Nurse Jackie

Derek Miller
2^nd Feature Review

April 17, 2013

Nurse Jackie

            Sunday night’s season premiere of Nurse Jackie on Showtime kept the shows tradition alive. Under the control of a new show runner, Clyde Phillips, some wondered what direction the show would go but it stayed put. The premiere episode was loaded with Jackie’s addiction struggle, marital issues and of course the reason for the title, her dealing with being a nurse. The premiere continued with last season’s finale and did not make any inclination that this season will be deviating from the norm. Although a new show runner is necessary to keep a show from being stagnant, the viewers like myself are happy to see the storylines seem to be staying the same.

Edie Falco effortlessly portrays Jackie Peyton. Jackie Peyton is a registered nurse who is going through a brutal divorce because the pharmacist, with whom she cheated on her husband with, exposed her painkiller addiction. Last season’s finale ended with Jackie and her husband going through their divorce and her best friend Dr. O’Hara giving birth.

Seeing Jackie go through a divorce makes the viewers questions her sobriety and the show plays on that uncertainty. Anything that goes wrong, we expect Jackie to crush and snort a pill.  Yet every time she deals with the problem like a real adult and doesn’t abuse a drug, we feel a sense of accomplishment. Since her sobriety is relatively new this works but I can see this uncertainty getting “played out” within the next few episodes. She is going to have to fully kick the habit, sober up or else the viewers are going to ship out.

            Another qualm that many viewers have with the new show runner is his disposal of Dr. O’Hara (Eve Best). The viewers have seen the progression of Dr. O’Hara and Jackie throughout these first 4 seasons. Their friendship and silly banter is often a comedic break to Jackie’s addiction or a bleeding patient in Room #4. With Dr. O’Hara now gone, there will be a void of comedy that needs to be filled. Although she is the epitome of grace and poise with her British accent and stauesque legs, she often had moments of humiliation. There would be times when she would show up to work in the same outfit because she had slept out the night before and times where she would forget to show up all together. To see a Doctor doing these actions was often reliving and ironic. She was Jackie’s crutch when she was fallen but sometimes she needed one of her own. Just when you think you have seen enough of Jackie, Dr. O’Hara’s storyline would pick up to give the viewers a reprieve.

            Although the best characters are Jackie Peyton and Dr. O’Hara, there are many other characters that add originality. Every character in this show has a purpose and it is shown throughout. Not a single person is there to take up airtime and act as filler. The quality of the actors is a true testament to the integrity of the show. Week after week, the show is funny, heart wrenching and emotionally involving. We know so much about the characters that every Sunday we sit and watch Nurse Jackie, it’s almost as if we are meeting with our friends for coffee and seeing what they were up to this week.