Advertisement

‘Nurse Jackie’: All that you’re getting

Share

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Jackie, Jackie, Jackie. You don’t have enough to deal with already? Now you’re creating your own conflict?

It is as if Jackie saw all the problems the universe was throwing at her and decided to show the universe how it is really done. Nobody messes up Jackie’s life like Jackie.

Advertisement

She starts off picking a fight with Kevin over going to see “Alice in Wonderland” with Ginny “Tater Tot Hot Dish” Flynn and her annoyingly perceptive daughter. Granted, Kevin didn’t tell Jackie they were going and Jackie wanted to see the film, but her sleeping on the couch seemed like an overreaction. As a single 33-year-old man, I feel confident in my ability to call out an overeating woman.

After several strong product placements for Post and Kellogg’s cereals, Jackie makes it into work to find out Akalitus is posting a security guard at the Pill-O-Max machine to curb the loss of Oxi. Not good news for Jackie. She may insist it is a bad idea because security is needed much more in admitting, but we all know she’s really upset at the obstacle it creates in feeding her habit. She still has every other nurse’s access code and O’Hara to write her prescriptions, but, as we learned last week, Jackie is greedy.

Jackie’s patients for the day include an illegal laborer who fell off a work site carrying an unlicensed gun and an elderly woman requiring a 24-hour caregiver who did hair for several major Broadway shows, much to Thor’s gaymazement (I just made up that word. It isn’t in the urban dictionary. I call it). The two cases give Jackie the opportunity to make decisions to help the laborer who’s just trying to keep his tools from being stolen and turn in the caregiver who’s committing fraud and neglect by only showing up occasionally. That’s Jackie. Saving lives and making moral/legal rulings. All in a day’s work.

Jackie’s friends are all dealing with their own dramas as well. O’Hara does her best to avoid contact with Sam after their afternoon delight in the chapel. Sam insists that it was a momentary slip and that he’s with his girlfriend, but that doesn’t stop him from leering at O’Hara’s British body. O’Hara expands on her comment in the heat of passion about also having a girlfriend by telling Jackie about her relationship with newswoman Sarah Khouri, and because Khouri is played by Julia Ormond, I’m guessing we’ll be seeing more of her than a figure on the television in the background.

Zoey continues to worry about the possibility of being pregnant, though I think the way she ate that doughnut might be the best pregnancy test she could take. It preoccupied her mind through the whole episode, understandably so. It would be hard not to think about it when Sam is reading your palm and saying “something’s up with your uterus.” She did get Jackie to admit she had two daughters. But that was all she was getting.

Finally, Zoey confesses to EMT Lenny that a State Island BBQ plus Jagermeister equaled her with the brother of the guy she wanted. Now she might be carrying his spawn. I had been thinking that Lenny was the possible father. Instead, he offered to step up to the plate if the real father didn’t, which Zoey accurately described as both sweet and creepy.

Advertisement

And Coop deals with the curse of being good-looking. Akalitus extends the offer to Dr. Cooper to be the face of All Saints Hospital. He’d be plastered on buses and billboards, and she didn’t rule out the possibility of speeches (though I feel she’d probably fight against them). First Coop’s PR agent gets him on the ‘top 25 doctors of New York’ list and now this. His moms must be so proud.

Jackie won’t let herself be outdone by anyone else in the amount of problems juggled at once. The show is named “Nurse Jackie” after all. To prove it, she even goes as far as to call Eddie and set up a date to see “Alice in Wonderland.” There are several possible motives for such a move. She’s feeling jealous of Kevin and Ginny and acts out of revenge. Or she sees her Pill-O-Max drug supply fading and is seeking out her old supplier. I wouldn’t completely dismiss the idea of her having feelings for good old Eddie playing a part in her decision as well.

Whatever her motivation, Jackie is stacking the deck against herself. It’s almost as if she was playing Hearts and trying to Shoot the Moon. She already has so many problems; maybe if she gathers them all, they’ll cancel each other out.

-- Andrew Hanson

RELATED:

‘Nurse Jackie’: Legally we can’t do this

‘Nurse Jackie’: Top 25

Advertisement

Complete ‘Nurse Jackie’ coverage on Show Tracker

Advertisement