‘Nurse Jackie’: Flashlight tag

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All right. I was all excited for tonight’s ‘Nurse Jackie.’ From the previews, I knew two things were going to happen: Coop was going to find out that Jackie has a daughter, and when Jackie calls out the temp nurse for being high, he says, “Takes one to know one.” Oh, yeah. Jackie’s going to have some consequences. All her secrets and lies will finally come to light. She’ll have to really deal. Well, if you watched, you know how that all turned out.

Jackie’s day started out by walking with her family as they take Grace to school. I’m still not sure how pulling her out of her school and sticking her with the nuns is supposed to lower her anxiety, but that’s beside the point. Jackie stops to wipe the chocolate off Fiona’s mouth and accidentally spills Oxycontin or Xanax or whatever it she’s taking this week onto her daughter’s doughnut. Jackie quickly knocks the roofied pastry out of her hand. Nearly drugging Fiona! There’s gotta be consequences, right? Nope, a nonexistent dead bug takes the fall, and Jackie gets off scot-free. Well, she owes the swear jar a dollar, but that’s it.

Right after, she pops a pill waiting for the train and nearly gets caught by her family standing on the next platform. She didn’t even wait to make sure they were gone before getting her fix. She’s asking for consequences. Begging for them even. But no, no one notices.

Jackie makes it to work only to find out they’re four nurses short. Apparently it is four nurses we’ve never seen because Mo-Mo, Zoey and Thor are all on duty. Mrs. Akalitus won’t jump in or lend a hand, but she does get them temp nurse Sam, a guy who thinks pressing F8 on the computer involves two separate buttons. Great help.

Even if she wanted to, Mrs. Akalitus can’t assist because she’s tending to the baby she found in the nurses station last week. By the end of the episode, she still hasn’t pasted the kid off to anyone, which really seems out of character for the woman who’s everyone’s enemy. Maybe Social Services is just that backed up. Hopefully this kid will either find a new home or start treating patients soon.

The pressure of being short-staffed builds until the point at which Jackie yells at Dr. Cooper for dodging pages about Edith Prickley’s CAT scan. Coop frantically snaps the rubber band on his wrist in an effort to quell his urges for inappropriate touching, but finally he discovers it is more therapeutic to yell back at her. Way to go, Coop. Only one problem. His momentary surge of backbone happens while Jackie’s fielding a call from Grace, who is having a panic attack at school (those nuns!). Trying to get Coop to leave her alone, Jackie admits that she has reproduced.

Jackie immediately snaps at Coop to keep it to himself. To Coop’s credit, he tells her that he has no interest in her life and didn’t go to medical school so he could gossip about nurses. Of course, he immediately goes off and tells Eddie the news, but for a couple of minutes he took the higher ground. Though it’s hard to get mad at Coop. He’s just trying so hard to be Eddie’s friend. He has no idea he’s confiding in the one person who Jackie least wants this information to reach.

So when Jackie finally gets around to meeting up with her pharmacist love muffin, he can’t wait to let slip that he knows. Oh, yeah. Here we are. Time for some consequences. Or not. Eddie is understanding. Tells her that he’ll be ready to listen when Jackie’s ready to talk. Not even a dollar in the swear jar for that one.

Meanwhile, Zoey becomes obsessed with pupils. She watched a special on eyes the night before and comes in bubbling with information. Jackie quickly informs her that the best use of pupils will be to weed out drug seekers. Apparently the last time Zoey was left alone, she passed out Valium like breath mints. Good thing Zoey was on her ocular dilation crusade because it leads her to catching Sam the temp floating on a pharmaceutical cloud nine. She passes the info on to Jackie, who confronts Sam. His response: “It takes one to know one.”

Oh yeah. Jackie’s getting called out on her drug use by a drug user. Here’s the big moment … wait, no. Jackie responds with the iron-clad “What did you just say?” and Sam backs down.

Nope. No consequences for Jackie. Sure, she had a rough day at work, but all of her skeletons stay in the closet for another week. Though, I wouldn’t say she completely got away. She does get roped into karaoke, singing “Up on the Roof” at her husband’s bar. I think that might be punishment enough.

-- Andrew Hanson