Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT There's Glass Between Us
By Jacob Clifton | Season 2 | Episode 5 | Aired on 04.19.2010
So for Eleanor, who's been doing drugs in the middle of the day and Sam in the middle of the chapel, to throw herself a hot news anchor, that's not shocking lesbianism, it's just another secret these people have started telling. Another way to go wild after her nasty little family finally flew apart. I mean, you can tell Eleanor's sort of blown her own mind, but I think only in that it matters. They hooked up, just for a couple days, when Sarah was on her way up to Washington. "I thought this was behind me, I really did," she says. The butterflies, the cheating, the whole wild mess.
Jackie asks to meet Sarah, but then scoots madly when they spot Sam coming up, looking fine as hell. Like she literally vaporizes. He sits down and breaks up with her, quickly and in a somewhat kind way, and you can tell she thinks it's just a hoot until he says the problem is A) Having indiscriminate sex when you're a sex addict (which is offensive when you're talking to the person) and B) His girlfriend is back. And this time when Eleanor pats him on the head and says hers is too, he finally hears her. Coop's constant douchey jaw --dropping now -- has competition, even if lesbians are the only thing about real life that don't shock him.
Coop shows up with the contract and informs Gloria that "the whole good-looking thing" is a blessing, not a curse. Gloria takes this information -- or the relaying of this information -- way better than probably anybody else would, because to her he is a puny ant.
Lenny greets Zoey with a hearty, "What's up, boo?" She tells him to chill and he asks why she keeps shutting him down and should he just leave her alone, and she apologizes, stepping closer, finally telling him about the pregnancy. "Happy?" On this show people are constantly telling secrets and then making up new secrets to keep, and nobody is ever happy. But cute little Lenny with his puppydog goatee does a great impression of being happy, for her, if she is happy. Mostly he's just confused, because what was the cute girl at work with clearly few social skills and gay bunnies on her scrubs is now the kind of woman who is pregnant, which means rerouting about fifty different brain things.
Zoey being Zoey, of course, she has not yet begun to verbally destroy. "It's not with a guy I like. It's his brother. One less Jagermeister, I might have ended up with the one I wanted. Staten Island barbecues." Lenny is a fucking champ all through this, like basically manipulated by his own sweet nature and the awesomeness of Zoey into the corner of being like, "Yeah, Staten Island barbecues are the worst. I myself got a lot of pregnant on Staten Island." Then the champ steps back up to the plate and offers to be there for her, if nobody else -- the guys she likes or their brothers she fucks -- manages to be a man. She admits that that is sweet.
It's difficult to describe Merritt Wever's acting, because it's like she's hiding behind a mask that is also her face, and the mask isn't moving but she's back there giggling the whole time, and it's electrifying to watch, and so when he puts his arm on her shoulder and she rockets away with a one-word answer -- "Weird" -- you know exactly what she means: It's weird to be pregnant, it's weird that she told him, it's weird that he likes her, it's weird that they're discussing her pregnancy, it's weird that he totally means it, it's weird that it's touching, it's weird that he's touching her, it's time to go.
Bitch caregiver Caroline comes into Admitting looking for Renata, and Jackie quickly offers to have her sit down while she fetches the paperwork. Thor hates her silently, and she acts like this is all a huge deal. Jackie heads up to ER to deal with that, and Zoey's up there saying the cops are there for the gun. So now she's got two patients, Renata and construction guy. One of them was left all alone by the people who are supposed to care for her, the other one sleeps with his gun because they're stealing his tools. And she's not sending Renata back to Caroline, and she's not sending her guy with the cops. They need to both be free.
Jackie jets into the gun guy's room with a spare set of scrubs and swishes the curtain behind her. "Put this on, go out the front door, do not fall asleep, you've got a concussion, if you start vomiting go to an ER and tell them you fell, wash your wound daily with hydrogen peroxide." He asks for his gun back and she almost slaps him, or breaks down laughing, and sends him away while she distracts the cop.
Two problems, one very excellent solution: Take gun guy's cop down to Admissions, while gun guy goes out the back. This is Jackie's best trick: Balancing the broken pieces so they fit together as a whole. So she can't tell which is good and which is bad, as long as everybody gets out alive. Everybody has to get out of this alive.
"Can you come with me a second? I've got a call in to Adult Protective Services. They're gonna want to take her in for aggravated neglect and endangerment..." She introduces herself and the cop to the incensed Caroline, Caroline who left Renata to die, who came on Tuesdays and sometimes Thursday. Adding fraud to the list, Jackie leaves them there: The cop, and Caroline. Who is disgusted, and horrified, and will not be getting paid anymore. And Renata will be cared for. And gun guy is free.
Jackie calls a man on the phone: "Hi, it's me. Yeah, look, I'm sorry about all this. I'm... I'm tired. And my back's all fucked up and I'm sorry. You want to talk?" He does. Very much so. She's got a lot to answer for. Her face lights up when he says yes. And they meet at the theatre, and head inside. She tells him he needs to toughen up. She means: Even when she goes crazy on him. She means: Don't attempt suicide quite so often. She means: She cares for him. She means: She's not sending Renata back to Caroline, and she's not sending gun guy with the cops, because both of them need to be free. Two problems, one elegant solution.
Eddie dances up to Jackie under the marquee lights, in a suede jacket, lit up with relief, and they head inside to see Alice In Wonderland. Fiona said she'd love it.