I am continually amazed by Jackie’s ability to keep her two lives separate. The ease, with which she tells Eddie she’s headed to the dentist for an emergency tooth issue, even though he catches her off guard, is amazing. Really she’s heading to meet her husband at Grace’s school. As soon as Jackie arrives at the school, her husband is making sexual advances. Jackie gets a text from Eddie, “me so horny.” Jackie’s adept explanation to her husband, regarding the text, is simply. “I just lost a patient.” As Jackie is saying goodbye to her husband, she receives another text from Eddie, which prompts her to buy a new phone. She gives Eddie the new number, claiming she switched providers.
The school meeting is to discuss Grace’s behavior with her teacher, school nurse and school psychologist. They believe that she has anti-anxiety disorder based on Grace’s drawings: using no bright colors or sunlight and circling her desk three times before sitting down, so that the planes don’t fall out of the sky. Jackie verbally attacks the nurse in the hallway for saying that Grace should be medicated. This is certainly laying the groundwork for a large family drama arc.
Dr. Cooper’s frat-boy antics continue with him chanting, “I got a gunshot… I got a gunshot” throughout the emergency room. Meanwhile, Zoey explains to the mother of the collapsed lung patient, that the boy is “happy…excited…interested…to experience the challenge of a bullet wound.” She has a lot to learn from Jackie in the art of quality lying.
O’Hara is easily one of my favorite characters, always getting stealing a laugh. Her character seems to be based in some alternate reality. Is there really a doctor who wears $80 tights and heels to work in an emergency room everyday? But, it is because of this that I love her so much. After telling the mother of the collapsed lung patient that her son will be okay, the patient’s twin grabs O’Hara around the waist and won’t let go. However, O’Hara does show a small amount of humanity when Justin, the twin, brings her a picture he drew for her. She finally figures out the appropriate thing to do is to tape up the picture, which makes Justin very happy. O’Hara still sneaks in a snide remark when he leaves, saying that the picture looks nothing like her. Sympathy aside, she’s still O’Hara!
Zoey was watching over Lucille, an older woman with a DNR and a huge crush on Dr. Cooper, when the patient dies. Jackie’s comforting, compassionate side comes through when she offers to help Zoey get Lucille ready as the “first” is always the hardest. You would think Jackie was talking about a breaking up from a childhood crush. Jackie and Zoey keep Lucille’s death away from Coop for the moment, as he’s running through the halls exclaiming his skills at saving the life of the gunshot victim. “Coop one, death zero.” Next week will he be so lucky?
I like what the beginning of this series is setting up and I hope that it continues to deliver.
About Nurse Jackie Episode 5 “Daffodil”
It’s Zoey’s first night shift, and a 10 year-old girl brings her mother, who suffers from Lupus, into the ER. Jackie realizes that the girl is her mother’s primary caregiver. She breaks hospital policy to keep the girl in the loop, and sends her home with meds that the mother’s HMO won’t pay for. O’Hara treats Zoey to a four-star restaurant. Mrs. Akalitus accidentally suffers a self-inflicted tasering.
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