Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT If It Makes You Happy
By Jacob Clifton | Season 2 | Episode 4 | Aired on 04.12.2010
e only two or three characters, no matter how many faces you saw -- then looking at the whole Things That Feel Good/Comfort Food trap is a great way to get there. If the things that make us feel good are the things that are doing the damage, then you're right back to DFW's Addiction 101: Making the long-term choice over the short-term choice. With serious drugs that's a choice you make every few days or months or whatever the cycle, but if you're talking about the food that's killing you, killing your actual body, that's a choice you're making every second that you're awake. And everybody around you is also addicted, and the ones that aren't are much more annoying about it anyway.I mean, I'm fairly liberal about drugs in general, like, I don't see a reason to regulate them because sugar and caffeine are used the same way other drugs are used, and kill people more often than real drugs, and are more readily available to feed an even larger host of creepy needs than the drugs we're told are evil and whatever. Not that I'm opposed to their use, in either case -- well, meth is tacky -- but in general, it's a personal issue, and it's only an ethical issue because of the Prohibition mobster situation we've created.
So to me, Thor's falling-apart body is more touching and more terrifying than the six miles of hell Jackie's putting everybody else through all the time, because the real face of addiction is not some crazy-eyed spun freak, the real face of addiction is lots of the people around you, slowly doing themselves in. Not to mention that the addiction and the psycho behavior come from the same root -- they aren't causal one way or the other, but symptoms of the actual problem -- and Thor's stuff demonstrates that better than anybody else on the show. I respect the show, and Stephen Wallem, for going there so intensely and fearlessly, because that's when it stops being a cautionary tale and just becomes a tale.
Puking lymphoma guy is checking out, with some new prescription and the name of a biofeedback clinic (rimshot!), and Jackie's sad about that, but even sadder when she sees how slowly he's moving. He's in terrible pain and completely sickened, and All Saints has not done its job. She wheels the guy past Coop -- snatching a pen from his pocket as he brags to Zoey about his goddamned Twitter some more -- and Zoey grins and wanders away from him, and then out past the food trays, snatching an apple before recruiting Lenny and heading out to his rig. Episode title, you've got me all excited.
Jackie puts together a righteous apple bong in about two seconds, in the back of Lenny's EMT van, and walks the guy through his first experience with weed, and it's great. Lenny's like, "How'd you know I have pot?" Mountain Dew and Doritos. She tells him she learned to make the apple bong at Jones Beach, during a Toto concert, and he laughs at her, and she laughs it off, and it's awesome. She sends Lenny -- he's just so cute! -- to take him home, hook him up with some munchies, and tells him to turn on the sirens once they hit Park Ave. So great! I don't think that marijuana is automatically funny, and so I think my threshold for pot humor is even higher than a normal person, but a well-done pot scene is so great because it's like the secret life of people.
Coop is a little less high-handed but just as much a little boy playing dressup as he sort of tries to curry favor while simultaneously declaring territory: "Hey, Jackie, I think I'm gonna personally follow up with Mr. Vobernick. I'm gonna call him next week, see how the medication's working..." Jackie knows he'll be happy as hell to hear from Coop, who downshifts to try and condescend a bit. "I know I seemed like a tight-ass earlier, but you do understand with the List, and the Twitter following, I have even more of an example to set around here now." I would run. I would just drop my shit and yank up my pants and bust ass away from there.
Coop mentions his strong feelings that "we need to use what science and medicine" -- and Big Pharma, and the incredibly corrupt insurance lobby -- "Have given us to treat patients." Jackie gets it, but also believes in Mother Nature. Her smile is surprisingly indulgent at this time, because he's being so cute. Coop tries to convince her that he's "tried the reefer" before, and it's pathetic and adorable, and finally she's like, "Are you... Trying to whistle?" She "gets it" and grins until he walks away, at which point she makes a total death face. Well, I would have given him that one.
Eleanor drops a seriously lovely pink-and-white bouquet on the nurse's station counter, keeping her eyes off Zoey as she explains they're for her. So, so sweet. Zoey drops her head and immediately heads to NICU; knowing something's up, Jackie jumps into the elevator just behind her, and they stand unspeaking at the window for awhile, looking at the kid she saved. Finally Jackie asks if that's the kid, and Zoey says yes, and without looking up admits she might be pregnant. We take care of other people when we can't take care of ourselves: Addiction or not, it doesn't invalidate it. Jackie touches her hair, for just a moment, and stands with her in silence, looking in. We take care of other people.