‘Scrubs’ Creator & Cast On Reviving ‘Scrubs’ In ‘The Pitt’ Era, J.D. & Elliot’s Bombshell, Turk’s Struggles & Dr. Cox’s Future

SPOILER ALERT: The story includes details about Episodes 1 and 2 of ABC‘s Scrubs, which premiered Feb. 25.

Sixteen or seventeen years after the end of Scrubs — depending if you count the divisive ninth season or not — the medical comedy is back with a two-episode premiere for its long-in-the-works revival.

Conceived as if the original series ended with the Season 8 finale — with J.D. (Zach Braff) projecting on the sheet the future he imagined for himself and the rest of the gang — the revival finds Dr. Cox (John C. McGinley) and Turk (Donald Faison) still serving as Chief of Medicine and Chief of Surgery, respectively, at Sacred Heart. Turk feels stuck in a rut while Dr. Cox is practicing his tough love approach on a new crop of impressionable interns — but now under the watchful eye of an HR rep (Vanessa Byer) who seems to shadow him everywhere.

Also back at the hospital are Elliot (Sarah Chalke), now heading the sim lab, and nurse Carla (Judy Reyes). J.D., a concierge doctor, finds himself back in his stomping grounds when one of his patients is admitted at Sacred Heart.

The premiere delivered a big bombshell — J.D. and Elliot are divorced. (They have two kids now, BTW, while Carla and Turk, who remain happily married, have four.)

By the end of the first episode, Dr. Cox convinces J.D. to return to Sacred Heart only to reveal after J.D. had accepted that he would not be working with his mentor but would replace him as Dr. Cox announces his retirement.

“I feel like this particular time has passed me by,” he says.

Elliot is struggling with the strained dynamic in the friends group after her divorce from J.D.. Newly single, she sets her sights on a handsome young doctor but finds herself with J.D. in the supply closet where the two had shared many intimate moments in the original series.

In interviews with Deadline, Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence, who is executive producing the revival, and the cast discuss the decision to have J.D. and Elliot divorced and whether they could find a way back to each other, the new J.D.-Elliot-Turk’s dynamic, Turk’s internal struggle and him confronting J.D. about it as well as J.D.’s return as Cox’s successor.

Additionally, Lawrence, who also co-created Ted Lasso, discusses the decision to revive the series now and the impact of medical shows like The Pitt.

As Deadline revealed, recurring players Reyes and McGinley are in four and three of the revival’s nine episodes, respectively; Braff, Chalke and Faison are series regulars. Christa Miller and Neil Flynn will guest star as Jordan and the Janitor, respectively, with Ken Jenkins expected to be back as Dr. Kelso in Season 2 and the door open for a future return of Season 9 cast that included Eliza Coupe and Dave Franco.

The premiere also saw the retirement of J.D. and Turk’s Eagle. You can read the story of the stuntman injury during filming the scene here.

J.D. & Elliot’s divorce

DEADLINE: Bill, this is such a big relationship status change for J.D. and Elliot. Why did you decide to do it?

LAWRENCE: Here’s the scoop. The eighth year [of Scrubs] ends with, just once I’d like to believe my dreams came true. We all felt that way, and not to be dark about the world but, even though I’m very grateful about how my life has gone, not everything works out the way you want it to work out.

I’m a huge believer in writing what you know and what you see. Our showrunner [Aseem Batra] — she said I was allowed to talk about this — is someone that, when I left Scrubs, was married and was having a young child, and now is a single parent, co-raising that child with somebody. That doesn’t mean that it’s acrimonious, and that doesn’t mean that it’s his own journey. I’m sure you have the same experience, some people in your lives work out, some don’t.

I was really resistant at first, and the one thing those guys all drove home to me, they’re like, if you watch the 9,000 episodes of Scrubs, you would say, Turk and Carla are going to make it. And then you would go, I don’t think J.D. and Elliot have had more than an episode and a half, they seemed like a functioning couple.

