Scrubs has a sneakily radical vision of male friendship

When the new season of Scrubs came out, one scene went viral on social media: two men, lifelong friends, sitting on the roof of the hospital where they work, wonder if it’s too weird to call each other every night to say good night. The suggestion comes from J.D., the usual sensitive one. Turk immediately cuts him off, but then he reconsiders: “Maybe once a week.” It sounds like a joke, but it carries a deeper meaning. Namely, in today's pop culture, seeing two men talk openly about loneliness and mutual affection is still almost revolutionary. Here's the point: Scrubs is not just a medical sitcom, but a hidden manifesto about what true friendship between men could be like if we stopped being ashamed of it. We are used to thinking that, among men, the best we can hope for is locker-room camaraderie, teasing, a few beers, and little else. Scrubs turns everything on its head: here, affection is explicit, emotions are out in the open, and the most memorable scenes aren’t romantic conquests, but the goofy dances and hugs between J.D. and Turk. This is not an isolated case: Zach Braff and Donald Faison, who play the characters, are also friends off-set. They met twenty years ago and have never lost touch since. Faison got married in Braff's backyard, and Braff is the godfather to two of his children. Their relationship is so close that the show's writers often drew inspiration from their real-life stories to write new scenes. And this chemistry shines through the screen: when Turk returns from his honeymoon, he leaves his wife on the sidewalk and runs into J.D.'s arms, screaming. His wife sighs and says, “Maybe someday he'll love me like that too.” But there is one piece of data that lends even more weight to all of this: according to research by the Pew Research Center, American men today are much lonelier than they were twenty years ago. They talk to their friends less, confide in them less, and spend less time together than women do. And this isolation is growing at a steeper rate precisely among young men. So, while the media is searching for the “cure” for male loneliness—from pickleball to 14 beers at Chili’s—Scrubs offers a radically simple solution: the antidote is to choose, every day, to be truly there for each other, even when it’s awkward, even when it seems like too much. Yet the series doesn't pretend it's easy. There is an episode where Turk and J.D. fight because one is overwhelmed by his family, while the other feels lonely and abandoned. There is no magic solution: they make small adjustments, try to understand each other, make mistakes, and grow closer again. And then there’s the uncomfortable side: in the original series, the writers often felt compelled to make it clear that there was nothing “gay” about their relationship, reflecting how much the culture was – and to some extent still is – afraid of emotional closeness between men. “There’s nothing gay about any of this, for us,” they sing in the song “Boys Love.” And in more than one scene, the jokes about women are clearly the product of a 2000s mindset that would be cringeworthy today. The reboot acknowledges the passage of time: the new wellness manager, Sibby, calls them out when they overstep, and the workplace rules have changed. But not everything is perfect: some old dynamics remain, such as the tendency to still put sex before friendship. Yet perhaps this is precisely the most striking aspect: seeing two men who are neither heroes nor paragons of enlightened masculinity, but who choose, day after day, to be best friends, to support each other, and to talk about their fears. In an era when people are looking for a quick fix for male loneliness, Scrubs suggests that there is no one-size-fits-all solution. There is only the effort—and the richness—of a bond that is renewed every day. The takeaway is this: the antidote to loneliness is not a game of pickleball, but the daily choice to truly be there for each other. If J.D. and Turk’s story has shown you male friendship in a new light, you can indicate this on Lara Notes with I’m In – it’s a gesture that says: This perspective is yours; it’s not just something you’ve heard. And if you feel like sharing this story with someone – perhaps a friend with whom you've been too superficial for too long – on Lara Notes, you can tag them with Shared Offline: it's your way of saying that that conversation changed you both. This piece comes from The Atlantic, and it saved you nearly six minutes compared to reading the full article.