Scrubs/Tear Jerker


Examples of Tear Jerkers in Scrubs include:

  • The "JD's Future" montage set to Peter Gabriel's cover of The Magnetic Fields' "Book of Love".
    • Very much the happiest Tear Jerker of the series, especially with the implication that it really will happen. It was the perfect way to finish off, buuuuuut...
  • The scene with Carla saying her parting words to Laverne in My Long Goodbye set to A Bad Dream by Keane.
    • All of them however fall short when compared to "My Lunch" probably one of saddest episodes in Live-action series period.

J.D.: Remember what you told me? The second you start blaming yourself for people's deaths... there's no coming back.
Dr. Cox: Yeah... You're right.

  • "My Lunch" falls short when compared to "My Screw-Up", especially once it's revealed that Ben Sullivan was the patient that died earlier.

J.D.: ...where do you think we are?

  • "My Old Lady" will never fail to make viewers bawl like babies.
    • "My Old Lady" is the only piece of film media that has ever made this troper cry.
  • "My Fifteen Seconds": After spending as little time as they can with Jill Tracy, J.D. and Cox realize that she tried to poison herself. The rush to the hospital and ask her how things have actually been going lately. The way she answers is particularly saddening.

Jill Tracy: Actually it has, uh, (choking up) been a couple of rough months.

    • Jill's appearance in "My Lunch" can also count as this...
      • On a related note, the ending of My Lunch, as all three of Cox's patients die, and he walks out of the building cursing himself. The use of The Fray's "How To Save A Life" only makes it more effective. And this leads directly in to...
  • "My Fallen Idol" when Carla tells Dr. Cox that JD isn't coming. His reaction is slightly surprising; he's going to take a drink of his scotch but once Carla tells him the news about JD, he stops and seems sad. Considering how Cox treats JD most of the time, this is very moving and it shows you how much he cares about JD.
  • In "My Last Chance", when the happy go lucky ambulance worker Denise breaks down and admits that the son she's gone on about is actually dead. Doubles as a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming when she mentions she thought the crew that tried to save him were amazing, and they inspired her to go into that line of work.
  • In "My Missed Perception", there's a patient who's in so much pain his wife mentions he couldn't even make it off the couch to go to the bathroom. It looks like Turk and Elliot are going to give up on him, until they catch the couple before they leave the hospital; and tell them that they're going to do everything they can to find out what's causing the pain. The looks on the patient and his wife's faces say it all.
  • The ending of "My Cold Shower". After finding out Elliot's going to get engaged to Keith, every cast member has brief, absurd, comedic fantasies about how their married life with Elliot would be. Then when JD watches Elliot accept Keith's proposal, realises he's still in love with her, and we snap to a similar fantasy where it's just Elliot and JD sitting together on a couch, then to JD later crying in the shower.

JD: "You know what? I'm really happy that you're my wife."
Elliot: "Me too."
JD's inner monologue: It should've been me...

  • George's death in "My Last Words". JD and Turk end up spending their entire night with him because he hasn't got anyone else to be with.
  • The ending of "My Princess". Dr Cox is telling his son Jack a fairy tale based on his day at the hospital, and ends it by telling him that the maiden, or patient, lived happily ever after. He then runs into Jordan who has been sat outside eagerly listening.

Jordan: So what happened to the girl? Did she make it?
Cox: Let's just say that's the way I'm telling it.

  • The ending of "My Jiggly Ball". To explain, the episode revolves around J.D. being forced to write an introduction speech for Dr. Kelso at an awards banquet and desperately trying to find something good to say about him. Throughout the episode, Kelso is at his coldest, removing a terminally ill patient from a Drug trial in place of a rich patient who will make a donation to the hospital. Cox calls him on his callousness, asking him how he can not care about another person. Laverne notes Kelso's coldhearted attitude, saying that when he steps foot outside the hospital, he can be entirely happy despite people dying. The tearjerker comes at the end when J.D. notes that Kelso may be coldhearted but he would never want to have to make the same decisions he does. The final scene, where Kelso leaves the hospital and look of pure sadness and self-loathing crosses his face, is heartbreaking, made worse by the fact that he then starts whistling happily when the gang see him. The song ("Sideways" by Citizen Cope) and Ken Jenkin's brilliant acting absolutely sell it and show just how hard it is being The Spock.
  • The episode "My Catalyst" has one of the show's most heartbreaking endings. When J.D. is about to confront him, he finds Kevin obsessively washing his hands, revealing that his last surgery ended two hours ago but he can't bring himself to stop washing and go home. He is absolutely enraged at his body for failing him and himself for not being able to function properly, but tells J.D. that he isn't going to be someone who makes someone else shoulder their problems. The scene is immeasurably sadder by the fact that Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's Disease has all but forced him to retire from acting and is slowly destroying his body, but there is nothing that can be done about it.



