Choosing the best episodes of Scrubs is daunting if you are a fan. Amongst J.D.’s endless fantasy scenes and which one of Dr. Cox’s putdowns gets you the most, or picking your favorite Tuck moment, everything is amazing! To watch some of the most hilarious and emotional episodes of television of the 21st Century means to watch Scrubs. The show has graced our screens and entered our hearts, however, it’s far more difficult for a television show (and specifically a sitcom) to make audiences laugh while also making them care, intimately so, about the characters they see on screen.
So here’s 15 of the very best scrubs episodes taking it all the way back to season 1, episode 1 to binge watch it like a mad man. And unlike a TV show that takes easy short cuts demonstrated innumerable times, as we’ve seen some pretty horrible sitcoms maintain long television runs due to their ability to generate cheap laughs (we’re looking at you, Two and a Half Men), Scrubs did a wonderful job of genuinely challenging professionalism and giving them real, human conflicts to overcome in a light comedic way.
Best Scrubs Episodes: 15 To Binge Watch Now!
1. Season 1: My Old Lady
Back when Elliot and Carla hated each other and JD was well and truly a newbie, there was the first episode. This is where we saw real depth from Scrubs and realised it was more than a comedy series, but something that could make us LOL and then weep the next second. Yes, pretty early on, “My Old Lady” proved time and time again that Scrubs was more than just your average early-2000s comedy series. Let’s look at why: Bill Lawrence and company created some of the most highly regarded episodes of television with “My Old Lady” whereJ.D., Turk (Donald Faison), and Elliott are all assigned patients who end up teaching the young doctors more than they ever learned in medical school. Without giving away the ending, this episode early in Season 1 showed that there would be a lot of crying before everything was said and done. But not to weigh viewers down with death and despair, this is one of the best scrubs episodes that features some of the best fantasy scenes you’ll see in the series.
2. Season 3: My Screw Up
By combining comedic and dramatic elements, no one saw Scrubs making you want
To just want to curl up in a ball and cry the night away, In Season 3 episode “My Screw Up”, there’s the plot where one of Dr. Cox’s elderly patient dies, leaving him an emotional wreck.
Blaming J.D. for the man’s fate, Dr. Cox enters into a pit of depression that only seems to be made better by his good friend Ben. As the two brothers-in-law walk to what Dr. Cox believes is his son’s first birthday party, they talk about old times and letting go. And it’s not until the very final moments of the episode do you realize what is actually happening here. Very very unexpected indeed – and sure to leave you with goosebumps( the good kind)!
3. Season 5: My Half Acre
Everyone’s in top form in this episode, including the cameo appearance from Mandy Moore as JD’s klutzy love interest. She enters as a potential new girlfriend into J.D’s life and Elliot offers J.D. relationship advice and tries to help break his bad habit of ruining romantic moments by uttering really inappropriate things. Meanwhile, Jordan and Carla each have problems with Dr. Cox, and Turk joins the hospital airband.
This is one of the best scrubs episodes because of Todd jamming in spandex to audition for the Janitor’s band, with an honorary mention to Turk’s audition. What else do you need? If there was nothing else in the entire episode, the Turk dance would get it into the top 15. But it also features Mandy Moore as a hilariously, ridiculously klutzy love interest, plus Dr. Cox finds out how to save the life of a Jehovah’s Witness without a blood transfusion. Oh, and it ends with a brilliant air-band rendition of Boston’s “More than a Feeling” that I still watch at least twice a year if I need a pick-me up.
4. Season 7: My Bad Too
‘Dayummmm Turkledawg’ – possibly one of the funniest lines Bob Kelso ever delivered, this clip above is from the episode where Dr. Cox tries out his famous ‘take-that-food-right-out-of-your-hand’ diet on Bob.
5. Season 3: My Advice To You
Speaking of dialogues, this is quite possibly one of the best lines out of the entire show – ‘you mean why is there silverware in the pancake drawer?’. Turk = asking all the important questions.
6. Season 8: The Finale
Spoiler alert: this wasn’t a finale at all and they horrendously tried to revive Scrubs with that new intern crap. So when you look at the original ending, you’ll love this amazing final eagle scene, not to mention finding out what the future held in store for our favourite doctors.
What makes this one of the best scrubs episodes is the fact that J.D.continues his last day at Sacred Heart, and tries to hold out hope for a great send off especially in particular if Dr. Cox will give J.D. what he wants, which is a big, emotional send-off.
Now J.D. doesn’t get it until the second episode, where he gets a goodbye from everyone else. We also finally find out The Janitor’s name, sort of (it’s Tony, not Glen Matthews, as he tells J.D.). Ultimately, it’s a low-key but very sweet send-off for J.D. that also previews his future with Elliot, their kids, and their lifelong relationships together. It’s a terrific episode!
7. Season 8: My Comedy Show
My Comedy Show is TV GOLD! Scrubs likes to make fun of interns but there was one good thing about the interns they brought in, because without them we wouldn’t have this episode complete with the totally accurate sketch they put on by Turk and JD’s relationship or should we say bromance?
