The Scrubs Reboot’s Shocking J.D. & Elliot Twist Explained by Stars & Series Creator

The Scrubs reboot is now airing and streaming, and the comedic medical procedural is already causing a stir amongst longtime fans. The revival series picks up in real-time after Season 8 of the original series (2009). The Scrubs Season 10 premiere establishes the new status quo for our lead characters at Sacred Heart Hospital, but not everyone got the future that fans imagined. In fact, there’s been “controversy” right from the start over the fact that Scrubs‘ lead couple, Dr. John “J.D.” Dorian (Zach Braff) and Dr. Elliot Reid (Sarah Chalke) didn’t get the happy ending that most fans felt they deserved.

(MILD SPOILERS) The Scrubs Season 10 premiere opens by revealing that John and Elliot are now divorced and co-parenting two kids. J.D. has left the hospital and is working as a concierge doctor, visiting with elderly patients; the premiere chronicles how he returns to Sacred Heart to aid one of his patients, and must also confront his unresolved issues. The end of the premiere sees Dr. Perry Cox (John C. McGinley) hand over his job as Chief of Medicine to J.D., roping him back into his old life, including his relationships with Elliot and Dr. Chris Turk (Donald Faison).

J.D. & Elliot’s Divorce Explained By Scrubs Creators and Cast

Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence has returned to executive produce the revival, and explained to Deadline why the decision was made to split J.D. and Elliot up, after the original series did so much to bring them together.

“I was really resistant at first, and the one thing those guys all drove home to me, they’re like, if you watch the 9,000 episodes of Scrubs, you would say, Turk and Carla are going to make it. And then you would go, I don’t think J.D. and Elliot have had more than an episode and a half, [where] they seemed like a functioning couple.”

Lawrence also made it clear that the divorce was reflective of real-life issues that some of the show’s creative team have experienced in real life: “I’m a huge believer in writing what you know and what you see,” Lawrence explained. “Our showrunner [Aseem Batra] — she said I was allowed to talk about this — is someone that, when I left Scrubs, was married and was having a young child, and now is a single parent, co-raising that child with somebody… I’m sure you have the same experience; some people in your lives work out, some don’t.”

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Sarah Chalke and Zach Braff also weighed in on the narrative path their characters took. For Chalke, there was just one thing to think about: how much comedic potential could they mine from it?

“I was not disappointed, I thought it was great,” Chalke said “I thought it was the best way in because obviously, there’s so much more opportunity for comedy and drama when you have two people that are not just fine and happily married and getting along. I think it opens up more possibilities for their storylines. And also in the original run, we had so much of they’re together, and then they break up. We had a lot of fun playing that in the original Scrubs, so, to do it in this iteration, I thought it was the best way to create conflict, and we had a good time.”

Braff appreciated how Scrubs is showing off a range of possibilities for what marriage and middle-age look like, saying, “You have the contrast with Turk and Carla, where they’re as happily married as ever compared to us, who are learning now to co-parent and eventually work together. So I think it was a good way of also showing a wide array of how marriages can turn out in midlife.”

Will Scrubs’ Revival Bring J.D. & Elliot Back Together?

Braff wouldn’t rule out J.D. and Elliot eventually finding their way back to one another, especially since there are clearly some sparks still burning there. “We are hoping the fans love it and we get to do more seasons. I, as a viewer, would of course love it if they eventually hook up again because that would be fun TV. But I don’t know. We’ve only planned these first nine.”

However, Lawrence called into question whether or not modern TV sitcoms still need the “Will they? Won’t they?” dynamic between male and female leads. “I think that what’s cool now is that even if people are reading into [J.D. and Elliot reuniting] or seeing that, I don’t think there’s any inherent obligation for them to end up together, [we’ll] probably just go wherever the story is taken.”

Scrubs is airing on ABC and streaming on Hulu. Discuss the revival with us over on the ComicBook Forum!