Scrubs Season 10 Just Became A Regular Medical Drama For The First Time In 25 Years

Warning! Spoilers for Scrubs season 10, episode 8, ahead!

Scrubs season 10 just dropped quite the bombshell on viewers, using a medical drama trope the series had, up to this point, avoided. The twist revolved around Dr. Cox, who made his first return visit to Sacred Heart Hospital since Scrubs‘ premiere episode. Naturally, JD was pretty eager to impress his old mentor, who was as reluctant to give praise as ever. However, the situation changed when Dr. Cox suddenly collapsed.

It’s ultimately revealed in Scrubs season 10, episode 8, “My Odds,” that Cox has a condition known as microscopic polyangiitis (MPA). It’s a serious autoimmune disease that causes the body to attack its small blood vessels. In Cox’s case, MPA has already pushed him into the start of renal failure. The prognosis isn’t great, and JD and Dr. Cox both know it.

The news that Dr. Cox could very well die in Scrubs is pretty significant. This is one of the original show’s most beloved characters, and bringing him back in the revival just to kill him off would be a pretty dramatic and significant shift. The looming possibility is the sort of thing more typical of medical dramas. Shows like Grey’s Anatomy, ER, and House frequently gave their central characters mysterious illnesses or killed them off in various other ways. Scrubs certainly dealt with death in the past with characters like Nurse Roberts and Ben Sullivan, but it avoided those dramatic displays with its central cast.

Why Now Was The Right Time For Scrubs To Embrace A Medical-Drama Trope

The medical drama genre is famously soapy and outrageous. It’s a long-running joke that days are numbered for fictional doctors who take jobs at fictional hospitals. This has never been Scrubs‘ style, however. The show has even made its own jokes about those soapy medical drama tropes. However, season 10 was absolutely the right time to try to pull off a twist like this.

Dr. Cox coming down with a potentially terminal illness back in Scrubs season 7 or so would have been simply too much. The drama wouldn’t have felt organic, and such an arc would have clashed terribly with the show’s more typical tone and focus. However, Scrubs season 10 follows JD through a very different stage in his career. He’s an attending physician who has been dealing with death and illness for decades, yet it would never be enough to prepare him for the inevitable loss of his seniors.

Scrubs can’t just suddenly start throwing around those overly dramatic medical tropes, but it can apply them where they make sense. It’s an emotional and devastating twist—the guilty-pleasure kind we so love to see in shows like Grey’s Anatomy. But in this situation, it’s grounded in realism. After all, when it comes to relationships like JD and Dr. Cox, it’s only a matter of time before the tides change and the one who was always needed becomes the one in need.

What’s Next For Doctor Cox In Scrubs Season 10?

If Scrubs were a regular medical drama full of those deliciously dramatic twists and turns, we could certainly expect Dr. Cox to either pass away from his disease or come extremely close to it. However, while our favorite medical comedy adopted this traditional dramatic trope, it isn’t strictly bound to it. This isn’t to say that Dr. Cox is in the clear either. Scrubs, though outrageous and full of surrealism, typically paints a far more realistic picture of the medical field and healthcare system. Just as it is in real life, when someone becomes ill with such a serious disease, we really don’t know what will happen.

More than likely, this journey will be more about JD and Dr. Cox’s relationship than the outcome of this disease. We saw a lot of unique vulnerabilities from Cox in the most recent Scrubs episode, and there is sure to be more to come. While this sort of emotional closeness is something JD has always wanted with his mentor, this won’t quite be what he had always imagined. It will be an adjustment on both sides. Of course, all of this ​​​​​​will absolutely be layered up with a whole lot of comedy. This story may be a medical drama trope, but we’re still talking about Scrubs, after all.