‘Nurse Jackie’: Jackie knows best

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Monday’s ‘Nurse Jackie’ spotlighted what I think is Jackie’s biggest character flaw. How can I pick out one and say it’s the biggest? There’s adultery, drug-use, lying, that haircut. They’re all good (or bad, depending on your point of view), but the biggest to me has to be her need for control. Jackie seems to think that she’s the only person capable of fixing the problems around her, and she does whatever she has to in order to make sure things happen the way she thinks they should.

Jackie starts the day with a walk through Central Park and breakfast with her family. Jackie and Kevin seem a little at ease as Grace doesn’t show any signs of her general anxiety disorder. In fact, it’s Fiona who’s causing most of the ruckus. Fiona loses her balloons, Fiona won’t stop blowing bubbles in her drinks, and Grace acts as a peace keeper. Grace’s only hint at her anxiety comes when she says she wishes the hospital would burn down. That might seem a bit harsh, but can you blame her? Jackie leaves nearly every day to go to this place where she’s taking drugs, having an affair and either yelling at or being yelled at most of the time. She has to be bringing some of that negative energy home.

Grace asks Jackie to stay home, and she nearly does. Kevin says he’ll handle the situation, but you can tell how much Jackie wants to stay home and try to help fix her little girl. Who knows if Jackie would even be any help? She had to break away to the bathroom of the kid-friendly breakfast spot for a quick drug fix, an act normally reserved for just the employees of kid-friend breakfast spots.

Jackie eventually agrees that it would be better for her to go to work, and before she’s even in the hospital, she has her first patient. Mr. Evert, a homeless guy who came in a couple of episodes, passes out on the sidewalk, and Jackie rushes to his aid. While checking him out, she notices a little drop of blood, only the blood came from her nose. Apparently, after who knows how many years of snorting things up her nose, she’s finally filled it, and now she’s getting a little overflow.

Zoey is happy to see Jackie’s there, but her teacher automatically puts her to work. Tops and bottoms. Zoey learns the difference between giving a scalp massage and checking for signs of a stroke. Then she flips to the man’s feet only to find his socks have scabbed to his feet. I kinda wished I hadn’t been eating when this part happened. The feet had a striking resemblance to my orange chicken.

Later, when Zoey finds out that Mr. Evert has to lose his foot, she admits her guilt for sending Mr. Evert off with just a clean pair of socks last time he was there instead of getting him checked out further. Jackie insists she told Zoey to have a doctor look at Evert, but Zoey’s sure that wasn’t the case. She even brings out her little notebook, where she keeps all of Jackie’s words of wisdom to back herself up. Jackie won’t hear it. She’s always right. If this patient is losing his foot, it must have been Zoey’s fault. Jackie even finds Zoey’s little book and rips out the page saying differently. Jackie couldn’t possibly have been wrong. She’s the one who always knows what’s best. Right?

Jackie’s other major patient of the day is an Ivy League pot head left brain dead by a car accident. Jackie’s adamant that this guy should be an organ donor. She goes through his wallet and finds cards for groups trying to protect the environment, save the whales, ethically treat animals, anything that would get you a discount at Whole Foods. But there isn’t an organ donor card. That doesn’t really stop Jackie. She lies and says he’s a donor. She lies and says Coop signed off. She lies and says the parents’ wishes don’t matter. She’s the only one who knows what’s best. Right?

Elsewhere in the hospital, Mrs. Akalitus is still tending to the baby she found two episodes ago. She plays with him, dances with him and even starts asking questions about adoption. Just as she raises the idea of keeping the kid permanently, his parents show up. Apparently they needed a weekend of fun, so they dropped the kid off and headed to Atlantic City. And if that wasn’t bad enough, they also named the kid Dalton. I’m not sure which is worse. Akalitus goes with the Scared Straight route and tells the young couple their baby died but quickly recants that and hands the kid over. It’s for the best. Now she can go back to being mean to every helpless patient who comes through the door.

And Dr. Cooper has a visitor as well. Melissa, who came in with her mother last week, returns to pay Coop back with a little homemade picnic. Not homemade by her, of course. Homemade by whomever she bought it from. They sneak off to Exam Room 3, and faster than you can say ‘sterilized environment,’ the doc has his pants off. Nice work, Coop.

In the midst of this all, Jackie manages to sneak away to spend a little time with Eddie. His eventual replacement by a machine is approaching, and he tells her their “days are numbered on the cot.” Eddie talks about electrons being in two places at once and alternative universes where he and Jackie don’t have to hide their relationship. He even hints at wanting to meet Jackie’s kid. Oh, if he only knew.

Jackie takes a little time out in the hospital chapel to take another little hit, which is followed by another nose bleed. She goes to see Dr. O’Hara, the one person she can trust, or so she thought. Apparently O’Hara’s been using Jackie as the example of how to have an affair when talking to her sister. Jackie’s none too happy with that. Even though O’Hara’s sister lives across the pond, Jackie still doesn’t like her dirty laundry shared. She likes to be in control of who knows what, and she makes a point to keep everyone at least slightly in the dark.

At the end of the day, Jackie calls Grace while heading out of the hospital. Somewhere during the day, she got the idea that she wanted to take a class with her oldest daughter. Something they can have just for themselves. Out of all her decisions the whole episode, this one actually seems like the right thing to do. Here’s hoping it turns out well.

— Andrew Hanson