Elliot (Sarah Chalke) and Turk (Donald Faison) are down in the dumps because their parents, Diane (Markie Post) and Spencer Reid (Lane Davies), and Martha Turk (Hattie Winston) are coming to see them present their joint paper on peripheral vascular disease at a medical conference. J.D. (Zach Braff) half-heartedly sympathizes with them, until his own father Sam Dorian (John Ritter) shows up. J.D. ends up in a funk like the rest of them.

Sam Dorian is crude, lewd, and almost always rude. But later, J.D. realizes he is just a middle-aged, lonely guy. Elliot’s parents are Waspy and cold, and Turk’s mom is a take-charge matriarch. Amazingly, the longer the parents are in town, the more agitated the interns become. J.D.’s desperately wants his father to show some interest in his medical career and Elliot needs to show her father that she’s got the smarts to be a great doctor. Turk hesitated to introduce Carla (Judy Reyes) to his mother, but they actually get along great. Too great actually, it turns out that Carla is just like his mother.

As their parents’ visit winds down each person arrives at a final conclusion about their parents. J.D. and Elliot come to terms with the fact that their parents aren’t perfect, but they do the best they can. And Turk and Carla get cozy with the fact that the qualities he likes in his mother are what attracted him to Carla. And most importantly, you can’t pick your parents, but you can pick your friends.