Christopher Turk

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dr. Christopher Duncan Turk

First appearance	My First Day
Information
Gender	Male
Age	31^[1]
Occupation	Surgical Doctor
Title	Attending surgeon
Family	Spouse: Carla Espinosa Daughter: Isabella Turk Mother: Margaret Brothers: Kevin, Jabbari Cousins: Nfume, George, Shedaisy
Portrayed by	Donald Faison
Created by	Bill Lawrence

Dr. Christopher Duncan Turk^[2] is a fictional character played by Donald Faison on the American sitcom Scrubs.

1 Profile
2 Family
3 Relationships with Other Characters
4 Show Trivia
5 References

[edit] Profile

Turk is the best friend and former college roommate of the series's protagonist, J.D. He is an attending surgeon at Sacred Heart Hospital, where the series takes place, and is married to Carla Espinosa, one of the nurses. His birth probably took place somewhere around 1976, as he first left for college in 1993/1994. During this time he attended therapy in order to deal with the stress. In college Turk had a girlfriend, Rosanna, to whom he secretly started talking again after he married Carla (during the fourth season). This put a severe strain on his marriage for awhile.

Turk is a very competitive person. He says that his competitive nature drove him to "play everything" in high school, and also cites it as the main reason why he became a surgeon (as revealed in "My Bed Banter & Beyond"). He can frequently be seen throughout the series playing basketball outside the hospital, or engaging J.D. in childishly competitive games (such as "Steak", wherein whoever finishes their steak first wins, or "Gravel," in which one person puts rocks/gravel/sand into another person's shoe when they aren't looking).

He is a Christian, and is deeply committed to his religious faith. He often quotes the Bible and, in one of J.D.'s daydreams, he is presented as an Evangelical minister as an attempt to rally people. Although his exact Christian denomination is unclear, he is often seen wearing a Crucifix and in one episode encouraged J.D. and Carla to attend Mass with him, indicating he may be a Catholic. He was in any case married by one when he married Carla. Although in one early episode he claims his mother is a Jehovah's witness, this may have been a red herring. In spite of his strong devotion, his faith in a benevolent God is occasionally shaken by the tragedies he witnesses daily as a surgeon, such as in "My Own Personal Jesus".

In the episode "My Cake," he was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.

[edit] Family

Turk has at least two brothers, Kevin (played by D.L. Hughley) and Jabbari (who never appeared onscreen and formerly went by the name Bob.) He also mentions a sister, a "bipolar Aunt Leslie" and three cousins: Nfume (who it is implied hails from an African cultural background), George and Shedaisy. (In "My Best Friend's Baby's Baby and My Baby's Baby" Turk also mentions a cousin whom he describes as the world's biggest "blerd", or black nerd). In "My Sex Buddy", J.D. talks to a Mr. Turk (presumably Chris' father) on the phone. His mother's name is Margaret and in "My Mentor", Turk reveals that she is a Jehovah's Witness. She made a full appearance in "My Old Man", where she was played by Hattie Winston. Turk has also mentioned a grandmother, who attended his wedding with Carla and was thrown up on by J.D.'s ex-girlfriend, Danni.

In the episode "My Brother, My Keeper", Kevin reveals that he was the one who put Turk through college and medical school. In "My Old Man", Turk says that his mother has never liked any of his girlfriends, with Carla being the sole exception due to their similar personalities. In "My Brother, Where Art Thou?", he describes his brother Jabbari as "militant", and reveals that while the members of his family are seemingly dysfunctional, they are very close to each other.

[edit] Relationships with Other Characters

[edit] J.D.

Turk and J.D. are best friends and surrogate brothers. They both attended The College of William and Mary, where they roomed together. ^[3] They share a goofy sense of humor; for example, they both enjoy dancing 'the robot,' and are known to sometimes pretend to be the "multi-ethnic Siamese doctor." J.D. likes to tell people that Turk's middle name is Duncan because his father liked doughnuts, while Turk tells people that his cousin is Tiger Woods. He and J.D. own a stuffed Yellow Labrador Retriever named Rowdy which they treat like a live dog. They plan to someday own a robot, which they will name 2Pac. J.D. is also Turk's best man, and, according to Turk, is the prime candidate for godfather of his and Carla's child.

