Posted in: ABC, TV | Tagged: Scrubs

Scrubs Showrunner on Season 2: McGinley, Reyes, JD-Charlie & More

Scrubs showrunner Aseem Batra on the Season 2 opener, Cox's illness, John C. McGinley and Judy Reyes' availability, JD-Charlie, and more.

Scrubs hit the ground running in season two with its two-episode premiere, "My First Time in a While" and "My Mentee." The first picks up on the events of the season one finale, "My Celebration," showing how the staff at Sacred Heart will treat the former Chief of Medicine, Dr. Perry Cox (John C. McGinley), with tensions rising from his partner and ex-wife, Jordan Sullivan (Christa Miller), who's growing impatient. The second episode revolves around the interns that the core trio of J.D. (Zach Braff), Elliot (Sarah Chalke), and Turk (Donald Faison) have taken under their wing and the complications that ensue. Showrunner Aseem Batra spoke to Variety to address some of the topics in both episodes, including how much we will see McGinley and Judy Reyes (Carla Espinosa), given their other major commitments on Rooster and High Potential, and what to expect later in season two. This is your spoiler warning; proceed with caution.

Scrubs Showrunner Aseem Batra on the Latest on Cox's Illness, McGinley & Reyes Pulling Double Duty, JD-Charlie's Relationship, and More

At the start of the episode, we see J.D. on top of the world from the surface, spending time with his new girlfriend, Charlie (Rachel Bilson), and bringing back his scooter, Sasha, in Braff's longest vehicle sequence that didn't involve some elaborate pratfall into Sacred Heart, having the best of days going into work, and telling everyone within earshot how wonderful it is while striding by Elliot, who's telling a grieving family about a tragic bus accident. We're quickly brought down to Earth as Cox is still bedridden, not closer to the answer in sight.

"We focused a lot on that because we set up this very sort of dire, serious feeling last season," Batra said. "We wanted to put our audience at ease that we aren't in any way putting Dr. Cox in such jeopardy that he might not be with us. We feel like it's a way of making the audience know that he's always going to be part of this family. When we were reading comments, people were like, 'Is he gonna die?' This is a comedy. We don't want to go that far with it. So part of it was just showing their continued journey to help Dr. Cox stabilize this particular autoimmune disease that we gave him. With the kind of medications they have these days, people can do very well on them. So it's just a matter of now finding the right treatment."

As far as how much she could get McGinley, it hinged on his availability from his other Bill Lawrence series on Apple TV, "I know, we would have loved to see him more. But what we could get with his 'Rooster' schedule was about four episodes, so that's about what we're going to see him for this run," Batra said. Finding availability for Reyes was also a challenge, given her commitments to her other ABC series, the Kaitlin Olson-starred High Potential. "We have to give a lot of love to our line producer Mike Livanos, because he's always going back and forth, trying to figure out how. It's not just the days we get them to shoot, but they have to fly up to Vancouver. So we really can eke out sometimes a very small amount of time for people who are doing more than one project." Miller, who returned in the season finale, was also fitting in her time on Scrubs while committing to another of her husband's shows, Shrinking for Apple TV. "Yeah, everybody's been so kind about giving their time and coming back to do the show, and we thought it would just be a really fun opener to have her reacting to Perry's illness because we haven't seen her point of view on it more than her finding out," Batra said. "We saw her find out, but this is her reacting to what happens when somebody you care about that much is so sick."

As far as J.D. and Charlie go, Batra summed it up in breakfast terms: "I always call these post-divorce relationships the 'first pancake' relationships because it's like you make that first pancake, it's all weird, and not the most beautiful one, and then you try again," she said. "It is a little bit his rebound relationship where he's finding himself again. And like we see in the early episodes, he's doing too much and overthinking it. He's almost reverting back to when he was younger. And so, he does stabilize with her a little bit more as we see them together. But this is very much trying to show that first relationship after a big breakup." For more on Batra talking about Joey Fatone's literal Cameo, redefining J.D. and Elliot's relationship, Turk's mental health, Scott Foley's return as Sean Kelly, and how he factors back in for Elliot, teasing Janitor (Neil Flynn) and son, Maintenance Guy's (Darcy Michael) rivalry with J.D., and more, you can check out the full interview. Scrubs, which also stars Ava Bunn, Vanessa Bayer, Jacob Dudman, David Gridley, Layla Mohammadi, Amanda Morrow, Michael James Scott, John Higgins, and Tamera Mowry-Housley, airs Wednesdays on ABC. You can also check out our interview with Braff.

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