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Whew! That was a delicious one. Last week was pretty much a total downer, but even with the intense moments this episode is a laugh riot. Jackie takes Gracie to their dance lesson, where they meet up with another member of the parish, Mrs. Flynn, who went to high school with Jackie and Kevin. She was Homecoming Queen, and dated Kevin before he married Jackie.
Eleanor makes peace with Jackie in a really sweet way, very in character for both of them, down to Jackie's desperate attempts to stay angry at her before giving in. The Pyxis is finally installed, leading to a last-chance Valium trip for Eddie, some really amazing sex for Jackie, and a monumentally primal scene experience for Zoey, who walks in on them fucking. Once she puts her mind back together, she tries to be cool, and as usual fails adorably.
Jackie can't get her wedding ring off, so she has Eleanor saw it off with a bone saw. It's an incredible image, actually. Mo-Mo, thinking it's just some random ring she lost, prays to St. Anthony on her behalf, because she's such a good person. To prove it to herself, Jackie mails a DOA patient's last mail, and contacts the person who was waiting for him while he died.
Cooper is stressing right out about the whole forged-paperwork donation card snafu from last week, and Eleanor reminds her that driving Fitch Cooper crazy is the easiest thing in the universe. So she stalks him to the Harmacy, goads him into grabbing her boob, leaves his hand there while she gives him an amazing pep talk, and then rewards him with a kiss. While this doesn't drive him crazy, exactly, it does get him back on track and treating Jackie like she's God, which was the whole point. Well, that and delighting Eleanor, which it definitely does.
It is also about the awesomest thing I ever saw, only second to their conversation later -- after her crazy ass has taken a hammer to her own finger to explain the sawn-off ring -- where she apologizes for her reciprocal sexual harassment and he agrees to trust her... But he's keeping the kiss. This show is not like other shows.
Discuss this episode in our Nurse Jackie forums, then see how Jackie's bedside manner compares to Meredith Grey's in TV is the Answer!
Want more? The full recap starts right below!The needle drops on Jackie's dance class with Grace, all that shuffle-ball-step-chain stuff they always say, and everybody's clapping and having fun. Nobody's really in line, because they've forgotten they're adults for a moment. It won't last. But right now, all the moms and daughters are having the times of their lives, trying to focus, stepping hard with hair in the face. Jackie bumps into somebody and apologizes; Grace corrects her.
Jackie introduces her to a woman and daughter also in the class; the other little girl Kaitlyn is mean-looking and a year older than Grace, who is in the fourth grade. Kaitlyn's mom is also mean looking. She went to school with Jackie; she was Homecoming Queen, Kaitlyn informs them, and Jackie laughs: "Yes I know, I voted for her!" Not done, Kaitlyn whispers secrets.
Kaitlyn's mother welcomes them to the parish, and invites them for donuts after, but as Grace informs them, Jackie has to work. She nearly blushes, making a joke of it. "Yes. In case you thought I was going to the opera." There's a whole mom tug-of-war here, in Jackie's hands and forehead, about working women and women in the home and women with money and women without money, resentment and fascination and jealousy on both sides, and how it's best to just avoid people from the past and stop wondering how their lives went, after you knew them. To turn the other way in the grocery store, and know that they're doing the same, and that you're both grateful.
But the Peytons needs to be in this parish so Grace won't go crazy, and Jackie needs to be in this class so they both don't go crazy. So she revises all of high school -- collaborates, rewrites, re-imagines, nudges, erases -- so that she and this bitch, Kaitlyn's mother, are friends. So that they always have been. Then it's later and she's apologizing for having to go, asking if Grace wanted donuts with Kaitlyn and her mother. Of course she did not. Walking carefully, she asks Grace -- "unless it's private, which is fine" -- what Kaitlyn was whispering. She knows a bitch-in-training when she sees them, she's saying, and Grace's delicacy is such that you can't be too careful, because the world is dangerous. Everyone could be an enemy. Anything could be a weapon. Moments become emergencies.
Kaitlyn said her mom was Kevin's girlfriend before Jackie, back in high school. "Ugh, please!" Jackie laughs. "She wishes!" says Grace. They bond -- preposterous! -- and Jackie is happy to see her laughing, but somewhere else entirely that happy high school story, those new-forged memories start to corrode. Beneath them are several clichés Jackie always thought she was better than.
