My Big Bird

Infobox Television episode | Title = My Big Bird
Series = Scrubs
Season = 5
Episode = 8
Guests= Jason Bateman (Mr. Sutton)
Travis Schuldt (Keith)
Johnny Kastl (Doug)
Sam Lloyd (Ted)
Tia Easley (Elliot's Intern)
James R. McMann (Dr. Terry Flannerly)
Jordan Murphy (Robot Groom)
Peter Jacobson (Mr Foster)
Valentino J. Ferreira (Cop)
David Doty (Priest)
Gerald Downey (Jimmy)
Airdate = January 24, 2006
Production = 508
Writer = Debra Fordham
Director = Rob Greenberg


Caption =
Episode list =List of Scrubs episodes
Prev = My Way Home
Next = My Half-Acre

"My Big Bird" is the 101st episode of the American situation comedy "Scrubs". It originally aired as Episode 8 of Season 5 on January 24, 2006.

Plot

It is another usual day at Sacred Heart, where J.D. is proud to have saved a patient, Mr. Sutton (Jason Bateman), after he discovered Sutton's blocked artery just in time to save his life. J.D. escorts Sutton out of the hospital hoping he will be thanked, but Sutton doesn't, leaving J.D. feeling unappreciated. This nagging feeling distracts J.D. from another patient; Mr. Foster (Peter Jacobson), who comes to the hospital complaining of coughing and shortness of breath. Dr. Cox believes its a simple case of pertussis as Foster mentions he has recently been on a trip to India and Foster's radiology scans are clear, but J.D. has him stay for more tests. Meanwhile, Carla believes she will win the lottery if she can gather enough people to buy tickets (as the more there are, the bigger chance of success) and Elliot is having an affair with a young patient's father; Jimmy. Their stories take J.D., Turk, Elliot and Carla away from each other, and the next day, Foster has died.

Dr. Kelso calls for a Morbidity & Mortality conference to discover how Foster died and, if necessary, blame the doctor who screwed up. Every doctor in the hospital is at the conference for questioning, but J.D., Turk, Elliot and Carla, who all participated in Foster's care, are in the focus of the interrogation and each go through the sequence of events that led to Foster's death in reverse.
*Elliot: Elliot is caught making out with Jimmy by Carla and another patient, Mrs. Wilk (Michael Learned). Elliot continues because she believes Jimmy is a widower when he said his wife was "no longer with us". Later that day, Jimmy's wife Millie (Allison Smith) comes to the hospital and realized Jimmy meant Millie was simply out of town. Elliot ends her relationship with Jimmy, but he then confesses what he did with Elliot to Millie. Millie promptly screams "Whore!" at Elliot and begins to hunt her down. Elliot is given care of Foster, but is too busy to take care of him as she is still hiding from Millie. In the end, Elliot decides to stop running and confronts Millie, saying it was a simple misunderstanding.
*J.D. and Turk: After leaving Foster in Elliot's care, J.D. and Turk (who is reluctant to go as he believes it to be unnecessary) go to Mr. Sutton's house in an effort to get a thank-you. After narrowly escaping Sutton's pet ostriches, Turk leaves for the hospital without J.D. and J.D. asks again for Sutton to thank him, but he still refuses as J.D. was only doing his job, and as a garbage man, is never thanked for doing his job and believes no-one deserves that courtesy from him. J.D. is left realizing how under-appreciated people really feel.
*Carla: Carla is called in to take care of Foster due to Elliot being pursued by Millie, but she is too busy prepping the staff for the lottery. Care of Foster goes to Cox, but wasn't on call and at home, leaving no-one to take care of Foster.

When J.D. begins to reminisce out-loud (which normally happens at the end of every episode only as a narration), Kelso angrily brings them all back to reality and reveals the end for them;
*Foster: He started to cough up blood, then convulsed and his heart failed. J.D.'s intern team tried all sorts of methods (such as crash-paddles, CPR, ventilation and adrenaline shots) but the interns were clueless as to what caused it. Foster slowly died.
*Turk: Being the on-call surgeon, he was paged when Foster's health began to fail. However, Turk was stuck in traffic on the way back from Sutton's place, and arrived too late to save Foster.
*J.D.: He was at home thanking a garbage man by giving him a hug.
*Carla: Being a nurse, she doesn't get the alert about Foster and keeps watching the lottery with her helpers. They lose the lottery, leaving everyone disappointed.
*Elliot: Was taped to a wall outside the hospital entrance and gagged by Millie with a sign saying "HI! I'M A WHORE!!!" being displayed next to her, leaving her "incapacitated" and unable to help Foster.

Now that the details have been replayed, they realize they are all to blame for a needless death.

At that moment, Doug arrives from the morgue with Foster's autopsy report and informs the conference on his fate: Foster died of a pulmonary embolism caused by the long plane ride from India. This should have been noticed on the radiology scans, leaving Dr. Flannerly, the radiologist-on-call, to take the heat and the gang off the hook.

That evening, the gang are celebrating with large mugs of beer toasting "To bad radiologists!" as it wasn't their fault, but before anyone can take a drink, Dr. Cox arrives and coldly reminds them that they got off lucky and can never lose focus with any of their patients.

The next day, the gang are back at work treating patients. This time they each have a "ghost" of Mr. Foster following them, representing the mistakes they must carry to avoid repeating them.

Cultural references

* J.D. and Turk’s encounter with a group of violent ostriches is a spoof of a scene in the film "Dude, Where's My Car?"
* A sound effect during the ostrich scene was lifted directly from a Velociraptor snarl in "Jurassic Park".
* The characters Mr. Sutton and Mr. Foster are in homage to Broadway actress Sutton Foster. Millie is a character for which she won the Tony Award for Best Leading Actress and Jimmy is the name of the character she falls in love with in the show Thoroughly Modern Millie.Fact|date=August 2007

Featured music

* "Symphony No. 5, 1st Movement" by Ludwig van Beethoven

External links

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* http://scrubs-tv.com/ep101.html