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Jokes! Wisecracks! Funny script! I like this new tone, I really do. So after your obligatory, but still fairly awesome Nurse Jackie takedown (waitress-abusing businessman), we learn that O'Hara has been named Head of Emergency in the wake of her recent job search. Of course, she couldn't care less, but once Coop gets wind of this and freaks out, the women decide to use it against him, turning him into an even more caffeinated Chihuahua than usual.
Also bopping about like a meth-head: Zoey Barcow, who has purchased a pedometer and will be doing her first double-shift and will be enjoying both these things at 100% intensity. Akalitus is moving ahead with the Fat Kid Initiative, so there are some laughs to be had there.
Jackie gets a momentary scare during a family barbecue to celebrate Eddie's "new" job at All Saints: She thinks for a second that Kevin has left her, but it turns out his dumb sister sent him to an Al-Anon meeting, and so as usual the stakes go back to zero almost immediately.
Patientwise, there's a neat guy patient that all the nurses really love, but we don't really get to know him that well; there is also a young father-to-be that is losing his mind until Jackie pumps him full of Valium and the smell of a baby head.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!While a pretty good -- especially for this show -- Elbow song plays, Nurse Jackie does her usual drug-seeking, drug-hiding, drug-addict thing around the house; then she goes to lunch with Eleanor. They catch up on how things have been in the short interval since Jackie chased her best friend out of the house with a meat cleaver for suggesting she might have a drug problem, then threatened her with stalking if she didn't get back in line.
Jackie: "Yeah, so Grace is good, and of course Fiona is having a ball at her new school you thought you were paying for. Oh, and we've got Kevin's random sister sleeping on the couch or in various beds. She's not at all as annoying as you might think, but there's still no reason for her to be in this show. My total paranoia has me thinking that Kevin brought her in to keep an eye on me, but that's fine because she's a total trainwreck anyway."
Eleanor: "Well, since you broke my heart and I went looking for other jobs, Mrs. Akalitus got real scared and offered me a meaningless title that only Fitch Cooper would care about."
Jackie: "That'll be fun to watch. So yeah, so great! Hopefully that will help me manipulate you into staying for sure?"
Eleanor, verbatim: "I don't do empty titles. My uncle was an Earl, it ruined him."
Jackie: "I don't believe you answered my question."
Eleanor: "...No, I'm no longer looking for other employment."
Jackie: "I love how I get away with everything all the time. It's a really satisfying narrative, not at all repetitive or empty for the viewer."
Eleanor: "Just, time you're having a drug-related freakout, could you point the gun at somebody else? I'm happy overlooking your unsatisfactory behavior as long as it only hurts your children and other loved ones."
Jackie: "Can do, good buddy! I don't really care about them either."
White Anglo-Saxon Member Of The Patriarchy: (Oppresses.)
Jackie: (Humiliates.)
The Universe: (Heaps praise on her.)
Repeat: ad infinitum.
Nurse Zoey is acting like a meth-head, having been given her first double shift. She is both good at her job, and squirmy/wonderful to be around, as usual, but at twice the volume and carrying a pedometer that talks more than she does.
Akalitus: "How do you guys like this picture of sad fat kids I stole from the train? I had them made so that the First Lady will think I'm fighting childhood obesity, first through vandalism and later through means as yet undetermined."
Zoey, verbatim: "All of those kids are fat. That one looks really sad. Oh no, I'm sad! That ad is good."
Akalitus: (Bugs everybody to give her money for fat kids, and then doubles down on the annoying by bugging Eleanor and calling her "Chief" over and over.)
Meanwhile, Sam has nothing better to do than needle Coop about the Chief thing with Eleanor, which he does in either a faux-comforting way or an actually admiring way, depending on if this show even cares anymore or ever really did. Coop hobbles off to start some shit about this once he actually tunes in to what Sam is saying; he's got a limp because of a -- SPOILER -- bunion, which he thinks is a b-ball injury from shooting the hoops.
Jackie and Eddie kid around about how they fooled her stupid husband into thinking that he just got a job at All Saints, and then Jackie learns that she is hosting a barbecue at her house in honor of this, and that Eddie will be motorcycling her home after work.
