It’s widely agreed that the Scrubs episode “My Lunch” contains the best and possibly only positive use of “How To Save A Life” by The Fray. For those who need a reminder, it underscores a famous sequence in season five’s “My Lunch”; the plot of the episode is that a beloved recurring patient Jill has passed away, and Dr Cox used her organs for four separate transplants. At the end of the episode, he discovers to his horror that the patient was suffering from rabies, and “How To Save A Life” underscores his futile attempt to fix the situation that only leads to four more dead patients.
The song is deeply sincere, and I wonder how much that works against it as a pop song; all art is manipulative, and the line between ‘gently nudging’ and ‘openly hectoring’ is a difficult one. There’s two reasons it works in Scrubs; the first is simply that being repurposed as a song in a montage draws a lot of attention away from it specifically, as the vague idea of the song sticks in your head rather than all the gory, potentially cringe-inducing details. More importantly, it’s hooked into a very good, compelling, heartrending story beat.
The interesting thing about this moment in the show is that it’s a rare case of the show chasing melodrama over medical reality; there’s no way Dr Cox would get to choose or even know where the organs are going, and it’s even less likely they’d all go to the same hospital. However, if you choose to buy into the reality of the story, you get the most intense attack on Cox’s very identity. The funny thing is that I don’t think I’ve ever seen a single audience member argue that Cox was actually at any serious fault here; his mistake is so small and simple as to be completely understandable, because the signs of Jill’s illness were so subtle that you’d have to be a machine to have spotted it.
Unfortunately, Cox fully wants to be a perfect machine of diagnosis and treatment. His strengths and weaknesses as a character are rooted in an ultra-disciplined mindset and complete control of his environment; his love/hate relationship with JD comes largely from his both appreciating and resenting his near-complete devotion and respect, and so much of his rage comes from his inability to really control everything around him. His dedication to doctorin’ is exactly – exactly – as much him playing God as it is him wanting to help people. In a way, the latter justifies the former.
In the middle of it all, JD tries appealing to Cox’s reason; he points out that every single decision he made was, at the time, the exact correct one. I had forgotten until rewatch that he observes that testing for rabies would have been the irresponsible medical decision because they would have had no time. Of course, human emotion is not driven by reason; I’ve always welled up with tears when Cox immediately gets another beeper message and finds, to paraphrase beloved Magpie Lauren James, the bottom of this shitty situation is even further down than he could conceive. When Cox is grieving or hurt, John McGinley generally plays him completely still, as if he’s keeping out all the bad information and processing internally; when his beeper goes off, he quietly cries out “Oh God! Come on!”, and at that point any mask comes off.
The ‘emotional person violently tearing up a room’ is a cliche to the point that one wonders how many young men act it out because they think that’s how you’re supposed to act out loss of control, but it works here because it just keeps building and building; Cox doesn’t want to lose control, he doesn’t want to throw around expensive medical equipment that they’ll probably need in five minutes, but by that point, he’s so overwhelmed his humiliation and grief that he’s not thinking straight. As he points out to JD, the last dead patient had no reasonable justification for being killed by Cox’s decision.
This is where Cox faces a description of himself he doesn’t want: it was now entirely about his ego and rashness, not medicine (“Wasn’t about the timing. Could have waited another month for a kidney.”). There’s no greater assault on Cox’s identity; this was, from his perspective, a moment of unforgivable incompetence with catastrophic results. He cannot in any good conscience justify himself being in a hospital, calling himself a doctor. The thing that gets me about him turning around to face JD at the end is that he’s completely clear-eyed: he must leave this hospital in shame.
About the writer
Tristan J. Nankervis
Tristan J Nankervis (aka Drunk Napoleon) has been a writer, pop culture critic, dishwasher, standup comedian, waiter, potato cake factory worker, gamer, TV worker, and various other things. You can find him in Hobart, Tasmania.
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Department of
Conversation
What Did We Watch?
A House of Dynamite – this seems to have divided opinions but I thought it was pretty great. We selected it for a group viewing after the live music (see below) and I figured basically whatever we chose would struggle to hold my attention as a Late Night Movie but this hooked me completely and I’m absolutely going to give it the benefit of the doubt as a result, even if there are definitely a few clunky moments. The “same timeline repeats three times from different viewpoints” concept worked really well for me and I had no problems with it leaving things somewhat open-ended at the end – two things that seem to have made people Furious – and I thought the performances were strong throughout, even if there is definitely some slightly dodgy dialogue at times. Had minor regrets about skipping it at the cinema but this is very good small-screen viewing, tension and dialogue prioritised over cinematography and in this case, I’m fine with that.
