My Jerks

"My Jerks"

"My Jerks" is the 151st episode and television season premiere of the eighth season of the ABC Studios television series Scrubs. The episode first aired on January 6, 2009 on the American Broadcasting Company, following the show's departure from NBC. It was immediately followed by the second episode of the season. The episode was written by Angela Nissel and directed by Michael Spiller who also has a small cameo appearance. This was the first Scrubs episode of the show to show moving footage over the credits, instead of its usual screenshots of scenes throughout the episode.

Plot

J.D. notices something new, and Janitor assumes he wants a compliment back, thinking J.D. noticed his new watch. J.D. then conducts rounds with his new interns and doesn't like any of them. He thinks Katie is too much of a know-it-all, Denise is terrible with bedside manners, and Ed is too unproductive. He welcomes the new Chief of Medicine for Sacred Heart, Dr. Taylor Maddox and is surprised at how attractive and nice she is. Later, during another session of rounds, J.D. leaves the interns alone in the ward to watch the patients and gives them specific instructions. When he returns, he finds that they allowed a patient to crash. He vows he is done teaching them and hands them over to Josephine. In the cafeteria, Dr. Cox tells J.D. that he was not too dissimilar from these new interns, and that it is his job to teach. He ends up giving the interns a second chance.

Meanwhile, Dr. Cox is upset that he is going to have to be "the guy" who tells the new Chief of Medicine every time she does something the staff doesn't agree with. He notices that Dr. Maddox is keeping a patient, Bernie Hicks in the hospital only because he has incredible insurance. He later stands up to her and argues with her.

After Keith calls Katie "Mini Elliot", Elliot obsesses that she is too self involved. Carla tries to nicely give her a reality check, and after failing to see the signs that Keith is still hurt by her dumping him, Ted shows her that he is still upset. She apologizes for what she did in private.

Dr. Kelso enjoys a muffin at Coffee Bucks and watches the hospital drama. Ted tries to tell him off, but still does not have enough self esteem to do so.

Promotion

Bill Lawrence has stated that since switching to ABC, he and Scrubs have received a better level of promotion. This includes the introduction of webisodes of Scrubs on ABC.com and commercial promotion. ABC also released the first five minutes of the episode prematurely to promote the show's debut on the network.

Cultural references

• In the episode's opening scene, J.D. approaches The Janitor and points at his "watch" and says "Huh, that's new." J.D.'s finger is seen pointing directly at the ABC bug, in a reference to Scrubs' move from NBC to ABC.
• In the sequence that plays during the ending credits, J.D. mentions that Dr. Shalhoub wins everything during medical awards season, which is a jab at the number of awards won by the TV Show Monk, in which Tony Shalhoub stars. Turk's comment that "the Nielsens certainly beg to differ" is a parallel to the show's performance with the Nielsen ratings.
• Courtney Cox becomes the second Friends allumni to appear on Scrubs after Matthew Perry in Season Four.

Reception

Seth Amitin gives a favorable review of the episode, saying "It's...unfair to point to an episode and ask it to represent the season, but..."My Jerks" is allowing us to do that. The episode is funny in ways that the show wasn't funny last year. It also mixes well with the dramatic while introducing a handful of new characters with relative ease. It's metonymical of Scrubs...Maybe Mr. Lawrence set up some lofty goals, but the first episode of the season follows through on [them]."

The Staten Island Advance deemed My Jerks a "hit" which balanced its comedy with more serious scenes well. Alan Sepinwall of The Star-Ledger concurred and felt that there "were moments of extreme silliness and moments of great pathos."