Sitting near the newsstand, Mo-Mo thinks it's Sunday, but it's Saturday, but he feels like it's Sunday, and maybe this would make Jackie second-guess but today she doesn't have to second-guess because she has Mother-Daughter Tap on Saturdays. But Mo-Mo doesn't know she is a mother, so she must be a daughter. "You take tap with your mother?" he grins, and she remembers and feels guilty. She is a liar. "And we're good!" Eleanor O'Hara gets off the elevator and doesn't look at Jackie; her feelings are hurt, too. Eleanor is the only person that doesn't make Jackie feel like a liar. She is a liar with Eleanor, too.
Mo-Mo wonders what's going on with Dr. O'Hara, and Jackie plays it off. You know doctors, that kind of thing. "Usually she says hello," he says, worrying at it, and she loudly corrects him: "No. She says hello when she's bored, or she's wearing something new and wants someone to notice." Mo-Mo realizes that she's right; somewhere in there Eleanor realizes that she's right, too. "Those Chanel pumps are nice, though," he says, and Jackie quickly barks it out, afraid Eleanor will leave without hearing her: "Well, she has taste. Doesn't mean she has manners." Eleanor walks by with her purchases from the newsstand, less than a yard from them throughout the scene, and still doesn't look. But in her best doctor voice she commands, "When you have a minute?" She keeps walking. "Fucking doctors," Mo-Mo says, and Jackie gives passable agreement.
There's a pile of random shit on the desk -- candy, magazines, all seemingly grabbed in desperation, like the magazines people always toss on their pile of condoms and tampons and I don't know, lice treatments, lube -- and Jackie and Eleanor are both bent to their charts while Eleanor rambles out apologies and promises that it won't happen again, quietly, not looking up. Jackie's impassive, manipulative, not giving in -- what Eleanor doesn't know and Jackie isn't telling her is that she's already forgiven, she was forgiven five seconds into proving she was strong enough to stand at that newsstand with Jackie talking shit stage left -- and Eleanor puts a little more force into her voice, digging into Jackie's (totally bullshit, remember) sense of victimhood about the whole situation: that "clearly" Jackie doesn't "know [her] well enough to know" that she doesn't make the same mistake twice, so once Jackie decides to finish up her punishment, she'll still be around.
Which is being a very good friend to somebody who is being a very bad friend, which is the definition of being a good friend. People don't need us when they're feeling great, and they don't try to hurt us when they're feeling accepted. What Eleanor did was make her a spectacle -- "fun" or not, "harmless" or not -- which means somewhere in Eleanor's head she's looking at Jackie's actions through a magnifying lens, which is the one thing Jackie can't allow. By taking the scattered moments of Jackie's life and applying a narrative to them, she's given Jackie a cohesive story through which to view her own actions: a story which directly contradicts her self-image as a hardworking mother and wife, while underscoring her secondary self-image as a piece of shit. Which, if you care about the person as much as Jackie does Eleanor, is essentially like Eleanor calling her a piece of shit.
But since this is all on the level just beneath the skin, and because Jackie lives on top of the skin, always, it's like Eleanor called her a piece of shit behind her back, inside her head, under the skin. And there's a level on which that's true, but it's much more true that Eleanor couldn't have known she was stepping on any landmines, because they've always connected about how they both live on the skin, on the surface of things, so a conversation about how little Jackie's adultery signifies was supposed to be more glue on their relationship, not this huge fucking problem. Anything can be a weapon when the world turns dangerous.
And when you realize that you are dealing with somebody's demon, which she is accidentally but now obviously doing, all you can do is step back one giant step back and say Mother May I, because you have to demonstrate that your love is bigger than their fear. Not "I love you to the diameter of this thing that is hurting you," but just a little wider than that. You use your love to make the world big enough for them to move around again, and not feel so caged up. Hopefully they come back to you, maybe they don't, but either way the problem already happened, and neither of you were prepared, so you might as well be good, and remind them where home is.
Anyway, Jackie stares into space, impassive and mean, and neither of them really know why, and Eleanor, waiting for the smile, tells her if she keeps pouting her face will freeze like that. The smile doesn't come. But then Eleanor sees the wedding ring on her finger, and hisses -- "Ring, Jacks" -- before walking away. Which is another way of drawing the circle, especially if you're talking about an addict: if you can demonstrate your usefulness, that dramatically raises your score automatically. Jackie covers her hand, asking about the magazines and random shit, and they both smile, tiny smiles, as she keeps walking: "Peace offering."
