DEADLINE: Bill, this is such a big relationship status change for J.D. and Elliot. Why did you decide to do it?
LAWRENCE: Here’s the scoop. The eighth year [of Scrubs] ends with, just once I’d like to believe my dreams came true. We all felt that way, and not to be dark about the world but, even though I’m very grateful about how my life has gone, not everything works out the way you want it to work out.
I’m a huge believer in writing what you know and what you see. Our showrunner [Aseem Batra] — she said I was allowed to talk about this — is someone that, when I left Scrubs, was married and was having a young child, and now is a single parent, co-raising that child with somebody. That doesn’t mean that it’s acrimonious, and that doesn’t mean that it’s his own journey. I’m sure you have the same experience, some people in your lives work out, some don’t.
I was really resistant at first, and the one thing those guys all drove home to me, they’re like, if you watch the 9,000 episodes of Scrubs, you would say, Turk and Carla are going to make it. And then you would go, I don’t think J.D. and Elliot have had more than an episode and a half, they seemed like a functioning couple.
So it’s a good storytelling device. It doesn’t mean that their story is over