[edit] Carla

Carla caught Turk's eye immediately, and she soon agreed to go out with him. They first slept together in "My Two Dads" and confessed their love to each other later in the season. In "My Overkill", their relationship was shaken when Carla found out not only that senior attending physician Perry Cox had feelings for her, but that Turk knew about it; she soon learned to trust him again, however. In season 2, Carla became very uncertain after Turk's proposal, but she eventually accepted. They then spent the whole of season 3 planning their wedding, which happened, albeit with a few problems, in the season finale.

In season 4, Turk and Carla's marriage became strained when Carla and J.D. had a "friend kiss" after coming home drunk together. It was also previously strained when Carla caught Turk talking with an ex-girlfriend. Turk and Carla soon mended their relationship, agreeing to try for a baby in the season finale. They spent most of season 5 trying to conceive, finally succeeding in the sixteenth episode of the season, "My Bright Idea". Their baby, Isabella Turk, was born after some complications in "My Best Friend's Baby's Baby and My Baby's Baby."

[edit] Elliot

Elliot and Turk are friends who sometimes advise each other at tough times, but Turk often teases her and they have sometimes had arguments. In My Cabbage, they argued about Elliot not putting his phone number in her cell phone and in My Coffee, Elliot was suprised when Turk actually defended her when she was insulted by other staff members. In My Interpretation Turk had a series of saucy sex dreams about Elliot, but Carla assured him that they were meaningless and that everyone has them.

[edit] Dr. Kelso

He discovered that Dr. Kelso was lying about his anniversary and forced Dr. Kelso to give the O.R. an argon laser. After getting drunk at his and Carla's wedding, Dr. Kelso has started calling Turk "Turkleton" after having assured himself that Turk's name is Turk Turkleton rather than Christopher Turk. He also started calling Carla "Mrs. Turkleton" and "Nurse Turkelton."

[edit] Show Trivia

His cell phone number is (916) CALL-TUR (225-5887), although he hopes that people will dial the 'K' anyway. At first, fans who dialed the phone number found themselves connected to an actual phone located on set. Several fans reported many cast and crew members picking up the phone and having live conversations with them (Zach Braff, who plays J.D., accounted for this in his own blog). The phone soon became overloaded with calls, and callers were re-directed to a voice mail message from Turk or Carla announcing that Turk was out, but would be back at the start of the next season. The voicemail was later changed to one including Braff plugging a website and movie. As of December 2006, the message is one of Neil Flynn (who plays the Janitor) advertising for the season premiere of Scrubs. As of February 2007, the message is of Sacred Heart's security guard Leonard promoting "Scrubs" on Comedy Central. As of March 2007, the message is of Doug, saying that they are attempting to pull a body off of him and then he plugs a website, and the scrubs blog and podcast.

At college, Turk completed a minor in Psychology ("Her Story II")

As seen in "My Best Friend's Wedding", Turk strongly believes that mermaids are real.

Turk is a member of "Cool Cats", the hospital air band put together by the Janitor and Ted, the hospital's lawyer ("My Half-Acre").

Turk's ringtone is a digitized version of "Guy Love" from the episode "My Musical" ("My Road to Nowhere")

Turk seems to be comically incapable of remembering Carla's ethnicity, often saying that she is Puerto Rican when she is, in fact, Dominican. Other blunders include telling J.D. that Isabella, Turk and Carla's daughter, is "Blaxican", and claiming at a taco stand that he is entitled to free guacamole because he "is married to one of their people".

Turk appears to be a political liberal, and does not support the war in Iraq ("His Story IV").

In "My Day at the Races", J.D. reveals that the apartment in which Turk and Carla reside is located at 56 Walnut Drive.

In "My No Good Reason", Turk reveals that any girl J.D. has ever gone out with has become instantly hideous to him, which is displayed when Elliot walks by and Turk sees her as a man with a beard and a hairy chest. This is contradictory to previous episodes, however. In "My Interpretation", Turk has a sex dream about Elliot and in "My Fishbowl", it is revealed that Turk had sex with Stacy, who was J.D.'s girlfriend in college.

[edit] References

^ In the episode "Her Story" Turk mentions that he hasn't had a bedtime in 12 years, to which J.D. asks that he had a bedtime at age 17. Assuming one year passes for each season, by season 6, that would make him 31.
^ Full name given in episode "My Fault" at approximately 7:30
^ Season 6, Episode 9