So it’s a good storytelling device. It doesn’t mean that their story is over, but it certainly is something that adults have to navigate all the time.

DEADLINE: Sarah, Zach, were you disappointed that your characters are divorced?

CHALKE: I was not disappointed, I thought it was great. I thought it was the best way in because obviously, there’s so much more opportunity for comedy and drama when you have two people that are not just fine and happily married and getting along. I think it opens up more possibilities for their storylines. And also in the original run, we had so much of, they’re together, and then they break up. We had a lot of fun playing that in the original Scrubs, so, to do it in this iteration, I thought it was the best way to create conflict, and we had a good time.

BRAFF: And also to make it real. What J.D. sees projected on the sheet at the end of Season 8 is what he hopes and dreams will happen. But that doesn’t necessarily come true, especially when you’re 50 years old. Things that you didn’t want to happen, happen. Some marriages fail, some don’t.

You have the contrast with Turk and Carla, where they’re as happily married as ever compared to us, who are learning now to co-parent and eventually work together. So I think it was a good way of also showing a wide array of how marriages can turn out in midlife.

DEADLINE: The revival’s premiere saw Elliot and J.D. back in the supply closet. Does it mean that we may find their way back to each other romantically?

BRAFF: Who knows? We are hoping the fans love it and we get to do more seasons. I, as a viewer, would of course love it if they eventually hook up again because that would be fun TV. But I don’t know. We’ve only planned these first nine.

FAISON: That would definitely make it way more complicated if they hooked up again.

BRAFF: They’re just a couple Appletinis away from having that happen.

LAWRENCE: I don’t know where the writers will take it, but I think that one of my favorite things about TV is what we did on Ted Lasso, Jason Sudeikis did it.

You and I are still from an era that if there was ever a young single woman and a young single man on a TV show, the show had an inherent element of Will they-Won’t they, and you couldn’t fight it, you couldn’t break it, the networks would push you into it, it had to happen.

So one of the things that was really pleasant on Ted Lasso, it was interesting because there’s never any intent for Ted and Rebecca to end up together, and yet, that old undercurrent, you still felt it. I think that what’s cool now is that even if people are reading into or seeing that, I don’t think there’s any inherent obligation for them to end up together, probably just go wherever the story is taken.

DEADLINE: Elliot and J.D.’s divorce has complicated their friendship with Turk. Talk about the awkward new dynamic and Elliot being the one who actually articulated it?

FAISON: That’s a lot like real life. Zach, myself and my wife, we hang out a lot. And if something were to happen, Zach and I are so stubborn that we wouldn’t talk to each other, so we would need that somebody in the middle to make it happen, to bridge the gap. Elliot’s like that with Carla and Turk. Even though her and J.D. broke up, the dynamic between Elliot and Turk shifted, even though she still hangs out with Carla, because J.D. is his best friend, and it was really important that the group still somehow stays together. Turk — I’m going to address this — he ignores it. And Elliot, being the brave person that she is, is the one that brings up an awkward conversation, and that’s a testament to how tight this group is. To be able to do that, it’s difficult. Everybody shies away from conflict, and Elliot didn’t. I thought that was a great story point.

CHALKE: And it’s such a thing that people go through in breakups of marriage, is there a loyalty on one side? She actually ends up losing, Turk was one of her best friends, so I love how that was addressed.

DEADLINE: Will Elliot start dating? We saw her eying a young doctor.

CHALKE: I think for Elliot, we got to dip our toes into that a little bit in the first nine, and it’s a fun area to play in. J.D. and Elliot are at different levels of readiness for that, and I think it is an interesting thing to explore because I think in divorce, there are certain expectations about how people are going to handle things, and when is the time, and when are you ready? I think it was cool to just begin that with Elliot and all of her neuroses that surround that side of her life, because as a doctor, they’ve all come back in this iteration really, really good at their jobs, really caring about teaching the kids. That’s an area where Elliot’s become really confident in her work life, so I think it leaves room for exploring not being quite so confident in the other, romantic, side.

