By Jacob
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Jackie's got herself a post office box where she gets the bank statements for the impressive scrips she's been racking up at every pharmacy in town. Every time you think we know every way she gets drugs, it turns out we didn't even know half of them. Solution? Forget fighting with Kevin about Eleanor's offers to pay for the girls' education, and just take the money for herself. Damn.
Gloria spends the day on the ER floor, where she and Zoey compete for who is more rad. It is a tight fight, both challengers are champions, but her loopy interaction at day's end with Thor puts Gloria over the top. Also the fight she wins against the Pill-O-Matix, wherein she opens every shelf and unit on the whole machine for a drug-administering free-for-all. Of course, this means Eddie will most likely be back in the pharmacy week, which freaks Jackie right out -- but at least she's framing Sam to get fired, in about the grossest possible way.
Zoey's awesomeness takes many forms this week, including her cute/wise work with a cracked-hip college student, but the best is when she screams (legitimately) at Coop, and gets the old boob-grab. Lenny punches Coop, Coop punches Lenny, and Zoey ends up with her feet in Lenny's lap, watching TV in his hilarious stoner apartment. I'm worried about the Face of All Saints, but seeing Zoey scream in his face was more than enough to take away the sting.
The other patient is a Connecticut slimeball with a head trauma, a wife and a girlfriend. They're none too impressed with each other, but what is impressive is the amount of black blood vomit he shoots out once they both show up at the hospital. Coop gets a weird glitch about self-defense and spends the whole time trying to bully Jackie as like an advocate of domestic violence. I think this is something we'll be discussing for a bit, his weirdness about lady-hitting. Or maybe he's just secretly a Jezebel commenter.
On the home front, Grace is locking herself in the bathroom for longer and longer periods of time, which makes Jackie get all weird with the shrink about what she's up to. By the end of the episode we know for sure, and it's both scary and super sad: A silver dollar-sized bald chunk she's been steadily yanking out of the back of her head. Oh, Gracie.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Red Owl. Fiona's all excited, telling Jackie about her big Show & Tell last time, taking particular care to describe her soulmate Dr. O'Hara in loving detail -- "She was wearing a really pretty purple dress! With high heels!" -- and when Jackie reminds her that she was totally there, that it was her idea, that it was all intended as a show and tell less of Fiona's fake cast and more of Jackie's non-abusive parenting skills, Fiona can barely remember that part. "She smells like flowers!" Jackie asks Fiona what she smells like, and they're both very uncomfortable with Fiona answering that question.
In an aside, Jackie tells Kevin that she'd prefer to send Fiona to Grace's school, Immaculate Virgin. One, because she is totally weird, but mostly Two, which is that over the last year they've weathered more than a normal number of swipes at their parenting. Kevin, of course, points out that they barely have the money to send one of their screwed-up kids there, much less both, and Jackie gives him wocka-wocka eyebrows. "...No. We're not taking handouts, from O'Hara or anyone." Jackie points out that it's not a handout: It's not even for them, it's for the girls.
I'll say that again: Jackie is very clear, with her husband and herself, that Eleanor's money is for their daughters.
Kevin gets in her face several times about how he can't be overruled on this one, there won't be an appeal, and she has to promise to stop bringing it up. And to leave Eleanor's money alone. Jackie promises, and Fiona asks to eat Grace's fries while she's in the bar's bathroom. Grace has requested some privacy. That's a red flag for two reasons, firstly being that -- as Jackie puts it -- "Why does she need privacy? She's a kid" -- and secondly because it's Grace: Nothing good is going on in there.
Jackie knocks on the door for awhile, nodding apologetically at the women who clearly have been standing in line for awhile, and Grace comes out looking haunted, but swearing there's nothing going on. I thought, wished, hoped that it were something banal, like weird Catholic menstruation issues or something, but I think we all know Grace is Advanced Crazy, and thus would be having none of that. I'm sure Fiona's obsessed with that stuff and has probably educated Grace in the mysteries of her body more thoroughly than either Peyton parent could.
She still won't look Jackie in the eye, and I think honestly this is the most words she's said to her mother all season. Jackie worries at Kevin about how she needs to know what's up with Grace's sessions with the new therapist, and even when Kevin reminds her that's off-limits, she's like, "Nuts to that!" Kevin reminds her, for the third or fourth time, that Grace will talk when she feels like it. "How am I supposed to help her if everything is a secret?"