Jackie works at the ring for a second, but Eddie of course immediately appears, so she shoves her ring finger in her armpit and acts totally spazzy. "Brr, right?" It's the only time besides Paula's farewell toast that we've seen her do anything besides be A) scary competent or B) scary mad, which makes it even funnier than it would be. And sadder. Eddie tells her to get a sweater and then they talk about her coming to the Harmacy to visit him in what he thinks is a sexy code and she normally can accept on some level as sexy code but right now is totally weird, and then he leaves and Zoey appears behind her talking in a weird, frenzied hush -- "Notification: ETA three minutes, cardiac arrest" -- that causes her eyes to pop open.
Jackie spends those three minutes scrubbing with soap trying to get the ring off, moaning and groaning. She doesn't even notice the wristwatch anymore. The cardiac arrest is like very young, dropped at the post office a half hour ago. Coop goes into action and feels his pulse, there are more compressions, Zoey taking notes, Mo-Mo gives him the paddles, everybody working together efficiently and well, Coop goes for the epi and then atropine, but nothing works. Jackie stands in the middle of the storm and is a part of the storm, a well-choreographed dance, but her other life pulls against it: she asks Mo-Mo if he saw her wearing a ring, earlier, and he says no. She's wearing gloves, so he thinks she's asking the opposite of what she's asking him, which is how she wanted it; it's the mother/daughter-daughter/mother thing again.
Which is, thanks to Grace, way less ambiguous than the ring/no ring thing. Last week we learned what Grace is willing to do, to keep the worlds in balance: she let the balloon go, rather than see Fiona go without. On a more manic day maybe she'd have pulled out a knife, and stabbed it. Maybe taken out a hammer.
Coop finally calls it, reluctantly, as Zoey looks on. They all check Jackie' face for a reaction before walking away, leaving her alone with him. He's young; there's a paper bag between his legs on the bed containing a rental copy of Marley & Me, razors, some mail. A list says, "Marley & Me, stamps." So he was at the post office. His phone's got a green rubber case; she answers it when it rings but it's just a text, one in a series: See you in five.
Don't forget marley and me
It's been 30 min?! r u ok?
Chris?! Been 45... getting pissed
1 hour. So typical. U suck.
That is a short novel indeed. You thought the person wasn't paying attention and that's all they were doing. You thought you were in a parallel universe, where nothing you did mattered. Out of sight, out of mind. Jackie breathes and thinks, then calls the number and tells the person that she has Chris's phone at All Saints, and that he needs help, and to come immediately. She leaves her name and tucks the sheet in around him tightly, then tighter. Like a hug. It's hard to walk away, because he is her brother. She walks away, then comes back for the paper bag. Peace offering.
Then it's later, and Jackie's snorting some shit in the bathroom. A lot of it. She leans her head back and tries again, but between the ongoing failure, the frustration and whatever's up her nose, she's nearly crying with rage. She tears at it blindly, hurting herself, but she keeps going.
There's a beautiful woman in the chapel hall with a giant bouquet of white flowers whom Jackie remembers, after a bit of prompting, as "Fitch's girlfriend," Melissa. Jackie immediately asks after her mother, and she rolls her eyes: "She's having a third of her colon removed, but I'm the one who's a wreck!" Which deserves sympathy, compassion, but she doesn't know from a wreck. I'd like to see her sister week, when mom goes into the hospital. So then who are the flowers for? Why, Coop of course. "How's my lady!" he smarms, kissing her, and they giggle and are super creepy and weird for a bit.
Coop drags Jackie down toward a junction in the hall, asking about the donor he never certified last week, which the transplant team ratted her out about. Jackie lies and says they're only bothering him to close the insurance paperwork, that everything's fine, but he will not be calmed! He starts talking about the legalities and Jackie points out that they didn't need the family's consent anyway, but he's troubled by the idea that the family will freak out because he "told them to take a beating heart" out of somebody's body without proof of brain death. Which may or may not be true, even, but Jackie's still right that saying it that way is just ridiculously dramatic. But if you think you've seen drama you don't know Fitch Cooper. "I will turn on you so fast it'll make your head spin," he spits out of a sort of spiraling craziness, and she grins, telling him to be careful: "You'll scare your 'girlfriend'!" She waves goodbye to Melissa and grins at Coop, and leaves.
