I retreated to the reruns on Comedy Central, telling Tivo to hang on to three at a time. It was a perfect number, enough to binge if I was feeling nostalgic, but small enough to remind myself I was "done" with Scrubs. When the show was picked up by ABC I meant to add a new Season Pass, but I never did. Each week reviews of episodes would pop up on TV Squad, and I'd tell myself to add the Season Pass...every week.
Last week when it was announced ABC had gotten involved with Hulu I said, "great, I can finally catch up on Scrubs!" Then today, I saw a post on TV Squad about tonight's episode being the finale. Before doing anything else I grabbed my remote and told Tivo to record. It was time to see what Bill Lawrence could do with an actual finale. Sitting here typing I can say, for sure, that I am officially done with Scrubs. In a good way though!
Play...
0:00 - Zach Braff has a beard now? And who's he in bed with? Can you tell I haven't watched this show in a year?
0:02 - Classic Scrubs flashbacks to J.D.'s first day. Is this going to be a clip show? Now I'm worried. I'm glad they didn't save J.D. and Elliot finally getting together for the finale (she was the one in bed with him, if you were wondering too) as I can't think of anything more anti-climactic. I think I'll take this chance to get two complaints about Scrubs off my chest before getting to the lovefest this will be at the end:
1. It's hard to feel bad for J.D. when he seems to be able to get beautiful girls whenever he wants, but is still supposed to be a love-lorn nerd. When Elliot broke up with her boyfriend for him, and he freaked out, realizing he only wanted her because he couldn't have her, I was never able to feel bad for him again. Did the show rely on me feeling bad for him later? You bet it did.
2. The jokes seem to go on for one or two lines too long at times, but it almost wouldn't be Scrubs without it. Perfect example at the start of this episode. J.D. attempts to guilt Elliot into morning sex after feigning offense at her starting to move in without consulting him:
Elliot: Are you seriously upset?Yes I realize this is a successful and beloved comedy show, but the lovefest comes later. Right now could be my last chance to point out how in the past few seasons the writers seem to add useless lines to pad jokes, only serving to suck the funny out of them by doing victory laps around throwaway lines. Think I'm overreacting? Watch for how often characters say things like "niiice!" after other people's one-liners...sorry, I may have just ruined Scrubs for you. Okay, back to the episode at hand.
J.D.: I'm very upset, I don't think even morning sex could fix it...although it might
Elliot: Fine, do I have to move a lot?
J.D.: You never do anyway.
[There, you're good, joke launched and landed and...]
Elliot: True.
[Nooooo! You were so close!]
0:02 - Bob Kelso? Why is he back? He already had a great send off! Oh wait, they thought that was the last season at the time. I'll see where it goes. Unpause.
0:03 - See? Kelso zings Ted and they move right along without having to preen over it, not so hard righ...sorry. Unpause.
0:10 - Nice to see Dr. Cox's rants get wrapped up in such a nice package in J.D.'s handsome pleather-bound volume. Also, I really liked how they kind of covered the big three so early in the show. It's 10 minutes in and already Elliot has addressed the fact that she'll cry if she tries to say goodbye, Turk has given him a final "EAGLE!" spin and a big hug, and now Dr. Cox has belittled his show of affection. Turk might have been worried about his goodbye peaking too early, but I like the idea a lot. We knew these three interactions were coming, so now that they're out of the way we're in uncharted waters. Anything can happen now, and that's unusual for 10 minutes in a finale.
0:14 - Also great to see that J.D. has a final patient! Shows get so obsessed with wrapping things up in the finale they completely abandon the usual events that make up episodes. If Seinfeld was guilty of anything, it was guilty of this. So I was expecting an hour of goodbye after goodbye, creating an episode with no resemblance to the ones that kept fans coming back. Not the case, we have a patient, we have a patient's family member, this feels like Scrubs.
0:16 - Ah yes, J.D.'s original sin against the janitor; the penny that jammed the door on his first day. They could have gone with some extravagant prank by the janitor in an attempt to end it with a bang, but I love this idea so much more. Possibly the most persistent thread in this show has been the janitor's hatred for J.D. flowing from that single moment when he allegedly jammed a penny in the door, and that shall be their final battle. Game on!
0:24 - See? This is the comedy I love from Scrubs. J.D. alone with a patient, getting lost in a voice-over while still trying to do his job, and eventually messing up without any stupid manufactured drama or anger. Almost like a little sketch within the show.