  • The Scrubs episodes "My Old Lady" and "My Screw Up" are generally the most tear-jerking of the series.
    • Carla finally admitting to herself that Laverne's not going to be coming out of her coma, and finally saying goodbye.
    • Dr. Cox's confession in "My Heavy Meddle." that he's burned out.
    • The final three and a half minutes of "My Lunch." That scene turned "How to Save a Life" from a wangsty pop song into something truly heartbreaking.
      • The exact same thing can be said about "My Long Goodbye" and "A Bad Dream".
      • Jill Tracy. All she ever wanted was to be happy, and it was denied at every turn. Her death was one of the saddest on that show. She was so pathetic, so reviled for being annoying, and no one ever really saw to the poor person underneath.
    • 'My Dumb Luck'. All of Dr. Kelso's scenes at that episode are touching, but the finale, as he resigns from his post, completely content, thanks Ted, with real emotion, for all his help over the years and finally drives off into the sunset with his picture on the back of his car is one of the most beautiful moments I've ever seen, managing to be a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming, a Crowning Moment of Awesome and a Tear Jerker. Wonderful.
    • Carla's post-partum depression really got to me.
    • The end of the episode "My Philosophy" where the heart transplant patient dies and, in J.D's mind, goes out with a Broadway style musical, just like she wanted.
    • Also, the end of "My Last Chance", after Dr. Cox rants at the annoying, talkative paramedic he had to work with and asks what could've possibly happened in her life to make her that way only to later find out she talked so much because her son, who she had been talking about through most of the episode, had died in a car accident years ago
    • My Screw Up: "Where do you think we are?"
    • My Finale: the montage scene where all the important people who have been on Scrubs in it's eight year run turn up to wish JD goodbye. It looks like a stereotypical series finale ending until the end when he turns around and we realize it's all in his fantasy .
      • Actually, I was talking about where he's watching that film of events on the banner, culminating in Dr. Cox finally giving J.D. the hug he always wanted. Also, you can add in Dr. Cox's Engineered Public Confession that he actually respects J.D.
      • Not just the hug from Dr. Cox in the film, it's the JD getting as great a life as possible: he marries Elliot, has a child with her, stays close enough to spend Christmas with Turk and Dr. Cox, gets the fatherly hug from Dr. Cox, and JD's son marries Turk's daughter. Then, as JD's walking away he suggests that unlike the other fantasies, there's no reason why this one can't come true. It's an amazing sequence in and of itself, but add to the fact that "The Book of Love" by Peter Gabriel is playing and, well, it got a little dusty.
  • The end of "My ABC's" where JD explains that he's learned everything you need to know about life from Sesame Street and ends it with, "it's okay to cry sometimes" while he sheds a tear watching a mother console her 8-year-old son after his father has died from lung cancer after it had been in remission. A melancholy cover of "The Sesame Street Theme" by Joshua Radin is playing
  • I'm amazed no one has mentioned the episode where J.D. and Turk are going out for Steak Night and they give it up to spend the night with a dying old man. In the end, after all of their banter, they all admit to being afraid to die. The saddest part is his last words, after they smuggled him in a drink; "You know you guys... that beer... was delicious."
    • The saddest part of that was the choice of music: "I Will Follow You Into The Dark" by Death Cab for Cutie.
  • 'My Princess' - Cox is telling Jack a disguised hospital story and ends it happily, but when Jordan (recognizing it for what it was) asks if the patient really got a new liver in time, he slumps down next to her with a sigh and replies with "That's how I'm telling it."
  • The final moments of My Cabbage, where Cabbage accidentally infects Mrs. Wilkes after mishandling medical waste; the infection kills her in the following episode. The Coldplay song ("Fix You") playing in the background doesn't help the teariness.
  • Although surely most anyone can relate to it, there are a good amount of people for who the line, "Because nothing sucks more than feeling all alone, no matter how many people are around," can sting just a little too much.
  • Carla's hysteria while she's in labour in My Best Friend's Baby's Baby and My Baby's Baby is mostly Played for Laughs, which makes it all the more upsetting when they take her to have a C-section and she sobs down the phone to Turk that she's really scared and needs him there.
  • A minor one, but still sad nonetheless. In Season One, episode 15, during a psychology interview the main cast had to do, Doctor Cox winds up talking about his marriage with Jordan. He says that he kept trying to figure out why his friends who were married weren't trying to destroy each other like him and Jordan were. The words "They weren't unhappy. We were." really sold it due to Johnny C Mc Ginley's acting ability.
  • That scene in season 1, episode 22 "My Occurrence" when Jordan's brother Ben visits the hospital and at the end, JD finally admits that he was just hoping that he was wrong about Ben having leukemia.
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