20 Of The Best Episodes Of "Scrubs" In Honor Of Their 20th Anniversary

🎶 I'm no superman 🎶

Kylin

• Published in Film & TV
• May 29, 2022

Not to make you feel old or anything, but Scrubs, the incredibly silly, wholesome, and occasionally heartbreaking medical dramedy TV show recently celebrated 20 years from its debut. If this show was a person, it would be almost old enough to legally purchase booze in the United States.

In 2001, Bill Lawrence’s newest endeavor would air its pilot episode, enriching our lives by following the lives of the employees who worked at Sacred Heart, a fictional teaching hospital. Narrated by J.D., the main character, via his internal monologue, we get to know and love J.D. and his closest friends (the deep platonic love between J.D. and Turk is reason enough to love this show), his whirlwind romances, and his interactions with the diversely eccentric co-workers. 

Somehow, the series managed to effortlessly blend drama, humor, and heart in easily binge-able thirty-minute episodes. They lured us in with J.D.’s lighthearted monologues and goofy daydreams and made us feel safe that this would be a silly sort of medical-themed show, only to later turn around and rip our hearts out with deep and devastating episodes about loss.

And we’ll never really ever get over it, even after another two decades. In order to celebrate 20 years of Scrubs, we collected 20 of its best episodes to share.

We'll be covering these in chronological order, starting with Season 1

Episode 1: My First Day

OBVIOUSLY, the first episode is one of the best. It's where we first meet Elliot and J.D., where J.D. and Janitor have their first conflict, and gives us a sort of foundation for what the tone of the show will be and a peek into the character dynamics.

Episode 4: My Old Lady

It's here where they really dig into the drama side of this dramedy. They teach us that statistically, one out of three patients dies.

We follow J.D., Turk, and Elliot through their respective experiences with their own patients, and against the odds, all die. The relationship that J.D. builds with Mrs. Tanner (Kathryn Joosten), a patient who is going off of dialysis, is especially bittersweet.

Episode 15: My Bed, Banter, and Beyond

Juicy drama aside, this episode gives us a look inside the hospital staff as they're evaluated by a psychiatrist, with whom they must explain why they entered the medical field. In between these scenes, we're with J.D. and Elliot as they spend their day in bed as a new couple, interspersed with how their new and fragile relationship falls apart in a matter of weeks.

Episode 22: My Occurrence

Freaking Ben. Brendan Fraser fits into the Scrubs universe flawlessly and breaks our hearts while doing so.

When we're introduced to Ben, we're also shown a new side of Dr. Cox, one that's goofy and tender. But as we've learned by now, Scrubs isn't pure good feelings, and they deliver an emotional gut-punch when it's revealed that Ben has leukemia.

Episode 23: My Hero

Following the emotional wreckage of episode 22, we're given another fantastic Ben episode. The silliness of Ben and his interactions with J.D., Dr. Cox, and others is a sharp contrast to the dreadful leukemia diagnosis.

Season 3

Episode 1: My Own American Girl

Although Elliot is somewhat neurotic, it's part of her charm. After an awkward run-in with an ex, we join Elliot through a drastic makeover, set to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ “American Girl.”

Episode 14: My Screw Up

This episode makes me literally bawl every time I watch it. Even though Scrubs is overall goofy, they really do have some super sad moments, but nothing like this episode.

We start the episode with a visit from Ben, Dr. Cox's best friend, and ex-wife's brother, who is in a relapse of leukemia. It plays out as if Dr. Cox is going to his son's first birthday party with Ben, until the very end, when J.D. asks Dr. Cox where he thought he was, and the scene pans out to show viewers that they were actually at Ben's funeral.

Excuse me while I go cry over this episode again.

Episode 16: My Butterfly

Scrubs take on the Butterfly Effect. The Butterfly Effect is part of the chaos theory, which basically teaches us that even small things matter, and we are all connected to a bigger system.

One small action today, like a butterfly flapping its wings, can change everything. So this episode goes through two different scenarios, one following after a butterfly lands on a woman's chest, then another, when a butterfly lands on a man's chest.

Season 4

Episode 6: My Cake

Scrubs doesn't shy away from the topic of mortality, they go head-on into stories about difficult patient deaths, and deaths of loved ones. In this episode, J.D.'s brother, Dan, shows up with a cake to tell him that their father died.

