Scrubs returned to ABC after a 16-year absence, and the revival managed to introduce an entirely new generation of Sacred Heart interns without reducing the original cast to nostalgic furniture. The nine-episode season earned an 89% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and the audience response confirmed that creator Bill Lawrence’s instinct to rebuild the show around JD (Zach Braff), Turk (Donald Faison), and Elliot (Sarah Chalke) as full-time leads was the right call. Furthermore, the new doctors, played by Joel Kim Booster, Jacob Dudman, and others, were woven into the fabric of Sacred Heart rather than grafted onto it, giving the revival a generational dynamic that justified its existence beyond pure nostalgia.
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The Scrubs revival also made room for familiar faces at varying levels of involvement. John C. McGinley appeared in three episodes as a retiring Dr. Cox, Judy Reyes returned for four as Carla, and Neil Flynn and Christa Miller reprised the Janitor and Jordan in guest capacities. A second season has not been formally announced, but Lawrence has already mapped out what a renewal would bring, underlining that the door is open for characters the first season simply ran out of room to include. Three of them, specifically, represent unfinished business the show needs to address.
3) Ken Jenkins as Bob Kelso
The absence of Bob Kelso from the Scrubs revival was the most conspicuous gap in an otherwise comprehensive reunion. However, Bill Lawrence confirmed that Jenkins, now 85, did not appear in Season 1 but is already planned for Season 2 if the show is renewed. That statement alone makes Kelso the most certain returnee on this list, but the argument for his inclusion goes beyond a producer’s promise. Kelso functioned as the moral counterweight to Dr. Cox throughout the original run, a man whose apparent cynicism masked a genuine understanding of how medical institutions actually operate. The revival places JD in a leadership role at Sacred Heart for the first time, and that specific dynamic is precisely the arena where Kelso’s accumulated pragmatism would carry the most dramatic weight.
2) Eliza Coupe as Denise Mahoney
The revival’s decision to treat the divisive Season 9 as non-canonical created an obvious complication for the actors who appeared in it, but Denise Mahoney was fortunately introduced before the medical school era. Eliza Coupe’s character appeared first in Season 8 as an abrasive surgical intern whose deliberately alienating exterior became one of that season’s most interesting character studies. So, even though most of her development came in Season 9, Denise could return for the revival without breaking canon. The revival’s new intern class skews warm and eager, and the Sacred Heart dynamic has always been sharpest when someone cuts against that grain. Denise’s brand of blunt, performatively indifferent professionalism would push the new doctors in directions that JD’s mentorship style simply cannot, and Coupe’s comedic timing remains one of the most underutilized assets in the Scrubs universe.
1) Elizabeth Banks as Kim Briggs
In the original run of Scrubs, Kim Briggs (Elizabeth Banks) played a major role in later seasons, when she got entangled with JD, having a child with him before the couple decided to stay apart. That child, Sam, is mentioned several times during the revival, but the shortened season never finds the time to explore JD’s current familial structure. Sam’s existence as a teenager in 2026 raises questions about co-parenting, about the relationship between JD and Kim after his marriage to Elliot, and about how a blended family dynamic functions inside a hospital where everyone already knows everyone’s history. Banks has the comedic range and the character history to make those conversations genuinely funny, and the revival’s strongest emotional beats in Season 1 came from exactly that kind of domestic complication. Kim Briggs was always a flawed person navigating a complicated situation, and revisiting her through the lens of shared parenthood in Season 2 would give both the character and Sam a dimension the show currently leaves unexplored.
Which missing Scrubs character do you most want to see return in a potential second season? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
