Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Beyond Good & Evil
By Jacob Clifton | Season 2 | Episode 11 | Aired on 05.31.2010
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.When Eleanor starts asking questions about the MRI switcheroo, Jackie decides it's a perfect time to take the kids upstate. She and Kevin leave work early and take the girls to a B&B run by the greatest actor of our time, Becky Ann Baker, but of course she loses her stolen Oxy in the car on the way, so she spends the whole time just kind of vibrating and eventually just begs to go home again. But when Fiona calls Eleanor, Kevin figures out from their convo that Jackie took the money she offered them, gets out of the car, and just starts walking off down the road.
Eddie learns that Coop slept with Sam's girlfriend after all, and sticks his big old hypocritical nose into it, while Coop tries to bond with a cute sandwich guy over their shared Tourette's. Eleanor spends half the episode searching for Jackie and the second half strengthening her relationships with Zoey -- who spots an embolism Coop missed -- and Gloria, who takes her out for a drink. Oh, and the posh epileptic Jackie mugged last week shows up with some jacked teeth in his face, a bouquet for Jackie, and a donation for Gloria. The threat to Jackie is barely implied, but is there any possible way this guy is not a drug dealer who has come to murder her in her scrubs?
While everybody wonders where Jackie went, the hospital is haunted by a detoxing heroin addict who missed the clinic, which means everybody gets to talk about how much they hate drug addicts -- except Coop, who shows a degree of compassion that is both retarded and beautiful. Between the nasty truth(s) about Jackie wandering the halls and the shivering mess she's becoming on the seashore, That Feeling You Get when you watch this show amps up about a million times worse than usual.
One wonders what will happen in the finale, as everybody sort of draws ranks around the negative space where Jackie's always put herself. Between Eleanor and Zoey falling in love, and Gloria reaching out to everybody, wouldn't it be a fucker of a thing if Jackie ended up having only Coop and Eddie to fall back on? And don't you know she'll probably still find some awesome way around it, which will be great even if her neglectful abuse of Eleanor this week was the grossest thing she's done since... Well, last week.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Jackie's planning some kind of getaway with Kevin and the kids, because the situation has gotten too hot. And I guess because she has remembered she loves her family, and Kevin. She gets off the phone with Fiona just as Eleanor is walking up, and she quickly ducks away, complaining about her duties. Eleanor follows her to the nurses' station after some acrobatics that Sylvester the Cat would be impressed by to stay away from her, including a stop at the commissary to buy a thing of dental floss. You might be thinking to yourself, "Good for Jackie! Dental hygiene is so important, especially for drug addicts," but I assure you this is not Jackie being responsible. Eddie breezes through, freaking her out, and the whole place suddenly starts seeming like this terrifying circus. Or like she's Indiana Jones hopping over snakes and sliding under doors and stuff.
Jackie tells Thor she's got to leave on time for her vacation, and he goes, "If you're running away, can I go too?" You have no idea. You start running with Jackie Peyton, you never stop running. Eleanor asks her to come to her office, and Jackie's like yeah yeah yeah and her heart's beating faster and faster, and the guy she mugged is standing there with a bouquet, so she grabs Zoey -- "Jackie, your MRI?" says Eleanor, but she's like the ghost of a problem right now -- and drags her into the bathroom. It's time to leave early! They're all after her!
"Oh my God, you're asking me to cover for you? I've dreamt of this day!" Jackie shoves Zoey back out into the hospital and locks herself inside a stall, and takes a bunch of her victim's pills out of her pocket and puts them in the floss box, and calls Kevin to say that the road trip starts immediately. "Do me a favor, explain to Grace about playing hooky, so she doesn't lose her shit." There's something here about how instead of dealing with Grace's problems she's learning to cope with Grace's problems, if you see what I mean. Like, it's impressive that Jackie is anticipating her daughter's emotional problems and working to alleviate the pressure Grace is constantly under, but still.
Sam's girlfriend's cat's ass is in Coop's face. So I guess Coop slept with Sam's girlfriend and honestly, after the beatboxing I don't blame her. That amount of dorkiness is sort of a dealbreaker. On the other hand, Coop's amount of dorkiness is mindblowing, but you know: Sam's a nurse, Coop's a doctor. Coop's all excited about the man-drama that might develop between him and Sam, but the girlfriend is not cosigning that at all: "People need to expand their minds. And I need to break up with him." Coop's mystified by that, and then the girl is pretty much like, "Because you're a doctor and he's a nurse, you will now be my boyfriend." And already with the allergies. And not only that, and her generalized shittiness, but also her phone's wallpaper is this creepy old-timey blow-up doll making that face.