My Blind Date

"My Blind Date"
Season	One
Episode	Twelve
Writer	Mark Stegemann
Director	Marc Buckland
Air date	January 8, 2002

“You make me so mad, I might actually scream!”— Elliot Reid

"My Blind Date" is the twelfth episode of Scrubs' first season. J.D. starts flirting with a patient in an MRI machine, but he can't see her face and wonders whether he should take his chances. Dr. Cox is close to working for 24 hours without losing any patients. Elliot tries to get Dr. Cox's attention by assisting him. Turk has relationship problems after arguing with Carla over a patient.

Synopsis

Elliot as a catcher.

Dr. Cox announces that since midnight, he hasn't had a patient in the ICU die. He wants to have a perfect 24-hour stretch. He delegates most of the responsibilities to J.D., ignoring Elliot's request to help. Later, when J.D. is asked by Dr. Kelso and Ted to watch Alex Hanson, a social worker who slipped on a wet floor, J.D. asks Dr. Cox to give Elliot some responsibilities. After she gets yelled at for second-guessing Dr. Cox, J.D. tells her that it is all right to do that, and that it makes her a better doctor. At 11:55pm, Elliot and Dr. Cox fail to resuscitate a patient, and he dies, spoiling the perfect game.

Meanwhile, as J.D. keeps Alex company during her MRI, the machine breaks and she gets trapped inside. They flirt, and J.D. wonders if she is cute or not. After getting no helpful answers from co-workers, he decides to take a chance and ask her out.

Turk and Carla argue while they help a patient, Mike Davis. Mike tells Carla that he thinks Turk is done with their relationship. As it turns out, Turk gets frustrated with Carla easily, but admits he loves her.

Recurring themes

     More: Fantasies • Flashbacks • J.D.'s girl names • Janitor's pranks and lies

Death and its daughter

Fantasies

• The Grim Reaper and his daughter sell cookies in the ICU.
• Alex comes out of the MRI machine and is Jimmie Walker.
• Elliot is a catcher and fails miserably at the task.

Janitor story

As Janitor mops the floor, he yells at J.D. for making tracks. As he holds the "wet floor" sign up to show J.D., Alex slips and falls.

J.D.'s girl names

• Ginger

“Ginger, get the lead out!”— Dr. Cox

• Gidget

“Watch the attitude, Gidget, or I won't let you go down to the bonfire with the other beach bunnies.”— Dr. Cox

Guest Stars

• Elizabeth Bogush as Alex Hanson
• Michael McDonald as Mike Davis
• Jimmie Walker as Himself

Music

     ♫ List of music featured in Scrubs

• "Easy Tonight" by Five For Fighting (original airing and syndication; not on the DVD release)

Quotes

“God, you're so sexy right now.”— Carla

“My heart hates Uggos.”— J.D.

“I don't find her pretty, but since my wife left, when I look at a woman, I find it hard to see past the evil.”— Ted

Trivia/Goofs

• On the DVD of Season One, a different song is played instead of "Easy Tonight" because of licensing issues. ("Easy Tonight" is still in syndication episodes.) However, in the audio commentary on the DVD, the song plays in the background with the episode as Bill Lawrence and Zach Braff watch it.
• J.D. seems to have an extensive knowledge of baseball in this episode, but in later seasons, he is portrayed as completely clueless about sports.
• There are 27 patients in the ICU during Dr. Cox's "perfect game" attempt, just as there are 27 outs in 9 innings of baseball.
• When Alex and J.D. are holding hands while she is in the MRI machine, she says she is checking for a wedding ring. However, she is holding J.D.'s right hand also regardless anybody who wears a ring or any type of jewelry should remove it before coming in the MRI room.
• It is revealed that Dr. Cox likes his coffee with sugar and no cream.
• When J.D. is in the MRI room he is seen wearing his stethoscope, in real life no metal is allowed in the MRI room.
• Just after Dr. Cox tells Elliot that the "new game starts in four minutes", the patients' first initials on the assignment board behind him, standing out in bold, spell "BPR MALIBU".
  • On the same board, the first doctor listed is "E. Espinoza".
• When J.D. and Turk are talking in the doctor's lounge, Turk's hands change positions after the camera shifts. First he holds a box of handkerchiefs by its sides, but later his hands are on top of it.
• The second appearance of The Grim Reaper.
• The Grim Reaper asks J.D. to buy cookies for his daughter's troop. This is an allusion to the Girl Scouts and the cookies they sell to raise money. Also, when J.D. says he wants "those mint thingies", he is referring to a type of Girl Scout cookie, Thin Mints.
• The Grim Reaper's strange behavior (almost friendly and humanlike) because of his blonde-haired daughter may be a reference to the character of Death in Discworld, a novel series by Terry Pratchett.
• This is the first episode in which Dr. Cox calls Elliot "Barbie".
• In the fantasy where Elliot is a catcher, she is wearing a left-handed mitt. However, she is right-handed (as seen when she writes later in the episode). This discrepancy can be explained by J.D.'s lack of sports knowledge (even though, in this episode, he seems to have knowledge of baseball).
• The shorter MRI technician is played by Charles Papert, the show's camera and Steadicam operator.
• When J.D. says, "Did you know that Goose is the guy from ER?", he is referring to ER, a popular NBC medical drama. Goose is a character from Top Gun, played by Anthony Edwards.
• When Dr. Cox says, "It puts the lotion on its skin", he is referring to the movie Silence of the Lambs, in which the main antagonist, Jame Gumb, says this line.
• J.D. says, "I'm your wingman, Maverick!", an allusion to the Navy code name of Tom Cruise's character in the 1986 movie Top Gun.