0:26 - Welcome to the moment I fully relaxed and fell in love with this episode. The speculation before a show's finale is almost never, "what's going to happen," but usually, "how memorable will it be?" It's like Series Finale is the name of a show, and finales are merely episodes in one giant season, all judged by the same criteria regardless of what the show had been. Whether comedy or drama there MUST be big huge moments and it MUST be emotional. 26 minutes in, Bill Lawrence has said, "I'm not going to play your game!"
Here he calls out the expectations, revealing that the staff care more for Kelso's anti-climactic exit ("But you left a year ago. You got cake. He got cake!") than J.D.'s fresh one. Greatest is the moment when Bob asks J.D. what the thought the end would be like, and he responds: "I don't know, I guess I thought there'd be a lot of heartfelt goodbyes, and when I was finally ready to leave it'd be like one of those great old sitcom finales." Cue the overly melodramatic piano music that used to accompany every big emotional revelation in the show (which the show itself made fun of in recent years) and J.D. hitting a lightswitch, causing the entire hospital to lose power as patients code and the staff panics.
After that we get another powerfully understated goodbye from Kelso and you realize there's half the episode to go and the show has officially thrown off the chains of outside expectations. This is not a sitcom finale, this is the Scrubs finale.
0:32 - Carla and J.D. say goodbye, again they let the history of the characters make the moment, rather than trying to have the moment make history. J.D. is Bambi one last time, and it feels momentous.
0:34 - Another finale mistake is cooking up big reveals for the sake of revelations. One of the biggest reveals I've heard in a long time (keeping in mind I watched Lost before this); it really was J.D. who jammed the door with a penny on his first day! And the janitor knew! You know how when Lost has a big reveal it makes you want to re-watch the whole show to see how it affects things? Well now I want to watch every J.D.-Janitor interaction again. All the times J.D. laments the Janitor's crazy obsession with him, and now that we know it was valid. At least it was more valid than we thought. Huge!
0:43 - Janitor revelations part II: J.D. has never asked the Janitor's name. The likelihood of me re-watching every episode of Scrubs just increased. Also the Janitor pulls the old Joker switcheroo, is his real name Glen or Tommy? Is it something completely different? You decide.
0:45 - A series of heartfelt compliments from Dr. Cox? Sitcom finale expectations. Having him be tricked into giving those same compliments while J.D. hides in the background? Very clever. Now we've reached the final voice-over, the big finale of the big finale.
0:46 - Is it the character talking, or is it the cast and the crew?:
"Endings are never easy. I always build them up so much in my head that they can't possibly live up to my expectations and I just end up disappointed. I'm not even sure why it matters to me so much how things end here. I guess it's because we all want to believe that what we do is very important. That people hang onto our every word. That they care what we think. The truth is you should consider yourself lucky if you even occasionally get to make someone, anyone, feel a little better."How perfect is this? It shows gratitude to the fans, and gives us a little insight into how everyone involved with the show is feeling. It recognizes our worry over the quality of the finale we're going to be getting, and assures us one last time that they know we repeatedly tuned in for the joy it brought us, not in the hopes that a big, random statement be made in the final episode. We tuned in, they made us feel happy, and sad, and lots of things inbetween. Now let's all just ride the wave out together.
0:48 - J.D.'s walk down the corridor as he leaves was like the Seinfeld finale condensed into two minutes, instead of dragged out over a whole episode. We got to see way more characters than I ever expected we would, and it just felt so natural. Those who had special catchphrases and moments got one last shot at them, while others only needed a smile and a nod. It reminded me of what actually happens when you leave something big like that. While you might be trying to reminisce all day, it's usually only on your final steps out of the door that things from long ago come flooding back. It's not your life flashing before your eyes, it's just that segment of it. Most important though, Bill Lawrence wasn't able to make me cry! Take that! Woo hoo! Hang on. Peter Gabriel? I don't like the look of this. Unpause.
0:52 - Damn you Bill Lawrence! *sniff*
Also, an extremely classy move to have the behind the scenes footage at the end. This was always a cast and crew with a special love for their fans, and I think it was fantastic to let everyone experience their personal goodbyes. The episode let us say goodbye to the characters, but showing the actors finish their final scenes let us say goodbye to them too.
So ends Scrubs...probably, definitely for me. I don't need anything more from this show. I gave up on it, forgot about it, and nostalgia sucked me back in just long enough to be fully satisfied. No point in tempting fate.
Status: Save Until I Delete
No comments:
Post a Comment