Which, of course, means that Coop has his pick of two really useful options: grab Jackie's boob, or rat her out in some way to Eddie. These are like his only coping mechanisms, because he's scared to death of her, because she's always right. And even if he's right in this case, she's still a little more right in the larger sense. So, knowing that, Jackie of course grabs a hammer, strolling nervously through the ER, and crushes up another pill. Out in the hallway she's got a spring in her step and the wide eyes of somebody tripping balls, and Eddie sort of floats pink-elephantishly into her vision and bugs her again about coming to see him. He notes the gloves and when she says she's on urine sample duty he asks if she can't just delegate, and she grins like the most adorable druggie of all time, which is what she is: "But it's the highlight of my day!"
And breaks into a run, just around the corner, the better to find Eleanor on the phone and jokingly snarking at her to knock first. "Favor?" Only if she's not angry anymore, Eleanor says. I love how her feelings about Jackie are so simple and clear and obvious, it's one of the most admirable things about her. She loves Jackie, it really is that simple, and not in some kind of shallow "I choose the surface way": she's a force of nature in her way as well. She likes things to be easy and lovely, and she likes Jackie, and those are the Things Eleanor Likes. So she can say, "Stop being mad at me," and there's no manipulation or anything behind it: she would like you to stop being mad at her right now, and that is the sum total of what she means by that statement.
And of course Jackie can only toss the whole thing over at this point with an "Oh, please." It's incredibly difficult for people to deal with statements like that, especially if you come across as being more complex than you actually are, because they fill in the blanks with the most dastardly things. But it's good to remember that there are people -- smart people, people with sophisticated viewpoints, but people who fall closer to the ET side than the IF side of the old Meyers-Briggs -- who divide the world into (1) people they love and (2) people who are irrelevant, and to trust them when they say so, because it's a bit like suddenly remembering you're not wearing pants when that shit comes up and you have to talk about it at all.
"For the record," Eleanor says as she makes ready to cut the ring off with a bone saw or something, "I'm questioning your judgment." So that's one, in the whole world. Good deal. "Duly noted," Jackie says, and Eleanor asks how she's going to explain this. "I can't say I lost it," Jackie says, trying to elucidate her bizarre train of thought here: it would mean she didn't care enough to notice it was gone. As usual, Jackie's poor behavior makes more sense than we can really acknowledge. Eleanor chides her for wiggling and being jittery, since she's medicated up to her eyeballs, and Jackie changes the subject. Unless the subject is Jackie Peyton's Questionable Judgment, of course, because then she's just following the natural shape of the conversation.
"Oh, Coop is on a tear!" She starts, explaining how she has once again cut corners with a potential donor, "potential" here being code for "Jackie says." Eleanor asks if she did anything illegal, which she did, and if she could be fired, which she could -- "Strangely I'm okay with that?" she notes -- but the only problem here, being that this was a typical organ-thieving Monday for Jackie, is that Coop now has something to hold over her head, which they both know by now is to Coop what Percocet is to Jackie.
"I would dress him down, but he'd get grabby and wreck a perfectly good bra." Heh. Eleanor reminds Jackie that she's a smart girl and already knows what to do: "If anyone knows how to drive him round the bend, it's you." True enough. "Speak now, or forever hold your peace," Eleanor says, and saws through the ring. Now, you know I think marriage is gay and gives you cancer, in addition to being the millennial Whites Only water fountain, but damn. That is an image.
Coop, unsurprisingly, totes Melissa's flowers to Eddie's office like immediately, for reasons of bromance that he describes as "allergies." Eddie asks if they're from a grateful patient, and Coop crows: "GIRLFRIEND!" Eddie gives him the requested approval/doggie snack, calling his the life of Riley. Coop, of course, has no idea what this means. Additionally, of course, it is time to dish about Jackie. Or it would be, if Jackie hadn't finally gotten it together and gone looking for Coop.
Jackie asks Eddie for a moment so she can pull what promises to be a nuclear-level mindfuck on the kid, and shoots him the sweetest, loveliest smile when he balks. "I'll keep her away from the good stuff," Coop jokes, calling him "bro," and Jackie's like, "You really just said that." It wouldn't matter what he said, partly because anything he says has an automatic douchiness, but mostly because she is picking a fight right now. He's like, "Um, it was a joke?" And she presses: "Yes. No, I realize that." He gets scared and his boob-grabbing hand is already getting antsy as he explains he was trying to lighten the tension. Jackie then shuts the Harmacy window, and his balls subsequently crawl into his sternum, so good luck there.