‘The Pitt’ Comparison

DEADLINE: Within the first two episodes of the revival, we saw doctors and a patients grappling with health insurance issues. Is that The Pitt effect, you taking a more realistic look at medicine?

LAWRENCE: I’m gonna give Scrubs a pat on the back. Until The Pitt — it’s my favorite show, I love it, my wife and I’ve been doing promo for it, essentially — but you can type on the Internet “What’s the most realistic portrayal of medicine on television?,” Scrubs was number one for the last 15 years. I’ll tell you why. Our medical cases were real. The reason we did that show initially was because my buddy J.D., the real J.D., said I rarely kick open a door and yell “Stat!,” and all the medical shows at that time were like, “There’s a bomb in his chest. We need two bloods, stat, he’s gonna die.”

He’s like, the real stuff was using gallows humor to get through the day and trying not to get torn up emotionally by what the sh*t you’re dealing with. And so, without a doubt, the same way that — look, he hates it that I’m going back to this, but you mentioned it — the real J.D., back in the days when he was an intern, if you got paged to a code, and you’re the first intern in there, you had to run it. And on his first day of work, he got paged to a code, and he hid in the closet, and we put it in the pilot of Scrubs, and that felt very familiar to the medical community, the fear of treating someone.

This year, there’s a story in the pilot that was taken straight from one of the doctors’ residencies, of a family that did not want to come into the ER and stayed out in the parking lot, hoping that it would get better, because they knew that, once they went into the ER, whatever savings they had would be decimated, and unfortunately, someone passed away in the parking lot. That’s just a straight true lifted story.

Why revive ‘Scrubs’ in 2026?

DEADLINE: There is a line by Dr. Cox in the premiere that “this particular time has passed me by.” Not all shows age well. Talk about the decision to bring Scrubs back but with a wink; there’s an HR rep as some things that we’d deemed OK back then maybe not be OK now.

LAWRENCE: Yeah, look, times change. I’m not afraid of this because people that whine about like, oh, it’s hard to do comedy now, I think that you have to evolve with the zeitgeist of the time. I think that’s one of the things that makes comedy fun, I think that funny always wins, and if you’re going to be dangerous, you got to be careful and make sure it’s funny.

The one thing that held up from the original Scrubs is the humanity and the feeling that all these people in a teaching hospital were doing it because they were trying to be of service. The one thing that was canon was, the medical advisors all said, you can’t make fun of the patients, and you have to show people that are actually sacrificing their lives to try and do good.

But yeah, the comedy winds up with the actual show. In real life, interns and residents aren’t nearly as abused and treated the way that they were back in those times. Doesn’t mean that they aren’t still stressed out, and doesn’t mean they don’t still burn out, but times have changed in the medical world as well.

DEADLINE: Is Dr. Cox a relic? How does his character fit into today’s world?

MCGINLEY: I think people who understand fatigue and being exhausted will understand Dr Cox’s dilemma.

DEADLINE: But in terms of him now having issues with HR. Do you think that, 16 years later, we think of Dr. Cox the same way we did back in the day?

MCGINLEY: I think he’s accomplished everything he set out to accomplish, and he’s ready to move on.

REYES: I think Carla functions in a bit of a similar capacity as Dr. Cox, passionate about what you do, worn out by what you do, but you can’t help it, because you love it. And you have to cope with the times and how that changes you. So in that regard, she’s there because she loves the job, because she’s got four kids, and her husband’s the Chief of Surgery. The world of the hospital will have its effect on her the way it’s had its effect on Cox later in the episode that you’ll witness.

Passing the baton to J.D. & Dr. Cox’s Future

DEADLINE: Dr. Cox has been such a dominating presence on the show. How will it work with J.D. taking over and what will Cox’s presence be post-retirement?

