TV-Reviewed

Everyone at the hospital has a problem with Dr. Maddox who plays everything by the book, making it hard to work the system and save people’s lives. It’s odd, because Dr. Kelso did the same thing sometimes, but looked the other way more often then not. It becomes clear that Dr. Maddox won’t change, so the doctors figure out a way to get her fired.

One thing that’s always been obvious about the Doctors at Sacred Heart is that they all care about their patients in their own way. We’ve seen each every one of our main doctors help someone who isn’t insured or has any way of paying. Every now and then Kelso would stop them, but for the most part he turned the other way and most of the time working the system actually worked.

All of that ends now that Dr. Maddox is in charge. She’s not letting anything slip by and the writers added two cases that make Dr. Maddox look heartless. It’s hard to empathize with a doctor who would send a man with a hand trauma out the door. Then we had the couple where the man was the patient and he needed pills to treat his MS. J.D. noticed that the man could see color and it looked like it was the usual “patient trying to score pill” scenario, but then it turned out that the guy was doing it for his wife who wasn’t insured. Once Maddox ousted them, it becomes pretty clear that something has to be done.

Zach Braff as Dr. John ‘J.D.’ Dorian

I thought having Dr. Kelso on this season would feel a bit forced since he did get fired last season, but it feels natural. It’s also obvious that the hospital was Dr. Kelso’s life and without it, he doesn’t know what to do other then sit in the hospital. When J.D., Elliot, and Cox go to him to see if they can help him out, Dr. Kelso agrees to do it on one condition and that’s if Dr. Cox admits that he misses him.

This could have been an opportunity to write another joke in, but surprisingly Dr. Cox gave a terrific heartfelt speech. The rest was easy and Dr. Maddox is fired, but not before making a speech about how she’ll just be replaced.

The Janitor is another fired character who’s still hanging around. It’s actually nice to have The Janitor not working there anymore because we get to see a different side of him that doesn’t involve pulling pranks on J.D. anymore, but we can only assume that he’ll most likely get his job back by the next episode.

The classic Scrubs jokes were in this episode with the funniest one being when J.D. tries to make himself sad by imagining that Turk’s dead and then actually starts to get sad about something might have really happened to him. There was also some good dream sequences, one involving Courtney Cox’s character getting hit by a truck.

So Dr. Maddox is gone and we don’t really care. I would like to think that Courtney Cox didn’t get paid a whole lot for this role, because they could have cast anyone for a 3 episode stint. I kind of wish that we would have been able to get to know Maddox a little more, because all she’s turned out to look like was a heartless person, but maybe that’s all the writers wanted us to see of her. Carla talking to Elliot’s incompetent intern, Katie seemed a bit out of nowhere and doesn’t seem to serve a purpose other then giving Carla something to do, but wasn’t so bad. It would have been nice to see J.D.’s intern Jo again, but whatever.

This was a funny episode, not as good as the last two in my opinion, but another highly effective episode. Now we just have to see who the new Chief of Medicine will be.

Rating: 7.5