Dr. Percival "Perry" Ulysses Cox

Dr. Cox is the senior attending who runs the hospital floor through sheer force of contempt, barking rapid-fire nicknames and insults at the terrified new intern J.D. He wants competence, honesty, and to be left alone with his cynicism, and he treats sincerity as a weakness to be mocked out of people.

McGinley turns the rant into an art form, stacking absurd tangents and cruel similes so fast that the cruelty becomes music. Underneath the bluster the writing keeps sneaking in real principle and real care, and McGinley never softens his face to signal it, which is exactly why it lands when it does.