"There is always going to be tension between us," Jackie says, and the truly alien geometry of what she's about to do becomes clear. Oh, girl! I love you! That is some Xena Warrior Princess shit right there. Not to mention proof positive from the creative team that lesbians know exactly what they're doing when they scare the shit out of you, which I've always wondered about.
"We're different," Jackie says, starting slow. "I don't get you, don't get your humor. I really don't appreciate you coming after me with this donor shit." He whines, it does nothing. "You weren't there. There was a huge gap where a doctor was supposed to be. I jumped in. It's not a big deal."
All of which is true, but not the point. (The point is still about a mile off, but you can see her getting there, and feel it thoom thooming deep underground, like the monsters of Mordor.) Coop protests that it is, in fact, a big deal, because he is the one who is qualified. Oh, girl! No you didn't! "New York law says that, not me." You did! Jackie is going to eat your kidneys! You need those! This is awesome! "Either way that's insulting," she says, and he's sad for saying it, because obviously it's insulting in more than even the two ways she's talking about.
"For you to threaten me the way you did this morning is just unconscionable. Do you know what that means?" Heh. He's all, "Uh, yeah?" but he still doesn't see the net she's drawing around him, which is to press every single mommy button -- which he's obviously sporting like a neverending therapy fractal -- until he has no choice but to grab her boob. "I have been watching people die since you were on the fucking playground," she says, with just enough force behind it that... Yep, there he goes.
"I'm so sorry, Jackie," he blubbers, his hand sort of farmer's-marketing around on her breast like ripe produce, and she says tenderly, "It's okay. Don't panic." Which just intensifies it on two levels, because it's both mommy-voice and therapeutic-voice, which have attended this disorder since he was little, so she's caging him in from both sides. "This has been a shitty day," she says, reminding him of the cardiac arrest before hitting the praise/destroy button that separates amateur manipulation from its distinctly more terrifying professional counterpart: "You did everything you could back there. You were really very smart." She puts her hand over his hand over her breast, and looks soulfully into his eyes, and says it again: "No need to panic, okay? Just trust me."
I admit that I started shivering at this part, because it's so brilliantly done and so terribly frightening and such a great summing up of both characters and their relationship, but also because it's so real and terrifying that I wanted to save him from her, a little bit. I kept expecting the rattlesnake sound to start up. "And I need to be able to trust you." Coop is variously: babbling, breathing hard, and stammering. His brain has literally become a pie chart -- mommy, sex, power, authority, accomplishment, incompetence, life, death -- and everything's bleeding into everything else, and his hand is still in the scariest place in the entire universe. He's either going to start crying and pass out, or fall in love. Those are the options.
Oh, you know what this is like? That weird syndicated Raimi show on Saturdays with the magical forest. I can't remember the name because it's like The Seeker Of The Sword Of The Wizard Of The Mommy Issues Of The Rule Of The BDSM Legend Of Latter-Day Saints or something, but the guy has a radically sick body and he's always getting tied up or beaten or going swimming just because he feels like it, and in the show he pals around with this Ren Faire chick who has magic powers to do exactly this thing, where they can't lie to her and they instantly fall in love with her and follow her around until they die, even though she's sort of pointy and trashy-looking. You can always tel,l because their pupils dilate in a magical way. Now, in this case, Jackie is high as fuck so who knows, but I bet his eyes are about to go all-black just like on that creepy S&M forest show.
"You told Eddie I have a kid," Jackie says, and he swears he didn't before immediately admitting he did. Just like on that show! He cannot lie! He has been confessed! She touches his face, and then -- as though to reward his honesty -- kisses him full on the mouth! (Yikes! It's like that movie where Winona Ryder had the devil problem and the water starts flowing backwards up the wall and the whole world is like a Gnarls Barkley video!) She looks him in the dilated magical pupils and grins secretively, and walks off, and he giggles to himself and watches the petals drop off the flowers from stinky old Melissa. That was, maybe literally, the best thing I have ever seen. Nurse Jackie is the Cesar Milan of douches.