This episode ends with Dr. Cox coming over with some beer and watching a football game with J.D. and Dan to help them cope, and Dr. Cox telling J.D. that he's proud of him. *quiet sob*

Episode 12: My Best Moment

During this Christmas episode, the hospital staff revisits their favorite Sacred Heart moments. We meet Mr. Milligan, a patient, and his son Tyler, who both bring out the best in everyone at the hospital.

Episode 17: My Life in Four Cameras

Filmed like a multi-camera sitcom in J.D.'s fantasy, we're seamlessly transitioned between a goofy lighthearted sitcom feel to the somber reality inside the hospital.

Season 5

Episode 3: My Day at the Races

J.D. feels he hasn't accomplished as much as he wanted to as he approaches his 30th birthday, which results in Dr. Cox inviting J.D. to participate in a triathlon. J.D. passes out within sight of the finish line when Elliot comes to see him again, so she carries J.D. over the finish line.

Episode 7: My Way Home

The episode pays tribute to the iconic film The Wizard of Oz when J.D. is called into the hospital on his day off and attempts to leave to get back home like Dorothy, while his friends overcome their own issues with intelligence, courage, and heart.

Episode 13: My Five Stages

Doing what Scrubs does best, we explore death in a very tender way as J.D. and Dr. Cox work through the five stages of grief as their favorite patient Mrs. Wilk (Michael Learned) declines.

Episode 20: My Lunch

J.D. and Dr. Cox run into an old patient, Jill Tracy (Nicole Sullivan), who has been stood up for a date. A few days later, Jill dies in what looks like a suicide via drug overdose.

Dr. Cox makes the decision to use her donated organs for three of his patients, who all, in turn, die from their transplants. It was after Jill's autopsy that they learn she didn't die from a drug-induced suicide but from rabies.

This sends Dr. Cox deep into a spiral of self-blame and shame, in which it's J.D. who now is in the position to try to help Dr. Cox. This episode really underlines the fragile nature of hospital work, and beautifully shows how the relationship between J.D. and Dr. Cox is shifting.

Episode 21: My Fallen Idol

Dr. Cox is hit hard after losing 3 patients due to his decision to use organs from a donor they did not know had rabies until it was too late. While many of his friends try to pull him out of his depression, it's ultimately J.D. who is able to talk sense into Dr. Cox.

Season 6

Episode 6: My Musical

This very fun episode follows a patient named Patti (Stephanie D'Abruzzo) who hears speech as singing after she faints. This episode also gave us a catchy song making fun of toxic masculinity around heterosexual male friendships.

Guy Love

Episode 15: My Long Goodbye

Laverne ends up in a coma after a being in a bad car accident. Everyone eventually accepts it's unlikely that she'll wake up, but Carla remains hopeful that her friend will be okay.

Laverne doesn't wake up, and Carla shares her last words to her friend:

“Whoa, I'm still not ready to do this. It's gonna be weird not having you by my side everyday; making fun of the doctors, going on about Jesus. Man, I hope he's real or you're gonna be piiiissed.

Remember my first day, when that patient came in and started bleeding out on me, and I was so shocked I could barely move. But you stood by my side, and you guided me through it.

And then you did the most amazing thing of all, you made me laugh. For the last 15 years you've been my role model, but most of all you've been my friend. And I don't know what else to say but I'm gonna really really miss you. Goodbye.”

Season 8

Episode 2: My Last Words

J.D. and Turk set aside their decade-old tradition of "Steak Night" to comfort a dying patient who had no family. This episode ruminates the general ideas of death, along with how J.D. and Turk relate to it as doctors.

Episode 18 & 19 : My Finale

Look, I know we said 20 and this is technically two episodes but it's really just a two-part ending and I am counting it as one.

Scrubs finishes off season 8 as J.D.'s last day at Sacred Heart, and it is a really satisfying ending to the series. (Yes, I know there's a Season 9, but ugh.)

I’ve literally watched all 8 seasons of Scrubs at least twice. And I will continue to pretend Season 9 never really happened cause it really shouldn’t have. 

Did your favorite episode make our list, or do you have a different all-time favorite episode that we failed to mention? Let us know in the comments section below, and be sure to share this with your Scrubs-loving friends.

Kylin