‘Nurse Jackie’ recap: Saints, not Angels

“She’s a Saint. Not an Angel.” 

‘Nurse Jackie’ does a great job of having random lines of dialogue that sum up the entire series. A few weeks ago, I noticed how “It works if you work it” was not just a random quote about the Twelve Step program, it also commented on the house of cards that is Jackie’s life. This week, Grace hides in the bathroom at school with her friend’s phone so she can tell Jackie, “She’s a Saint. Not an Angel.”

Of course, Grace is literally talking about Christina the Astonishing, the Saint she picked for the pageant this isn’t a pageant. Christina was from Belgium, she was known for her fits of ecstasy, and she floated to the ceiling during her own funeral and told what Heaven, Hell and Purgatory was like. Floated, not flew because she’s a Saint, not an Angel. That’s what Grace yells at Jackie when she tries to add a pair of wings to her costume. If she had wings, it wouldn’t be a miracle. 

It can also be said about Jackie. She might be a Saint, but she’s no Angel.

‘Nurse Jackie’ recap: World’s Greatest Mom

Happy Mothers Day. Belated, I know, but what better Mothers Day present than a new episode of ‘Nurse Jackie?’ She is, as her cocoa mug proclaims, the world’s greatest mom. On top of having two daughters of her own, Jackie is essentially mom to a hospital full of people, including the staff, and she goes above and beyond her job and, often, what’s legally allowed to save lives. That’s a pretty great mom.

At the same time, Jackie’s a drug addict. She might be a great mom, but she’s an even greater junkie. Jackie goes to great lengths to hide her addiction, but she can’t completely conceal it. Kids pick up on little things, and their minds are still malleable.  I’m not saying that Jackie’s life of distance and deception caused Grace to be obsessive and morbid, but it certainly could have stoked the fires already there. Next thing you know, you’re sipping 2 a.m. cocoa and listening to the gruesome tales of how each saint died. 

‘Nurse Jackie’ recap: It works when you work it

I don’t think a truer line has ever been spoken on "Nurse Jackie." "It works when you work it." In the episode, it’s said about Recovery. The program works if you work it. The same thing goes for Jackie’s life. It’s not so much a program to help you recover as it is a plan to keep everyone blissfully unaware of the fact that you’re an addict. Like Recovery, Nurse Jackie’s web of lies only works if she works it. 

The show "Nurse Jackie" follows right alongside the woman Nurse Jackie. When Jackie’s in there, doing the work of pulling everyone else’s strings, it makes for a much better episode. Probably helps that Liz Brixius, one of the show’s creators, wrote "When Saints Go." She knows just how Jackie can best manipulate everyone around her, and she has Jackie do it.

‘Nurse Jackie’ recap: People are trying to die in here

Why do I watch "Nurse Jackie"? There are a lot of medical shows on television. You've got your "House," your "Grey's Anatomy," and a bunch of others. Medical shows are probably only outnumbered by cop shows. Then there's the medical cop shows, such as "CSI." So why "Nurse Jackie"?

For me, it would have to be the lines it gets to cross. Being on Showtime, "Nurse Jackie" has a little more room to explore that broadcast shows don't. I guess you could call it the show's edge. Though, as Jackie says herself, "There is no edge."

Jackie is talking about the edge Eddie offers to help her take off with a few Valium. Eddie noticed that Jackie came off a little sharp when she was telling him he shouldn't text her sister-in-law, so he offered up a few of the Valium. The same pills she came to him to get back when they were using that cot he keeps in storage. I am talking about the edge of having your main character addicted to Valium. I know House was addicted to Valium, but he was a junkie the way Sherlock Holmes was a junkie. Nurse Jackie is a junkie the way that person you know in real life is a junkie. Only you don't know that person is a junkie. That's the kind of junkie he or she is.

‘Nurse Jackie’ recap: Jerks, nice guys and swearing

Jackie has done some horrible things in her time. There’s the lying, the infidelity, she has stolen pills from the hospital and men having epileptic fits, kept money meant for her daughter’s education to feed her own habit. She nearly tore her family apart, and you have to think she is partially to blame for Grace’s anxiety issues. At the same time, Jackie has done incredible things (saving lives, dishing out great advice, putting jerks in her place), but it feels like it is getting a little out of balance. 

A good example is when Jackie went after the man yelling at the waitress at the beginning of the episode. While Jackie and O’Hara are enjoying a nice lunch, celebrating their new closeness now that O’Hara has apparently forgotten all the things that made her lead Jackie’s intervention, they’re interrupted by another diner loudly complaining about the lack of chicken in his salad. Jackie dives in with stern talk and gets the waitress an apology, but not until the man reveals himself to be the world’s biggest creep. But he has to be. Since Jackie has done all these horrible things, it only feels good to see her tell off a jerk if that jerk acts worse than Jackie herself. Those people are hard to find.