Jackie immediately runs to the bathroom to brush the shit out of her teeth and tongue and entire mouth and face and area. Zoey flushes the toilet, comes out and asks which one is better, "morbidly obese" or "superobese." (I can't say that "better" is precisely the way she phrased it, but that's what my notes say, and that is hilarious.) Jackie tells her to get back to her about the answer to that pressing question, and Zoey wide-eyes about how they just cleaned up a 600-pounder and it was amazing.
"I don't want to hear about it," Jackie says matter-of-factly, and Zoey wonders aloud whether the cardiac case had kids. They hope not. "Bad things are always a hundred times worse with kids involved," Zoey says. She thinks she's talking about herself. She randomly goes in for a sneaky hug, like Jackie's not going to notice, or because she can sense that Jackie identifies with the mysteriously disappointing dead Chris, and Jackie screams ("EXCUSE ME!") loud enough that Zoey runs away. Scampers, like Thumper.
Jackie finally goes to see Eddie for their real visit, and the whole Harmacy is all effed up with paintcans and ladders and stuff, because week is the Pyxis. He's in his little on-call cot they fuck on, wearing those nice jeans he wears sometimes, and singing to himself. "I took some valium! I'm throwing a little going-away party in my head." After all, they've already fired him. She asks if she can join the party and he loopily informs her that she's already there, topless. "And you looked fucking awesome!" Even on drugs he believes in the looking-glass world.
Then it's later and Jackie is fucking the shit out of Eddie when Zoey comes running to the Harmacy looking for them, and walks in on them having just finished up, so instead of acting like a rational person Zoey dances around in the doorway for awhile, spazzing out, and Eddie's laughing uproariously while she apologizes, and Jackie's all WTF, and she explains that superobese is bigger than morbidly obese, sort of shrieks it with her eyes closed.
Jackie screams, "Zoey! What makes you think I would want to talk about that with no shirt on?" The literal-minded -- and still present! -- Zoey reminds Jackie she said to get back to her, and Jackie reminds her to GTFO, and she does so (without neglecting to sweetly tell the tickled-pink Eddie goodbye), finally, and Eddie waves bye-bye in response. "Laugh or cry?" Jackie says, honestly flummoxed, and he laughs. She collapses on top of him, weirded out beyond the telling.
While they deal with a hunger-striking Italian priest, Zoey tells Jackie they are cute together. "I am not afraid to kill you in front of a priest," she says with a smile, and Zoey chills out. Apparently the guy hasn't eaten for nine days, because he's worried about his parish. "Can I say something? You're too old too fast." She asks him to at least take a cup of soup, for her, and he laughs: "I will disappoint God!" the priest explains, like Nurse Jackie gives a shit about that today.
Jackie tells the priest that she has a special dispensation -- "God and I are like this," she says, and somewhere He's like, "Yeah, she reminds me to take My meds" -- and Zoey watches him slowly give in and adorably agree to eat a little soup for her, in her bastard Italian and his bastard English. "Et voila! Zoey says about something annoying, and they both think about how she's sort of unbearable. "French," she explains, desperate for whatever it is that Zoey is always so bleedingly desperate for, and they nod.
Then it's later and Jackie's shaking her head because I guess he reneged on the soup. "He's afraid God will punish him," Zoey reminds herself. "Personally I don't think God punishes us, what about you." (She says this in a great administrative voice, like they're at a PBS round table on Sunday morning or one of those child-enriching unlikely conversations they used to have on Zoom!, like tweens sit around going, "So guys, what do you think about cheating on tests? I am against it." Well. Little Zoey Brakow probably did do that, because she saw on it on TV and thought it was how people act, because "How People Act" is just not a chapter she's ever going to read.)
Obviously Jackie doesn't think God punishes people, not only because that's what free will and other people are for, but because a little deeper than that she believes she would have been hit by lightning one dozen times just on her way to work today. But speaking of self-hatred... "Zoey, what you walked in on was very, very private," she explains, and Zoey tries to reassure her that she has "no judgment," which is not at issue, because like Zoey or anybody else can "have judgment" about Jackie Peyton, but Zoey's not listening because she wants to bond in whatever gross way she can: "I went to second with my manager at Burger King, so I get it." I can't remember if they've actually said Zoey is from Florida or if I just made it up, but either way that's an even shorter, even more amazing novel than the text messages, and I want nothing to do with it.
Neither does Jackie, who carefully explains that she didn't ask about that, and did not ask Zoey to share with her, while in contrast she did not share the Eddie information with Zoey by choice at all. So Zoey is not returning the favor by sharing information Jackie doesn't want to know, because that's creating two problems where before there was only one problem.
