Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Why All Nuns Hate James Remar
By Jacob Clifton | Season 1 | Episode 2 | Aired on 06.15.2009
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.A late-night haircut turns into kitchen-floor domestic bliss for Jackie and her husband; next morning she crushes about a billion Percocets and glues them into sweetener packets so she can self-medicate and caffeinate at the same time. The first one gets used when a random dude comes running into the hospital and punches her out, the second one gets ganked accidentally by the engoofened Mrs. Akalitus, and she gives the third to a cabbie who's spent the day having a heart attack. Gang aft agley.
Other patients include a teen model whose mother let him jump a ramp without a helmet for Pottery Barn Teen, and ends up with aneurysm that Dr. Cooper can, bizarrely, hear. Though Jackie and Eleanor blow him off at the time, he ends up right. This nearly ruins Eleanor's worldview, but not as much as the concept of eating a street-vendor hotdog or wearing her clothes more than once. After bitching out the kid's mom, Jackie gives Coop a tremendous speech about how, though his entire stupid personality is compensation for his poor skills as a doctor, it's not necessary because he's actually a good doctor. This causes him to give her a great big goofy hug, which nearly causes her to fall down dead from horror right before a fucked-up Akalitus grabs her in a second horrifying clench.
The Libyan attaché's ear bubbles up out of a toilet, causing Zoey to barf some more; Jackie blames her for it in front of Akalitus, but takes care of it handily. Another patient gets some burns from an exploding oxygen tank, and bonds with Mo-Mo over their liberation from male oppressors, then says only a makeout session between Mo-Mo and Coop will make it better. Her name is Eileen, and she is a hero. We also meet Thor, a cabaret-singing piece of Grade A with a crush on Mohammad, and who in turn ignites a slight crush in Zoey. Jackie shows tremendous compassion toward the violent random that punched her once she learns about his mother's medical issues, which causes Zoey to realize that working in a hospital is intense, which earns her another tremendous speech about how doctors diagnose, and hospitals contain, but only nurses heal.
A conversation with Big Pharma Eddie about the Supercollider brings the concept of matter and antimatter -- and what happens when they touch -- to the forefront; it's only fair, of course, that the episode end with an anti-conversation about the Supercollider with her husband. "They're looking for the particle that allows matter to connect with other matter and become actual things," Eddie says: Couldn't have put it better myself.
Next week: Eddie might be replaced by a pillbot; Coop continues to be amazing.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previously Jackie flushed the Libyan ear, awesomely. Then that boy died and she felt guilty about it because she was high, so she yelled at Coop and almost made him cry, but he grabbed her breast instead. Jackie has a student nurse, a boyfriend, two BFFs, a drug problem and a loving family at home. The credits are sort of weird and go on for a long time: everything flying in slow motion out of her bathroom cabinet: coffee, drugs, wedding ring, religious icons, intercut with her beautiful face and wise smile.
Then it's later and Jackie is cutting her husband's hair. Do we have a name on him? Kevin? Well, he's darling. And shirtless. So she's cutting the hair; her own, by the way, looks pretty much amazing. She looks like Starbuck. So he says he doesn't really care about the back, since he can't see it: he's behind the bar all day, et cetera. The back of the hair is the only thing we do for other people, it's like the anti-us. There's a lock of hair on the front, he says, that he's particularly interested in, so she comes around in front to check it out. Before you know it, they're making out and on the kitchen floor and he's rolling around in Fruity Pebbles. He says it felt more like Cap'n Crunch, and she tells him to focus! Focus!
Then it's later and she's making lunch for the girls and crushes about a hundred Percocets in a cute mortar and pestle and seals them into sliced-open Sweet 'N All packets: "Mid-morning, mid-afternoon, the long ride home." As she does so, she lays down some science knowledge for us: "Percocet should never be crushed, broken or chewed. Unless you want it to hit your system like a bolt of lightning. Which is only a problem if you're afraid of lightning. Which I am not."
Then it's later and the girls are dressed, and Scott -- Scott? Kevin -- Kevin is all over the place because the bar he owns, they're getting a new ice machine and beer delivery so he's gotta get a move on, and Fiona wants waffles, in fact Fiona was promised waffles ("Honey, I lied.") while all Grace wants is to tie her shoes as tightly as possible. They aren't tight enough, never tight enough; it's stressing Gracie out.
I think the issue is that they physically cannot be tight enough. You have no idea how hard it is to watch your child falling, and you can't do anything to stop it. Jackie ties the shoes even tighter while Grace eats; Fiona hears the garbage truck and thinks it's the bus, so she knocks over the Fruity Pebbles, but Kevin tells her it's okay: Daddy likes Fruity Pebbles on the floor. They smile and wink at each other, and Grace knows they're up to something, but she can't figure what. "Don't worry about it, my darling." But she's going to. Add it to the list.
Then it's later and Jackie's coming up out of the subway and behind her there's a billboard, for some aspirin product, for "aches and pains," and then it's later and she's drinking a coffee outside the hospital when a cab drives up. Eleanor plops a Barney's bag on the street, old blouse hanging out of it, buttoning up the new blouse, stretching luxuriously one pointed toe into a beautiful pair of red pumps. Eleanor, what are you like? That's really odd. Nobody's like that. She's like a fantasy, a cartoon fantasy. She's like... Oh, she's what you call a Golightly: a phony, but a real phony, not like those assholes on Sex & The City. She's like a woman dressed as a drag queen. She's like Lorenzo Lamas.