By Jacob
While Eddie continues stalking/bromancing her husband Kevin, Jackie's rivalry with Fitch Coop suffers a blow when the episode-long patient arc resolves in his favor: By endeavoring to go over his head and prove how humane and competent she is -- and thus, what a jackhole doofus Whiteboy can be -- she accidentally oversteps, preemptively (and incorrectly) informing a family that their son doesn't have cystic fibrosis. (It's fun, because Coop remains a tweeting, whining jerkoff, but without tipping over into cartoon/whipping boy territory, which I was worried about last week a little bit.)
Gracie, she's stepped up her Defcon on the family home and is now saving her allowance to buy top-of-the-line fire and CO alarms. Grace playing out her end-of-the-world scenarios and attempting to save everybody at once, a really moving theme from the first season, moves back into position. At least now, with the fuckup at work, Jackie seems to be taking a leaf from her suffering kid. Oh, actually this whole episode was sad. Thor's secretly lost vision in one eye to his diabetes -- not even his BF knows -- which makes all the cake stuff last week like ten times more depressing. Jackie covers for him, and even lets him take out the fake for her. Man, Thor just kills me.
And then there's Eleanor -- who wanders through the episode on E, possibly dealing with her mum's death or, you know, just doing her usual shit -- who flirts with New Guy Sam, who decides that everyone in the hospital is on drugs. Which, he's not far off the mark, but Jackie gets him in two awesome ways: First, by telling him all unknown or found drugs go in a special locker in the Pyxis room (a.k.a., Jackie's new drop box!) and second, by going to Akalitus about his rehab-evangelist ways. While she's in there, Jackie asks for a psych consult for Grace -- of course, without revealing the existence of her secret family, not that Gloria's fooled -- and gets a tiny teaspoon of that legendary Akalitus tenderness when she admits her own son had psychological issues... Which complicates her whole Baby Crazy storyline, right?
Oh, and God gets nailed in the head by an insulted agnostic. Zoey (who's getting L-A-I-D) talks Him through His near-death-experience (and ensuing identity crisis), convinces Him that if He's not God, He's at least His nephew, and by episode's end He's right back across the street, screaming at people with Zoey by his side.
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