‘Nurse Jackie’ recap: God’s piano

A big part of this week’s "Nurse Jackie" involved God and his piano. God, of course, is the delusional guy who lives high up in the apartment complex next to Jackie’s All Saints Hospital and shouts down damnations to all those who walk below him. God finds a piano sitting on the sidewalk with a sign on it reading "Play Me." I don't know whether the street piano is supposed to be metaphor, but since God spends most of the episode pushing it around and only plays it for a moment, I’m not sure what the metaphor is. 

The first two episodes of "Nurse Jackie" this season dealt with the consequences of last year’s season finale. Or, more specifically, how Jackie managed to dodge the consequences of the finale. This week’s episode sets out the new course for Season 3 of "Nurse Jackie." Jackie even starts the morning to the tune of "Optimistic Voices" from "The Wizard of Oz," making waffles for her family. It’s a brand-new day, but with Nurse Jackie that means a brand new set of problems she’s going to have to deal with.

‘Nurse Jackie’ recap: You are stuck with me

Recently, I’ve been trying to figure out where "Nurse Jackie" fits in the echelon of Showtime series. The natural instinct is to group Jackie Peyton with the likes of Nancy Botwin from "Weeds." Both are strong women caught up with drugs and doing whatever they have to to protect themselves and their families. Then I started to realize how similar Jackie is to Dexter Morgan. This week’s episode, "Enough Rope," cemented the deal. Nurse Jackie is a sociopath. She lacks any connection to a social conscience or morality. Jackie’s only ruled by what she thinks is right, and even that can change if it gets in the way of her getting high. But Jackie has a gift of understanding and manipulating the people around her that Dexter never seems to grasp.

Last week, the third season of "Nurse Jackie" picked up right where last season left us hanging. Her husband, Kevin, and Dr. O’Hara confronted her with a two-man intervention. Jackie attacked back with a full dose of lies and misdirection, putting just enough cracks in Kevin and O’Hara’s certainty to buy herself more time. Time she uses this week to manipulate everyone back to where she wants them. The episode’s title is a reference to the saying that if you give a man enough rope, he’ll hang himself, but if you give Jackie enough rope, she’ll tie you up and never let you escape. 

Merritt Wever on the 'sexually frank' new season of 'Nurse Jackie'

Get ready for a little TMI: this season, Merritt Wever says that Zoey, the charmingly awkward and energetic nurse she plays on "Nurse Jackie," will let you know that her boyfriend, Lenny the EMT guy, is "surprisingly oral."

"This season, she’s very sexually frank," said Wever during a recent interview in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, just a few subway stops from her home. "And it's such a shock when you see her appearance. There’s something almost infantile about her, because she still dresses with colored barettes and headbands, so it feels like such a contrast to have certain things come out of her mouth."

Wever promises that this will be the first season where you get to see Zoey in a relationship. As we told you earlier, Zoey is so giddy over her new sex life that she's skipping around the nurses' station, which may or may not be making the other nurses feel a little ... uncomfortable. "She's kind of complicated," Wever explains, "and she's kind of confused about what she wants romantically because she's so career-driven. She's learning how to be in a relationship, but I would call her a demanding partner."

For more on Wever and the new season of her show, check out "Merritt Wever brings undoctored flair to 'Nurse Jackie.'"

RELATED:

'Nurse Jackie' season 3 premiere recap

Full Show Tracker coverage of 'Nurse Jackie'

-- Melissa Maerz

Photo: Merritt Wever. Credit: Frederick M. Brown / Getty Images.

 

‘Nurse Jackie’ recap: Please do not kiss the statues

The last season of "Nurse Jackie" ended with a cliffhanger. Jackie was backed into a corner. Her husband Kevin and best friend Dr. O'Hara confronted her, in her kitchen, with a full-on intervention. Kevin discovered the P.O. box where Jackie got credit card bills filled with records of purchases from pharmacies. O'Hara found out Jackie had been lying, using someone else's X-rays to get pills. They both had hard evidence. Jackie rushed off to the bathroom, trying to escape, but there was no way out. She was finally trapped.

Of course, that's when Jackie stares right into the mirror, mockingly introduces herself as an addict and bursts into laughter. Then she goes on to say "no, I don't think so," but with wording more appropriate to Showtime at 10 p.m. than the L.A. Times Show Tracker.

If you thought Season 3 was going to start with the consequences of her addiction and the lies she tells to keep her life manageable, then you don't know "Nurse Jackie."

2010's coolest TV characters under 30

They’re the folks whom we welcome into our living room, even when it’s messy. The personalities that fill up 99% of our DVR space. The lives we get a glimpse into week after week.

