Scrubs is teaching us all to expect the unexpected, and in the case of Episode 4, “My Poker Face,” that means a guest star like comedian Matt Rife.
**Spoiler alert for the newest episode of Scrubs, now streaming on Hulu**
In the latest episode of the ABC revival, Rife — who has made a name for himself in the world of stand-up comedy and crowd work — guest stars as a patient of Dr. Tosh (Ava Bunn) and Elliot (Sarah Chalke) who is experiencing odd symptoms as a result of his fad “Tarzan Diet.” Bunn says working with the guest star was a dream come true, especially as someone who also comes from the world of stage comedy.
“I was very excited to work with him and he was very, very lovely, dare I say, even more lovely than I could have ever expected. He’s awesome,” Bunn told DECIDER in an interview tied to the new episode. “We both come from the live comedy world, we did a lot of improv, and any time a line didn’t feel right in between scenes, we would be like, ‘Okay, wait, what if we said something more like this?’”
Bunn, who plays a social-media obsessed medical intern studying under J.D. (Zach Braff) at Sacred Heart, even got to work on her improv skills with Rife, joking about their characters’ mutual love of TikTok. In one scene, the two characters laugh as they swap handles to follow each other, much to the annoyance of Elliot.
“There’s a scene where we’re looking at each other’s phones, and we were kind of ad-libbing at the beginning. I don’t know how much of it actually made the cut, but it was just fun. We had good banter and I felt like everything flowed very naturally. And the director, Randall [Keenan Winston], thankfully, let us play throughout that.”
As for Elliot’s reaction to her intern getting chummy with their ill-informed and literally ill patient, Bunn tells DECIDER that she had the best time playing a note of animosity with Chalke, who gets pretty stern in-character in Episode 4. At one point, Elliot even tells Tosh that she’s having a hard time taking her seriously as a doctor, which causes Bunn’s character to have to hide her phone usage.
What Elliot didn’t know and couldn’t see was Sam using her phone to investigate their patient’s troubling social media posts, which led her to diagnose him with an eating disorder called “orthorexia nervosa,” a.k.a. a clinical obsession with healthy food and restrictive eating. It’s the kind of catch that makes Elliot have to eat her words and apologize to Bunn’s character for misjudging her. Thankfully, that friction between them only occurred on-screen.
“Something I love about Sarah is just before every scene, we’d rehearse it a ton, but then, in between rehearsing, she’d be like, ‘Oh my God, did I tell you this story?’ And then we’re talking about whatever happened over the weekend… I’m in awe of Sarah, Zach and Donald [Faison] because they’ve been doing this for so long that they can do that with each other, and watching them switch into character is so crazy,” she shared.
Bunn added, “Anytime we had like a serious moment where we’re butting heads, afterwards we’re immediately like, ‘Okay, anyways, so I was saying,’ … It was an absolute honor. Sarah is such a legend to me. So the fact that I get to be in so many scenes with her felt just like such a cool opportunity.”
Bunn says she’s also taken so many lessons away from her scenes with Chalke and her time on set in, learning to take advantage of every moment and never take anything for granted.
“She always just comes in so happy and positive, and she’s a very good role model for me, for both professionally and personally, because there’s never a day that she takes it for granted,” she said, “Every single day, like, ‘I’m the luckiest woman in the world. I have the best job ever and the best friends ever.’ She just gives a very good vibe out to the room.”
How To Watch Scrubs
The first four episodes of Scrubs are now streaming on Hulu and Disney+. New episodes of Scrubs air Wednesdays at 8 p.m. local and stream the next day.
If you’re new to Hulu, you can get started with a 30-day free trial on the streamer’s basic (with ads) plan. After the trial period, you’ll pay $10.99/month. If you want to upgrade to Hulu ad-free, it costs $18.99/month.
If you want to stream even more and save a few bucks a month while you’re at it, we recommend subscribing to one of the Disney+ Bundles, all of which include Hulu. These bundles start at $12.99/month for ad-supported Disney+ and Hulu and goes up to $32.99/month for Disney+, Hulu, and Max, all ad-free.