts, I pretty much enjoy them the whole way through.  It’s like having a strong opening act at a comedy show–it gets you warmed up and ready to laugh.  This episode got off to a really good start for me with the interns fighting over the doughnut (“You think licking will stop me?  I’ve eaten out of a dumpster!”), continued solidly pretty much throughout, and got several things right, such as …

First of all, and this really seems obvious but can’t be overstated–the jokes were funny.  My favorite exchange of the night was this one:

Drew: Since when am I the student faculty advisor?
Denise: Since you slept with the faculty advisor.
Drew: Your mom is the faculty advisor?
Denise: Joke’s on you.  My mom is dead. 

Hilarious!  I love those two, possibly more than I have ever loved a Scrubs couple (besides JD and Turk, and even then … maybe).

Speaking of JD and Turk, I thought their storyline was decent this week too, because as someone approaching 29 next week, the having fun while still getting older is something I can relate to.  Although I’ve never done any Brazilian fight-dancing.  I think their patheticness made them slightly less annoying.

I did like that the show acknowledged the episode where JD and Turk sat talking to a dying man, because it just … made sense.  At this point, I know it’s totally unavoidable that the show is going to retread old storylines (they pretty much have to), but it does make sense for JD and Turk to share their own experiences (or drop knowledge bombs, as the case may be), since they are teachers, after all.  And I think that acknowledging that things happened before makes it okay, like yeah, this is the natural order–everyone goes through these things and even though it isn’t new to the teachers, or to us, it’s new to the med students and that’s what’s important.  Okay, cool.  I can live with that.

I’ve been actually really enjoying AssCole for the last two weeks.  Although did anyone else notice how SHORT he is?  Dear God, please don’t let James Franco be that short, or the illusion will be ruined for me.  But I think he might be.  So please, never let me find out.  Love, SB.  Anyway, I think they finally hit a good place with him where he’s more dumb than an asshole, which I think is the same kind of improvement that Parks & Rec made to Andy and honestly, that True Blood made to TV Jason as opposed to Book Jason.  The Final Countdown, followed by, “I just thought of that!  I’m going to be such a good doctor.” cracked me up, and his ridiculous party was pretty good too. 

Plus, they’ve let him remain an asshole (“I’d really like to stay, but I just don’t feel like it”) while giving him some redeeming moments too (i.e. coming back and blaming it on Denise, when in reality she didn’t make him).  He was sweet with the patient (Molly Ringwald’s dad in Sixteen Candles!!!!), and maybe even a little vacantly lovable as he ate his sandwich off the fork.  I never thought, after the first episode, that I could like that character but they’ve really brought him around for me.

The other thing that I thought went well was the one random flashback to Drew in a dinosaur costume.  Really, I think that JD fantasies are so unique to that character that I think I’d like to see those go with him.  I know it’s part of what makes Scrubs Scrubs, but seeing Lucy have JD fantasies is off-putting in a way that I don’t fully understand.  If they can find a way to incorporate them without strictly passing them onto another character, I’d be on board.  Even the military scene, while maybe a little shy of the funny mark, didn’t seem to happen directly in her head and that was okay with me.

I don’t want to be TOO sunshine and roses on you (GOD no, we wouldn’t want THAT–you guys would wonder who was paying me off), and there were some low points as well.  Now that you guys have alerted me to the security guards, I’m so over it.  It’s not that I’m opposed to another Janitor-type in theory, but in practice, they’re so not funny.  The black guy is KIND OF (and I am maybe being a little generous there) funny, like asking Turk what he was thinking being a black cowboy, but the white guy and his stupid fake mustache?  Not even remotely.  I could do without them.

Also, Australian doctor is useless.  They have GOT to do something with that character, because as of right now, for all intents and purposes, there are only four med students, the show already has two hot blondes (Denise and Lucy), plus Elliott when she’s around, and Australian doctor has absolutely zero personality.  They either need to figure her out or kick her to the curb, because the last thing this show needs right now is one more character just taking up space.

Also, I miss Doug.

Alright, so in a move that I found neither good nor bad, we said goodbye to Ted.  I didn’t really think it was especially necessary, but I think the show’s feelings on it came out via Ted’s monologue about deserving better–I think they wanted to give him a fitting send-off for spending eight years there and I can’t really begrudge them that, so I can spend part of an episode that way, no biggie.

So yeah, in general, I felt like the show got more right than wrong this time and is really showing promise.  And, like I said, it made me laugh.  What did you guys think?  Anyone else as amused as I was?  Things you liked or didn’t like?  Talk in the comments!