Escape Room: Tournament of Champions – sure, why not. This is quite a downgrade from the first film, the pacing is a little too frantic, the new characters aren’t as compelling, there’s a whole lot of “character says exactly what they’re doing as they do it” dialogue and it repeatedly brings people back from the dead in a way that kinda undermines the whole “deadly escape room” concept. But the escape room stuff is still pretty fun. Weird that there’s an alternate cut that has whole other characters cut in / out, who directed this, Terence Malick? Edit: I’ve just checked and it was not Terence Malick.
Live Music – drove up north with my girlfriend’s band Rattle for the leg of their tour that happened to be in a town with a very similar name to my name. I’d never been there before but it was really fun ducking out during their soundcheck to take photos of myself near important town signs and make them my new profile pictures on everything. The gig was fun too, an afternoon matinee in a quirky micropub, supported by a father-son sludge metal duo (the son in this case being VERY young). Good times.
I know Rattle! My bandmate really liked them!
Hell yeah! I REALLY like them. Well, one of them.
Wooooo live music! Wooo fun town signs! I remember visiting Germany decades ago and getting a lot of mileage out of the various PANTERA signs where we were.
The Practice, “Boston Confidential” – Jimmy, desperate to clear Henry Winkler by finding some way to get Winkler’s son to confess and clear the deck, violates lawyer-client confidentiality, and only makes things worse. Meanwhile Helen works with a cop who made a somewhat dodgy search after a routine traffic stop and found the dead wife of a banker in the trunk. But the search is deemed inadmissible, and Helen stews once more over another case ruined due to pesky constitutional law. Only…the cop and the banker were lovers, and cooked this up to make sure he could get away with it. But Bobby finds out and in his anger leaves a message for Lindsey. Helen’s roommate. Did Bobby betray his own client? (Yes.) The legal and ethical dilemmas are played out quite effectively, and the interplay between Michael Badalucco and Holland Taylor is excellent.
Frasier, “The New Friend” – Frasier hits it off Roz’s new boyfriend, Gary Cole, but when Roz dumps his cheating ass, Frasier can’t make himself end the friendship. And then Roz starts to date Gary again and can’t bear to tell Frasier. Low grade farce, but entertaining and building on the occasional theme of how hard it is to make friends as an adult male. We also get the start of one of the questionable decision to hide Jane Leeves’s pregnancy by giving Daphne an overeating problem. Not says “body positivity” like conflating the discomfort of pregnancy and the anxiety of body issues caused by being overweight.
I put together a TV stand Sunday and it’s not even done yet, so I kept Rome on the entire time in the background. A fun, sometimes trashy/soapy, and endearing show in all it’s HBO CEO of Tits/2000’s TV aesthetic glory. Kevin McKidd and Ray Stevenson were always underrated actors and they make for a great historical buddy comedy/drama. There’s something to how Vorenus and Pullo are both these manly Roman soldiers but a lot of their friendship is ironically about Titus trying to get Vorenus to open up and shed the stoic, toxic masculine crap, especially with Niobe. Titus is a killer and a fuck-up yet he remains such a loyal guy and he wears that devotion on his sleeve. Dudes rock! Kathryn Hunter of Andor is on here as Cleopatra’s slave. (Oh, the thoughts I have on Cleopatra’s depiction here that I’ll leave for another day.)
Hell yeah Rome, and McKidd and Stevenson! The latter in particular — McKidd is superb but Stevenson is a perfect TV character here, someone you would and could watch for as long as the show is on. And he has his own masculine problems! But he is the best bro. Interesting to compare him and Crixus in Spartacus, because I think their natures are very similar but their characters diverge a fair amount because of their citizen/slave status, switch them at birth and I think they play out as the other.
He mentions that he started out as a slave but yes, he’s a loud, swaggering free citizen of Rome (very American in that) and he takes this status for granted. This is also, what, only 15 or 20 years after the events of Spartacus?
Other great element I didn’t mention and only clocked this time: The newsreader who switches out the traitors and defenders of the Republic in the headlines depending on who’s in charge of Rome and reluctantly reads out sponsorship copy like any podcaster worth their salt.
This show is engraved on my heart, and the Pullo and Vorenus relationship is a huge part of that. One of my all-time favorite TV friendships.
And some all-time great sleaze, too. I don’t usually like soapiness, but it turns out that when it’s combined with a certain level of historical grandeur (with the right blend of “the past is a foreign country” and “people have always been people”) and a pinch of Shakespearean style, I eat it up with a spoon.