They are TV characters. And we at ShowTracker are reliant on them to keep this blog running. But  rather than shell out kudos to all the leading men and women that kept this season bright (since, uh, the Emmys take care of that), we're casting a spotlight on the young-uns that often get overlooked in the sea of Don Drapers, Liz Lemons and Sue Sylvesters.

Click on the gallery to the right for a list of our picks of the coolest TV characters under 30 — from a high school clique with a haunting secret to a pint-sized pickle-loving guidette to a baby with all the right spunk.

 --Yvonne Villarreal and Maria Elena Fernandez

twitter.com/villarrealy

twitter.com/writerchica

Photo: Baby Hope (Rylie or Baylie: it's a mystery) on "Raising Hope." Credit: Fox

Emmys 2010: Edie Falco is 'dumbfounded' by win

Edie Falco insists she’s not a funny lady.

And an Emmy win for lead actress in a comedy series is not likely to change her mind.

“As soon as somebody calls you funny, you're not funny anymore,” she said backstage. “I never really thought of myself as funny.”

So the win for her role as Jackie, a pill-popping nurse in Showtime’s dark comedy "Nurse Jackie" is bit unusual to comprehend.

“I am shocked. I'm not playing coy here. I'm really dumbfounded by the events of the evening."

Falco is no stranger to the Emmy stage, having previously won three Emmys for her role as matriarch Carmela in the gritty HBO series “The Sopranos" -- not exactly a chuckle-fest. Nor is "Nurse Jackie," some might argue. Still, she's got the gold statuette to validate her comedic skills.

“This whole comedy world is a whole new terrain for me,” Falco said.

So new she actually found it a laughing matter when she first got word of her nomination.

“I laughed my head off because I thought THAT was funny.”

--Yvonne Villarreal
twitter.com/villarrealy

Photo: Edie Falco holds her Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series award for her role in 'Nurse Jackie' as she poses for photographers in the press room during the 62nd annual Primetime Emmy Awards. Credit: Lawrence K. Ho/ Los Angeles Times

Emmy-nominated Edie Falco chats about the happy road from Carmela to 'Nurse Jackie'

Edie Falco will stroll down the Emmy red carpet for the eighth time as a nominee Aug. 29. But this time she won't be flanked by her  Sopranos mob family. The highly regarded actress, who has won three Emmys, is in the comedy race for her lead role in Showtime's "Nurse Jackie," which is also nominated for outstanding comedy series.

It's a distinction she doesn't take for granted. Falco knows it's challenging for actors to land more than one career-defining role, and Carmela Soprano could well have been the role of her lifetime.

But fans have started to call her "Jackie" when they spot her in public, and now the Emmys have taken notice of the complicated drug addict that is Jackie Peyton. 

"It’s crazy, and I couldn’t be happier about it when somebody sees me and says, 'Oh, my God, it’s Jackie!'" she said recently by telephone. "The first time that happened was really sort of moving for me, a little bit jarring, because it had always been about Carmela. But also it hit me that this was, wow, a whole different chapter I’m entering into. So I consider myself very lucky.

"This is particularly sweet because it’s a whole different world. And not to be out there with my Sopranos people is gonna be strange. I know the whole Emmy experience in relations to my friends, who were the people who were nominated or if the show was nominated. This will be very interesting. I can’t wait to see what it’s going to feel like with a whole new crew."

The first season of "Nurse Jackie" missed the Emmy qualification window, so the second season, which ended in June, marked the first time the series could be considered for TV's highest honor. The show is nominated in eight categories. Falco is competing against Toni Collette (Showtime's "The United States of Tara"),  Julia Louis-Dreyfus (CBS' canceled "The New Adventures of Old Christine"), Tina Fey (NBC's "30 Rock"), Lea Michele (Fox's "Glee") and Amy Poehler (NBC's "Parks and Recreation").

Even though she hasn't selected a gown, she doesn't seem stressed about the hoopla surrounding potentially winning a fourth Emmy trophy.

"I like it more than I used to, now that I realize where they need to be in the importance scheme of things," she said about awards shows. "I don’t need to get uptight about it. Getting dressed up and stuff like that is nothing I’ve ever been completely comfortable with, and as the years have gone by I’ve come to enjoy it. I end up seeing a lot of friends, and it ends up being sort of fun and I’ll still see someone that makes my knees jerk a little bit. Jack Nicholson will appear at something I didn’t expect him to be at or I’m sitting at dinner next to Kirk Douglas. You know, it’s not entirely un-fun these things. All I know is the best part’s already happened. I got nominated, and they like the stuff I’m doing, and as far as I’m concerned, I’m thrilled."