Scrubs Cast Spills On Season 2: J.D.'s New Love (And Mentee), Turk And Carla's 'Chore Play,' And Elliot's Reunion With Sean

When ABC's "Scrubs" revival took off earlier this year, Zach Braff's first thought wasn't simply that they'd pulled it off. It was what they could learn from it.

"My first reaction was, oh my God, this is such great research and development for Season 2," he tells TVLine. "We are getting so much data — what the fans like, what people are responding to, what the chatter is online."

The nine-episode first season gave Braff, also an executive producer and director on the revival, and showrunner Aseem Batra, an opportunity to see what worked and where there was room to grow. And now comes the fun part: seeing what that research yielded.

We already know some of what awaits the docs at Sacred Heart when Season 2 kicks off Wednesday, September 30: J.D. is diving headfirst into a new relationship with Rachel Bilson's Charlie, while Elliot will find herself thrown off balance by the return of ex-boyfriend Sean (played once more by TV's Scott Foley) — as glimpsed in a newly released trailer above. At work, J.D. meets his match in new Chief Resident Grant (franchise newcomer John Higgins, of "Saturday Night Live"/Please Don't Destroy fame), while Dr. Cox's ongoing health crisis puts his former protégés in the unfamiliar position of caring for their longtime mentor.

But those are only the broad strokes. TVLine's conversations with Batra, Braff, Sarah Chalke, Donald Faison, and newly promoted series regular Ava Bunn, and recurring guest stars Judy Reyes and John C. McGinley, revealed plenty more about what's ahead — including just how hard J.D. is falling for Charlie, what sends Elliot into a full-on "crashout," and how Turk and Carla are keeping the spark alive after 25 years together.

Moving on from Elliot wasn't coming easily for J.D. in Season 1. His one and only date with Lisa Gilroy's sexually adventurous harpist Lily only reinforced that he might need more time before putting himself back out there. Then, in the finale, he met Charlie.

And now? "J.D. is in love," Braff tells TVLine. "In fact, so much so that Turk is saying, 'Dude, you're going too fast. You're going all in. You've got to calm down. You always do this....'"

That tendency to throw himself headfirst into a relationship is very much in keeping with the J.D. viewers have always known, even if he's now approaching romance from the other side of a divorce.

"He's a person who we've always played as being very in touch with his emotions, but also his emotions sometimes control him," Batra says. "And we really use the relationship to explore who he was, and still is. We're playing the fun of those post-divorce relationships where you dive in and it may or may not be the right thing. But you are just so relieved that you feel well enough again to go into it."

As for whether Charlie can handle J.D. at full intensity? So far, so good.

"I think, luckily, Turk is there to put the brakes on some of it," Batra says, "but she seems to be all right with [all of] it."

While J.D. is diving headfirst into something new, Elliot enters Season 2 still seeing the pilot she began dating last season. The relationship isn't exactly setting her world on fire, but Elliot has convinced herself that what she has is enough.

"He's sending her pictures.... She's like, 'He's not boring.' Carla's like, 'He's boring.' She's like, 'He's not boring. He just changed his Brita filter, and he wants to know if I can tell the difference,'" Chalke tells TVLine.

In fact, Elliot initially sees the low-key relationship as a feature, not a bug, allowing her to focus on her career. But watching her ex-husband fall for someone else changes her perspective.

"I think seeing J.D. and Charlie, and what love looks like and how excited they are, makes her realize, like, 'Oh, OK, maybe I do want something more,'" Chalke says.

Elliot's realization comes just as a familiar face reenters her orbit. Sean, whom she dated on and off during the original series, is back in Season 2 — and his return quickly unsettles her.

"The writers wanted to figure out a way to bring back a lot of Elliot's neuroses," Chalke tells TVLine. "She obviously had such big feelings for him, and so that kind of puts her a little bit off balance."

Braff puts it somewhat less delicately: "We've been looking for more fun ways to get Sarah's bats**t craziness back out. And we looked at TV's Scott Foley as a way to make her go fully uncomfortable and clumsy, and have a full Elliot crashout."

For Chalke, that also meant getting reacquainted with slapstick. "The physical comedy was always just, like, the most fun part of this show," she says. "And even though we're a lot older now, it still remains so fun. I feel 100% safe to try anything, even if I look like an idiot and fall on my face.... It doesn't matter."

Sean's return notwithstanding, Elliot is carrying herself with a bit more self-assurance this season. "Elliot has this burst of confidence [in the premiere]," Chalke reveals, while prefacing: "It's a little misguided."

Elliot's newfound confidence isn't limited to her own work. Season 2 will see her mentorship of Tosh deepen as the young doctor begins to consider what kind of doctor she wants to become.

"I think the part that's interesting to me is the trust she has with Elliot," Bunn tells TVLine. "They've been through so much together, in terms of [Tosh] trying to prove her confidence to [Elliot] versus letting her be [her] mentor. Now, [Tosh] and Elliot don't really have any guard up between each other."