"Got it. We're professionals!" I get scared when Zoey uses words she doesn't understand, like, now I'm picturing her with a black suit like Romy & Michelle all, "You know how some places have like a lunch special? For businesswomen?" Jackie tells her to take more food to the padre and to make sure he understands that liquid meals don't, for the purpose of God, count as "food," and in return Zoey offers her a breakfast bar or something, and Jackie's not interested, and she goes, "Right. NO SHARING!" with a hilarious ogre face before running off.
Good one, Zoey. I love this show because there are like 50 characters, and whichever one is onscreen you're like, "That's the most interesting character I've ever seen! How did they do that? And plus find the most perfect actor for this... No, wait, that is the most interesting character I've ever seen. No, wait..."
"Zoey walked in on me and Eddie," Jackie says from Eleanor's doorway, and she goes predictably insane (and grateful), and she goes on, per their earlier convo: "And I kissed Coop." Eleanor loses the ability to breathe, so whoopingly joyful is she, and Jackie nods proudly. "Thought you'd like that."
Jackie hangs out on the chapel pews with Mo-Mo. I wish they did that more often, it's like the only time you get to catch your breath. He asks if she found her ring, and what it looked like. "Simple. Just a ring. Had it a long time." He pronounces this "heartbreaking" and tells her to pray to St. Anthony. "I've lost so much stuff oh my God," he says cuter than he's ever said anything. But it's not Anthony she needs, it's Christopher. Anthony's good for things that have gone missing, but she knows exactly where the ring is -- "Pretty sure it's gone," she says -- and what it means. Christopher tells you in stories that the world was never dangerous: home is exactly where you left it. In all the whirling madness of the dangerous world, Christopher brings you home.
"So let me pray to St. Anthony," he says, and she thanks him with Catholic manners. "I want to find your ring, because I want to do one good thing today." If he does one good thing a day, Mo-Mo says -- Mo-Mo the nurse, Mo-Mo who shocked the cardiac patient and had no effect -- he can feel good about himself. "Believe me, it's harder than it sounds. Plus I've got lot of bad shit to make up for." She scoffs to herself, but says in a strong and lovely voice that brooks no protest, "I don't believe you, Mohammad." He giggles and says that's just because she's a good person, and can't imagine his crimes. She holds her ring finger and says sadly, "I've gotta go, honey." She walks out of the church, cradling the broken ring in her hands.
Jackie takes the hammer into the bathroom again, and sits on the floor against the door. Grace could have just given Fiona one of her balloons, and that would have been a good thing. But Jackie doesn't understand that any more than Grace does, so she aims, breathing, and breaks her finger. Right where the ring should be. The pain floats up past her head and into the sky. She weeps in pain, and shame.
Zoey's at the nurses' station when Jackie comes out of the bathroom, holding her hand stiffly and asking for Dr. O'Hara; she puts off Zoey's concern easily, and since Eleanor's left for the day, she asks for Coop instead. Then it's later, and he's fixing it sweetly. She tells him pointedly and softly that she appreciates the help, and he grins. "It's what I do." She apologizes for the whole thing earlier -- "lotta tension flying around" -- and copping to her exquisitely mean gambit. "I'm keeping the kiss," he smiles, and she rolls her eyes, promising to kill him if he takes this to Eddie like he does everything else. "How stupid do you think I am? Don't answer that." She admits he's not a bad guy, and he shoots the puppydogs at her: "That's what I've been trying to tell you!"
Zoey's headed home, quietly sympathetic about the finger and apologetic about walking in on them. "It's okay," Jackie says, "It's over with." It's never over. Zoey says she finally got the priest to eat, and asks -- wearing an adorable and very Zoey pink coat -- if Jackie wants her to wait up. She sends her on her way, and pulls out Chris's mail and her book of stamps.
Jackie watches Chris's mail go down the chute and wonders if that's her one good thing. She breaks into a ball change, tries to remember to dance, right there on the street. She cheers herself, thinking about home. Chris's phone rings, and she answers, and tells the person calling the whole story. Over the silent credits of a million mothers and daughters' twirling, dancing feet, Jackie brings Christopher home.
Discuss this episode in our Nurse Jackie forums, then see how Jackie's bedside manner compares to Meredith Grey's in TV is the Answer!