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Following a major update about which Scrubs stars will be returning for the revival's next run of episodes, I can't help but feel disappointed by the news surrounding one outgoing figure. While Scrubs Season 2 is set to bring back almost everyone who showed up earlier this year, the next reunion has been confirmed to be incomplete. While the matter of whether certain legacy stars like Ken Jenkins (Dr. Kelso) will appear in Season 2 is still unclear, ABC has announced that one of the show's best newcomers won't be clocking back in at Sacred Heart.
Luckily, all five of the new doctors have been confirmed as returning stars, and Ava Bunn (Tosh) has even been upgraded from a recurring role to series regular status. X Mayo's Nurse Pippa Raymond won't be coming back, but at least we still have the hilarious François Dubois, played by Michael James Scott, to keep us laughing at the nurse's station. What I'm more torn up about is the fact that Joel Kim Booster's Dr. Kevin Park has also been revealed as one of the revival-era characters not to be back for Season 2. Recent story developments make his absence entirely logical, though.
Dr. Cox's Return Removes the Need for Dr. Park
John C McGinley did come back as Dr. Cox for the Scrubs revival's first season, but his role was much smaller compared to the original series. Part of the reason for this is that McGinley is currently a series regular on HBO's Rooster. As such, his schedule is pretty stacked, and Scrubs had to work around that. Thankfully, this opened up the door for Cox to hand off the Chief of Medicine role to Zach Braff's JD. McGinley's absence was felt less harshly due to the introduction of Dr. Park.
Rooster is a co-creation of Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence.
Dr. Cox was always clashing with JD in the original series, which made the latter's life more difficult – albeit in a comical way...most of the time. McGinley's limited availability in Season 1 would have removed this element of the show's original formula, which was being painstakingly recreated in almost every other area. Therefore, Dr. Park feels very much like he was created to fill the Dr. Cox-shaped hole that would have been left behind. Even though McGinley is still set to split his time between Rooster and Scrubs going forward, I would imagine Cox's diagnosis in Season 1 will make him a more central character in Season 2. This expanded role sort of makes Dr. Park surplus to requirements.
The Canon Reason Why Dr. Park Could Have Left Sacred Heart
This hasn't been revealed yet, given that Scrubs Season 2 is still a few months away. When the show does return, though, I feel like there needs to be some kind of in-universe explanation for why Dr. Park isn't there. Luckily, Season 1 has already provided an in-built reason, one that goes beyond the behind-the-scenes matter of McGinley's availability. It all comes down to Dr. Park's career path and professional ambition. As Dr. Cox himself explained in Season 1, Joel Kim Booster's character was eager to take over as Chief of Medicine before JD's return.
The fact that McGinley's character chose JD as his replacement over Dr. Park is the biggest source of contention between the latter two men. Dr. Park initially continues to work at Sacred Heart, quietly hoping JD will mess up, and that his job will once more be up for grabs. Because Dr. Park isn't in Season 2, we can probably assume for now that he stopped considering his plan viable after seeing how quickly JD is becoming comfortable in his new role. As such, maybe Joel Kim Booster's character simply left to pursue a more realistic way forward to achieving his goal of becoming a Chief of Medicine. If so, he could already be a Chief at a different hospital in Scrubs Season 2, and therefore won't appear in the show.