Godzilla vs. Mothra and Invasion of Astro-Monster — Godzillathon at the local movie theater with the nephews! Six movies and twelve hours, we were only there for a bit, but a great time. We missed the first half of Astro-Monster due to the need to take a break for running around and that seemed fine, the back half had a lot of fairly cheap footage and an overwrought plot, although the WORLD’S MOST ANNOYING NOISE utterly fucking up the Xiliens was hilarious and the final kaiju fight was fun. Godzilla vs. Mothra was a straight up great time though — the anti-nuke story is solid, the humans have character (comic relief egg guy is great), the money-grubbing villains get wrecked and if Godzilla is in cranky toddler bitch mode for much of this he also wrecks a lot, and the Mothra/Mothra larvae (the twin nephews loved the latter and why not) attacks are great. Mused that while Japan was churning this out the American equivalent is something like Herbie Goes Bananas, and no shade on Herbie or his Banana-going but this is far, far superior.
Live music — went down the street for some local bands, including a friend’s group, after the movies. They are my age (normal), the second opener had 10-20 years on us and the first band was in high school. A fun mix! Loud rock with very solid originals and a Misfits cover, what more do you want.
EDIT: Also watched Shock, but that will wait for Wednesday. Area wives are reporting Vincent Price is a “snack,” concerning.
I hope this show was promoted as “behold! the ravages of time!”
Hey, sometimes area wives are right, you seen Laura with him as the hapless beau?
My grandmother went to high school with Price, as I have mentioned many, many times. I don’t recall her describing him in this way.
What Did We Play?
Hollow Knight: Silksong – yes, still. I’m deep in Act 3 and have hit a wall a bit, so it was quite nice taking the weekend off for other pursuits. Still definitely planning to see this through to the end but it’s really exposing my lack of skill and patience as a gamer. Some lovely moments in act 3 so far though, it’s a wonderfully designed game even if it’s also brutally frustrating.
A tale of two RPGs:
– After a long pause for various reasons, most notably our DM working at a haunted house for October, we resumed the Curse of Strahd. And we are still in the flashbacks to How Strahd Became a Vampire and Got Cursed. I feel like we have learned a lot that might be useful and a lot more than is just flavortext, and I really hope we are near the end. It’s not engaging me, and doesn’t seem to be engaging one other player, and a third player is on the sidelines because her character is the reincarnation of one of the ones in the flashback. So that means most of the party is not having fun. I hope the DM is noticing.
– The woman who used to run the LARP at Balticon – I think the last general interest SF con to have a LARP as that has moved to LARP and gaming conventions – ran an one-day RPG using Star Wars for inspiration (and also the Star Wars gaming system, yes, there is such a thing). It was not the liveliest game for – my character wasn’t a fighter in a setting that is very much for fighters – but it was a lot of fun overall with a different group of gamers than I usually interact with. Hard to hate a bunch where one person, upon logging in, greets everyone with a “hello there” in a near perfect Obi-Wan voice. And the one-shot didn’t quite end. As usual.
F-Zero: GP Legend – Game Boy Advance – Nintendo Classics on Nintendo Switch
Played and won one cup. I have a memory of beating this game, but replaying it now, I don’t think that’s actually the case, as I don’t know any of these tracks, nor of what happens on the story mode. There’s a lot of fun driving though, so I might give it a go. At the very least, I’ll check what do I have to do to unlock other cars.
Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike – Fight for the Future – Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection on Nintendo Switch.
Played some rounds on Sunday. Still beautiful, and an interesting change of pace after mostly playing tag team fighters all year.
Great writing, will have to watch this episode later.
The writing is very good, the “putting this fucking song in my head” is very bad and I hope Tristan gets a rabid kidney.
If it helps, I had to listen to it multiple times for this essay.
Great piece (delighted to make an appearance in it). I especially love your final note about Cox’s clear-eyed look at the end and the phenomenal impact that has. When he turns around, his face feels like a real revelation.
I gotta say, though, a week can really make a difference with a kidney.
It’s interesting that Scrubs has a reputation for being kind of twee, when I think only a show like this can really put you through this kind of wringer. It’s a real balance between meeting expectations for a sitcom and sometimes reminding your viewer of just what the job is. It actually reminds me a little of the episode of That 70s Show where Eric shadows his mom.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGMWy3pGB1k
Yeah, absolutely. There’s an ambition to Scrubs that I appreciate, and that leads to moments like this where it aims for a home run.