The series Scrubs not only created beloved characters with its main actors. Many supporting characters are also loved by fans and get episodes focused on them. However, there was a death that caused a pretty emotional episode, which is resolved strangely a season later.
Which character is it about? The popular sitcom Scrubs aired from 2001 to 2010. Throughout the series, many characters were introduced who became fan favorites. These include not only the main figures like J.D., Turk, Carla, or Dr. Cox, but also supporting characters like Ted, the janitor, or Laverne who are popular figures.
But Laverne presents a storyline that, while emotional, makes no sense a season later.
A deceased character suddenly returns
What is it about? In Season 6 Episode 14, the central point is a discussion between Laverne and Dr. Cox about faith and how it helps Laverne cope with all the terrible things in the hospital. At the end of the episode, it is revealed that Laverne was injured in a car accident and is in a coma. A week later, she dies.
Both episodes are quite good. Dr. Cox gets character development with an already hinted problem, and Laverne’s death provides a great performance by Carla, played by Judy Reyes.
What’s the problem? The episodes about her death are basically not a problem. Scrubs has many episodes that mix emotional moments with comedy. The issue with the storyline is a new
character in Season 7.
There, the character Shirley appears, who, like Laverne, is also played by Aloma Wright. She behaves similarly to Laverne in the few scenes. J.D. even mentions this in one episode. He says she looks like a sister who used to work here. He even calls her Lavernavu
, a mix of Laverne and Déjà-vu in German.
In light of the sad and emotional episodes in Season 6, it feels quite inappropriate to bring the character back in this form.
They just didn’t know how to proceed
Why did they do that? The deaths of guest characters were already familiar in Scrubs. One immediately thinks of Brendan Fraser, who played Jordan’s brother. Such a thing never really happened with supporting characters. In a talk, Bill Lawrence, the creator of the series, explained why they did it this way.
In a talk (via YouTube), the crew of Scrubs discussed guest characters and their deaths. Laverne also came up. According to Lawrence, Laverne was killed off because they thought Season 6 would be the last season. However, he promised her a return if a seventh season happened.
It’s hard to find work in the comedy industry, there aren’t many comedies on TV, so I told her that if the series continued for a seventh year, she would return as a different character named Shirley.
Bill Lawrence about the reason why Aloma Wright returned.
However, only J.D. notices the similarities to the character Laverne in the series. All other characters in the series do not even react to it. In such long series, you can’t always plan everything in advance. Just like with the janitor: J.D.’s biggest enemy in Scrubs shouldn’t actually exist, but the series was too good
