Scrubs: Braff, Chalke & Faison on Season 2 Departures, Interns & More

Posted in: ABC, TV | Tagged: Scrubs

Scrubs: Braff, Chalke & Faison on Season 2 Departures, Interns & More

Scrubs stars Zach Braff, Sarah Chalke, and Donald Faison discuss Joel Kim Booster & X Mayo's departures, Season 2's interns, and much more.

Published Sun, 27 Sep 2026 09:37:12 -0500
by Tom Chang
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Article Summary

• Scrubs Season 2 shakes up Sacred Heart as Joel Kim Booster and X Mayo exit and new faces join the hospital staff.
• Zach Braff says J.D.’s new Season 2 conflict comes from below, with chief resident Grant becoming his latest thorn.
• Donald Faison and Sarah Chalke spotlight Ava Bunn’s expanded Scrubs role as Tosh tackles social media health culture.
• Scrubs Season 2 will keep J.D., Elliot, and Turk front and center while giving interns bigger, more focused stories.

As Scrubs finished a successful season 1 in April with its nine-episode run, ABC didn't wait too long to greenlight season 2 and push it into production for 10 episodes. As we loom closer to the September 30th premiere, there was some surprising turnover in the new cast with the departures of Joel Kim Booster's Dr. Kevin Park and X Mayo's Nurse Pippa Raymond. Park was Chief of Medicine, Dr. Perry Cox's (John C. McGinley) protégé, before he was passed over for his position at Sacred Heart in favor of the returning Dr. John "J.D." Dorian (Zach Braff), who was just visiting before his former mentor offered him the job to replace him. Raymond was a charge nurse alongside Michael James Scott's nurse, Francois Dubois. Coming in are John Higgins (Saturday Night Live) as Grant, the new Chief Resident, and Keyla Monterroso Mejia as surgical nurse Mimi. Braff, Sarah Chalke (Dr. Elliot Reid), and Donald Faison (Dr. Christopher Turk) spoke with Deadline about the departures, arrivals, and the developing arcs of the Scrubs Season 2 intern cast.

Scrubs Stars Zach Braff, Sarah Chalke, and Donald Faison on Joel Kim Booster & X Mayo's Departures, and Interns

When Cox announced his retirement from Sacred Heart, he didn't reveal that it was more due to medical reasons than simply having JD teach the new generation of interns. Without anyone helping him learn the ropes of running the very hospital he came up in as an intern, it was largely a sink-or-swim experience, while Park took every opportunity he could to knock his rival down a peg on the administrative side. "Joel was incredible," Braff said. "I think that we wanted to try and find a nemesis for J.D. who was underneath him. Bill Lawrence had this idea that, well, there's no one above J.D. except an administrator, and we've seen that before. It might be fun if the person driving him nuts is coming from underneath him, a chief resident, and so that was rethinking where the thorn in J.D.'s side is. Obviously, J.D. needs conflict, right, for the story to work; things are going very well for J.D., and that'll get boring quick. We need some conflict for drama and comedy, and I think the notion was: what if we introduce a fun thorn in his side, who is actually underneath him and drives him nuts, in the same way that J.D. drove Dr. Cox nuts," which explains Higgins' new role as Grant.

When it came to Mayo, it was about scheduling: "We would have loved to have X on more," Braff said. "She's just working so much and so busy, and wasn't really fully available. But we are bringing in more nurses and more characters. Michael James Scott really just popped; we all love him so much. He's so friggin' funny. Every single line he says on the show makes us all laugh, and so he really, really is shining. The writers keep writing to him, and I can't imagine an episode without him. He's so lovely to be around, and such a good actor."

Ava Bunn, who plays Dr. Sam Tosh, has been elevated to the main cast from her recurring role. "I think the Ava Bunn storyline — she plays Tosh on the show — is something that needs to be explored," Faison said. "I don't know if you're on social media, but we're on social media, and a lot of my diagnoses come from the doctors on social media or the things that they say, and that's something to talk about. That is a new wave of getting information. Google used to be the way to do it, I'm going to Google all of my ailments and see what happens. Now it's a new era, and a lot of people get their information from things like Instagram or Meta or ChatGPT. So, adding her to the show as the fourth in all of this is, she popped last year, and so here we go, and we're excited for her too. This is something new." Chalke added, "Yeah, she's great. She comes in with such great ideas, she's improving all the time, and never delivers the same line twice. She has such confidence in her own skin for such a young age. It's really cool."

As far as whether Tosh is eventually going to be the lead intern voiceover, as JD has been throughout and Kerry Bishé's Lucy was in season 9, Braff assured JD, Turk, and Elliot will remain the focus: "No. It's interesting. The old show was about the interns, right? Well, now the show is about us," he said, "So, unlike that [Scrubs] Season 9, the show is not going to pivot to being about a new cast of interns." One thing the series has learned for season two is changing the way the interns' stories are told. "One thing we did last year was we tried to service all the interns in every episode, and I think what we learned was we didn't have the time in 21 minutes to really give them enough story," Braff said. "So this year, we're not putting each intern in every episode, but giving them their own episodes to shine, and I think that's a better strategy for the audience, getting their claws into them and getting to know them better and embracing them more. With the exception of Ava, who's been made a regular and she'll be in every episode."

For more on Chalke and Faison discussing how Elliot and Turk's approach to mentoring will evolve, you can check out the whole interview. Scrubs, which also stars Judy Reyes, Vanessa Bayer, Jacob Dudman, David Gridley, Layla Mohammadi, Amanda Morrow, Rachel Bislon, Scott Foley, and Tamera Mowry-Housley, premieres its first two episodes on September 30th on ABC.

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