8. Season 5: My Lunch
The rare moments where Dr. Cox acted like a real person with emotions is what we all lived for back in the days of Scrubs. The episode starts with J.D. and Dr. Cox getting lunch when they run into one of their most annoying patients, Jilly Tracy (Nicole Sullivan). When Jill turns up dead a few days later, the doctors initially thought it was a drug overdose and they use her organs to save the lives of terminal patients at Sacred Heart. But after the surgeries are completed, the hospital staff realize their mistake making this one of the best scrubs episodes ever – because honest people are likeable. Cue “How To Save A Life” by The Fray and you know the rest…
The song, Dr. Cox, JD’s words, this is gonna give you all the feels and goosebumps. And so we find ourselves in the final two episodes which are “My Lunch” and “My Fallen Idol” listed below. These 2 are a two-parter, but each offers such an amazingly written and well-acted story there’s no way you could combine the two.
9. Season 2: My T. C. W.
Remember when that kid ate Carla’s engagement ring and then after waiting for him to poop it out, getting it steam cleaned 3 times and proposing, Turk ate it himself? Yep. That happened. This episode is just next level funny!
10. Season 5: My Way Home
Featuring Laverne heading up a church choir and Dr. Cox jamming to let JD know that payback is a bitch, “My Way Home” is a brilliant episode with J.D. eating mango body butter, and that’s just in the first two minutes! As a tribute to “The Wizard of Oz,” the four medical companions go on a similar journey beginning with J.D. — who Dr. Cox calls Dorothy — listening to Toto‘s “Africa,” on his day off, but when he’s called back into the hospital, he is thwarted from returning home by Carla’s lack of courage over having children. Then there is Turk’s inability to talk a family out of letting their son pass away so that they can have his heart, and Elliot’s need for brains to teach a class. The whole episode is stacked with clever Oz references, the latter half is shot in something similar to “technicolor,” and somehow, Ted’s Acapella group’s performance of “Maniac” from Flashdance may still be the best part of a phenomenally fun, funny, and heartfelt episode. It’s a little corny, but it is a terrific 22 minutes.
11. Season 5: My Fallen Idol
Probably the BEST, BEST, BEST JD and Dr. Cox secret bromance scene to have ever graced our screens!
Since the beginning J.D. and his reluctant mentor, Dr. Cox’s (John C. McGinley) relationship is one of the best things about Scrubs. While it’s apparent that the mentor loathes the mentee in this situation, it also becomes clear that Cox is mostly bluster and bravado, and relies heavily on the approval of his understudy to build up his ego. Picking up right where “My Lunch” left off, the Season 5 episode “My Fallen Idol” explores the toll a mistake and many deaths have on a person with an already fractured psyche. Following Dr. Cox as he attempts to come to terms with mistakes he’s made in his career and his problems with alcoholism, this is one of the best scrubs episodes that gives audiences some of the most uplifting moments in the fact of darkness
In “My Fallen Idol,” Dr. Cox accidentally causes the death of three patients (their donated organs are contaminated with rabies, and the episode was based on a real medical case where this occurred).
Watching J.D. try to get his mentor and father-figure to see that there is still good deep down in his soul and that a doctor’s legacy shouldn’t be based solely on a bad call – reveals why Scrubs is more than just a normal medical comedy.
12. Season 6: My Long Goodbye
Another tear jerker because we all had a deep, deep love for Laverne!
One of the best things about Scrubs was the show’s ability to give the cast moments to shine, and that’s very much the case for “My Long Goodbye”.
This focuses on the key members of Sacred Heart saying their goodbyes to the nurse Laverne Roberts, who’s left brain-dead following a car accident. And while most of the cast gets a few moments to shine, no one gets more time than Carla Espinosa (Judy Reyes). Never letting go of hope for a turnaround, Carla won’t say goodbye to her friend and mentor until the very end when she gives one of the most heartfelt and memorable monologues ever!
13. Season 4: My Cake
Despite the episode focussing on the death of JD’s dad, somehow Scrubs managed to pull through with a hilarious war between Dr. Kelso and the Janitor. Last but not least, Dr. Cox punches JD in the face!
Known as one of the heavy hitters of emotional Scrubs episodes, the Season 4 episode “My Cake” takes things to another level. During the episode, J.D. and his brother Dan (Tom Cavanagh) slowly come to terms with the death of their father, but not before both find themselves grieving in 2 VERY VERY different ways.
With neither brother handling the situation in a healthy manner (one literally lies in water 24/7) so it’s up to Dr. Cox to force them to open up about their dad and his passing. In the process, Dr. Cox proves that he’s more than just an antagonistic doctor and finally becomes the father-figure we’ve been dying to see since the first episode of Scrubs!
14. Season 3: My Own American Girl
Season 3 should really just be labelled the season where Elliot got incredibly hot and everyone lost their damn minds over it. That haircut though, PICTURE PERFECT!
15. Season 4: My Best Laid Plans
So Turk acts like a real shit to Carla in this episode, but it’s worthy of this list for the pretend relationship between Elliot (aka ‘Blonde Doctor’) and the Janitor and his genius line at the end of the episode – ‘I lose my van to him and I lose Margo to gangster rap, bad day.’
One thing that’s gone unmentioned in all this praise for the best Scrubs episode ever is the song that graces our ears when it starts. We only mention all of this because the show’s nineteenth episode in the fourth season, “My Best Laid Plans,” makes amazing use of its soundtrack, emphasizing much of what occurs at the episode’s climactic montage.
With a total of 182 episodes over the course of nine seasons, it’s tough to choose the best Scrubs episodes as this rare and long-running medical comedy series produced some of the best TV moments ever. Hopefully, you like this list and you’ll watch these 15 of the best episodes of Scrubs!