LAWRENCE: I resisted doing this show again for a long time; I was doing other stuff. I got to see all these friends anyways, and they’re all busy because they’re talented. But Aseem, the showrunner, when they came to me with their idea, it was, it’d be cool to see those students as the teachers now, and to do that, you need to see somebody take Dr Cox’s role. Then to do that it was really important to see that J.D. maybe entered a little bit of a cushier life, because when you work at a teaching hospital, you’re there because you’re being of service, there’s no other side to it. But even though we knew that meant that in the opening of the show, J.D. had to step in the mantle of, you need to be for these kids what I was to you, the dynamic between J.D. and Dr Cox is such a big one; Dr. Cox is a huge character on the show. He comes back at the end of the year and will continue on next year.

MCGINLEY: I’ll come back to the hospital in a profoundly different capacity.

DEADLINE: Oh, I hope you [as Dr. Cox] are not dying.

MCGINLEY: We all die, Nellie.

DEADLINE: Zach, how do you feel about J.D. becoming the new Dr Cox but with a different attitude?

BRAFF: Yeah, I think one of the things you see in the pilot is that J.D. hasn’t been a teacher in years, but you can see how good he is at it and how much he misses it. Whereas Cox is such a tough love kind of teacher that doesn’t really work — and as we learned from researching is not really allowed anymore — and he’s sort of burned out. He’s like a dinosaur. And then he clocks J.D. helping the interns and being able to actually speak to them and liking him. And that’s when he goes, this should be you doing this. I’m too old. The line is they need someone to do for them what I did for you. And I think that’s one of the main themes of the first season.

“Turk is stuck”

DEADLINE: J.D. and Elliot have new jobs while Turk is exactly where he was at the end of the original series, as Chief of Surgery.

FAISON: This is part of his story, too. Turk is stuck. And before, it was great to be stuck with your best friend, because you guys could play after [work] and do so many great things after but his best friend’s gone and he’s stuck still. How does he combat that, how do you combat doing the same stuff over and over again, losing patience? Sometimes there’s a win, sometimes there isn’t, and you don’t have anyone to share it with, someone to laugh about it with.

It breaks him down, even though he holds a brave face for the hospital and his wife and his kids, it breaks him down, and he doesn’t want to talk about it. And J.D. shows up and acts like everything’s back to normal again. It’s like, no, no, no, we got history, bro, that we got to fix first before all of that happens. That was also something that was very exciting to do. I remember I studied that scene for about a month and a half because I really wanted it to work, the confrontation.

Nods To The Original Series

DEADLINE: Scrubs’ fantasy sequences were back in the premiere with J.D.’s “feelings police.” What other signature elements of the original series will you be revisiting?

LAWRENCE: One of the few things that people loved about the early shows is a portrayal of very non toxic, emotionally open male friendship, and a lot of that involved the joyful, childish exuberance of Turk and J.D. and fantasies and a voiceover monologue. We wondered if we can hold on to that, and the thing that convinced us that we could is if you see Zach and Donald’s Super Bowl commercials or their podcast, their friendship is authentic. They still behave like they’re 12 years old when they’re together, and yet can still be people that are patriarchs of families and directing movies and running businesses and stuff.

So we were like, what a cool thing to hold onto from the old show is that kind of childish joy and fantasies and inner monologue and goof around with each other. We all want our friendships to be like, but with the dichotomy of both of them now having to step in the role of being a grown up in the room and being the teacher and behaving differently when they’re being watched, so that became something we have to hold on to from the old show.

FAISON: In real life we are manchildren, let’s be honest. But I do have to parent my kids.

BRAFF: We are real adults. Joking aside, one of the mandates from Bill and myself was, we don’t want them to be children. Obviously, silly guys, but when things get serious, they drop in and they’re adults, whether it’s dealing with their children or dealing with relationships exploding, or, most importantly, dealing with the emergencies of the patients and teaching these young crop of interns, that’s all played real.