The greatest TV sitcom episode ever

Scrubs - My Screw Up

I still think about this episode and its portrayal of grief to this day. For those not familiar, it is the episode where the characters are dealing with the loss of Dr Cox’s best friend Ben portrayed by Brendan Fraser. From the start of the episode you feel the weight of the friendship between the two men. The episode plays out in homage to The Sixth Sense where Dr Cox believes his friend is still alive and they are acting as friends do, then towards the end when Dr Cox thinks he is going to his son’s birthday but it turns out to be Ben’s funeral, the truth of what happened hits like a gut punch, laid out by JD’s line “where do you think we are?” delivered to perfection by Zach Braff. That line in that context, still makes me tear up to this day. It is one of the all time great TV scenes.

Don’t forget this is a sitcom, it is meant to deliver laughs; but this is an episode that delivered moments guaranteed to strongly resonate with anyone who has ever lost a friend prematurely. I think the only other episode that rivals it is the one titled My Lunch, which is a whole other level of of emotional gut punch.