That relationship takes on added importance in Episode 2, as Tosh begins thinking about which specialty she wants to pursue — prompting her to consider which aspects of Elliot's example she wants to follow.

"She's watching Elliot and being like, 'OK, what do I love about her career? What mistakes do I want to avoid?'" Bunn says. "It kind of reminds me of a relationship with a mother and daughter where it's a mom tries so hard to be like, 'Please don't make the mistakes I made.' And then if you grip too hard, the kid's going to be like, 'Well, I'm just going to go off and do this crazy whatever.'"

Tosh will also be navigating a new relationship with Asher, after acting on her feelings for him in the Season 1 finale. And, as Bunn explains, they're still very much in the honeymoon phase.

"They're not farting in front of each other yet.... They're still like, 'There's nothing wrong with me,'" she says. "And I think that's a really fun thing to navigate throughout the season: the little hoops you jump through in a relationship to get to that next level."

Turk may have gotten a much-needed lift when his best friend returned to Sacred Heart at the start of Season 1, but the issues he was grappling with haven't simply disappeared.

"Turk is dealing with how it feels to age," Batra tells TVLine of his Season 2 journey. That includes the burnout and depression he opened up about last season, which the writers are being careful not to treat as something J.D.'s return simply cured.

"We didn't want to say that someone could be suffering and then all of a sudden their friend comes back and, like, 'Yea, I'm not depressed anymore,'" Braff says. "That might be a Band-Aid or a boost of serotonin for a while, but underneath that is a real suffering. And so we want to bring that back and have that be something that he's navigating."

After 25 years together, Turk and Carla are about to discover that keeping the spark alive sometimes requires a little extra effort.

"We get comfortable in our marriages," Faison tells TVLine. "And sometimes we forget to do the things that made our spouses want to marry us. I feel like this is pulled right from our real life."

Quite literally, as it turns out. The idea for one particular Turk-and-Carla storyline originated with an episode of Braff and Faison's "Fake Doctors, Real Friends."

"We had a sex therapist on the podcast, and it was hilarious and actually really informative because Donald and [his wife] CaCee came on and they were really candid and had a very fascinating chat about issues in their marriage," Braff recalls. "And the sex therapist said, 'Have you tried chore play?'"

"It's chores instead of foreplay," Faison explains.

"Some wives, in her example, feel like the husband isn't doing enough," Braff continues. "And if he did enough, maybe she'd be more turned on... so she recommended it." And that suggestion ultimately made its way from the podcast into the show.

"Donald didn't try for two seconds, but on 'Scrubs,' he told the writers the story and the writers thought it was hilarious," Braff says. "So we put it right into 'Scrubs,' and Turk makes his attempt at chore play."

While we can't reveal how Carla takes to Turk's attempt at chore play, Reyes has some thoughts of her own.

"I think she's a little bit too soft on him sometimes, and I think he's so immature," she tells TVLine. "He should just f**king pick up the clothes.... He wants sex. 'If you want sex, clean!'"

Batra says that beneath the comedy, Faison's real-life devotion to his spouse made the story particularly well suited for this rock-solid, onscreen couple.

"The way he talks about his wife, it's exactly what you want for Turk and Carla," she says. "At the end of the day, he just adores her and wants to show up."

J.D. spent years looking to Dr. Cox for guidance, whether Cox wanted to provide it or not. Now that J.D. is the one in a position to mentor the next generation, he's expecting history to repeat itself — but new Chief Resident Grant has other ideas.

"He thinks he's finally going to have his Cox-J.D. relationship," Braff tells TVLine. "But [original series creator] Bill [Lawrence] said, 'What's funny is he drove him crazy. So J.D.'s mentee should drive him crazy, too.'"

Enter John Higgins' Grant, who isn't exactly looking for his own Dr. Cox: "He's a very confident young doctor, and he's not really looking for much mentorship. He's certainly not J.D.-esque," Braff teases. "J.D.'s trying to recreate the relationship he had in his mind with Cox, but this guy doesn't really want a mentor."

That said, Grant isn't just there to frustrate J.D. He's also there to challenge the chief of medicine's perception of himself. 

"J.D. sees himself as such a good person, and he is," Batra maintains. "But this is a character who comes in, and he's like, 'I don't see that as being good. Yeah, you bring donuts in for everybody and make them come in 15 minutes earlier, but Tosh would rather dry her hair in the morning, right, Tosh?' He kind of undermines J.D.'s perspective on himself in a frustrating way."

And as far as McGinley is concerned, putting someone like Grant in J.D.'s path is essential to the show's DNA.

"Absent Kelso, the Janitor, and Cox, those were the revolving threats to J.D. over the first nine years," he says. "And the protagonist — it's as old as Aristotle — the protagonist needs a threat."

"Scrubs" Season 2 premieres Wednesday, September 30, with back-to-back episodes starting at 8 p.m. on ABC (and streaming next day on Hulu).