Eddie: "He gets me a job, he's making me a steak? You better hope that guy never leaves you."
Jackie: "Yeah, he's a keeper. You were so right when you said that things would get way less totally fucked up and weird once we fake-got you the job here where you work."
Eddie: "Whattaya gonna do?"
Jackie: "Horrible things with zero accountability, I wager."
Akalitus, yelling at a nun on the phone: "What I want and expect is your full support and a list of potential donors, and if I don't get that, there will be a bunch of obese children standing outside your door every day until I get what I need. Listen, Sister, you married God. I married this job!"
Coop: "I'm throwing my hat in the ring, look out."
Since the Chief thing is a meaningless shot in the dark anyway, she has no idea what he is talking about, but after a second realizes she can use this to squeeze out the very lifeblood of his sexy, idiotic frame:
Coop: "I have many qualifications! One, my gift for tiny stitches. Two, popular among the staff."
Akalitus: "Nope."
Coop: "I've browbeat almost everyone who works here into lunch with me. Popular among the staff. Three..."
Akalitus: "Fine. Dance like a monkey and prove it, monkey."
Coop: "Like a dance-off?"
Akalitus: "The fuck? No, like overtime."
Coop, just unbearably cute and cutely unbearable at the same time : "Or a dance-off!"
Jackie lies to her husband about how happy she is for the Eddiecue, and then intercepts a hyperventilating new father who was sent to ER Admissions by maternity to get him out of their hair; she tells him to claim chest pains so she can get him in, and blows off this horrible lady Candace de la Brix, whose child isn't actually having an asthma attack but who presumably wants into the ER so she can grift extra bennies. Jackie has no time for this and ushers the guy past, then hooks him up to Zofran and Valium so he can calm down enough to go back upstairs and see his child get born.
Zoey, powerwalking in place: "Two ETs ten IVs four piss runs and a guy aspirated also known as vomited all over me so I had to change my scrubs are you comfortable?"
New Dad: "Yeah. Um are you on speed?"
Zoey, verbatim: "I AM SPEED MOTHERFUCKER."
New Dad: Gets worried again, having no understanding of Zoey's whole deal.
Jackie leads Old Crazy Zoey off to the deconsecrated Chapel, to counsel her against drugs and against actively pursuing burnout.
Zoey: "Did you get married in a church?"
Jackie: "We had a long, hot afternoon Mass, or so I'm told."
Zoey, verbatim: "I know that if I get married I'm going to be a sweaty bride. I think about that a lot. It's not good."
While Jackie tells her to chill, the pedometer tells her to get back up again and, Pavlovianiacally, she jumps up and does isometrics in church for a sec until Jackie jerks her down again with a single barked order. It's pretty amazing.
Gloria's got one of those posterboard fundraising thermometers and she's coloring it in for her fat kids, and a variety of dick-loving characters -- Thor, Eleanor -- show up and bother her about how it looks like a penis. Except it doesn't, so I guess this was funnier on the page, before Props managed to create the least phallic phallus prop of all time; it goes on for so long the imaginary penis of the thermometer starts to feel like the baby in Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? because really somebody should have stepped in. Maybe this is happening because lesbians run Hollywood, or at least this show, but who knows: Trust me when I say that I know what a dick looks like, I can identify them pretty much on sight at this point, and this is... not at all what they look like.
Lou is the most loveable patient they've ever had on this show, as the entire hospital staff cannot wait to tell you, but they're also right. Just wanna eat him up. He is fifty, and he passed out in the lobby of the Time-Life Building. He was on his way to his first interview in months, but now must stick to charming the pants off everybody in the hospital with his winsome sweet ways and sad-puppy eyes and generally doomed aura. I wish he was in every episode of this show just getting hugs and secret treats and special treatment from everybody.
Coop, as Eleanor makes fun of his shoes and notifies him that he has a bunion and not hoops-related b-ball injuries, warns the Chief that he is a fierce competitor. Because there is no reasoning with Coop, Eleanor "indulges" him to the tune of pretending to race him to the trauma, even giving him a headstart, so he hobbles off on his bunion. I don't even really know what a bunion is but it seems like something that would happen to Fitch Cooper.
Coop: (Tags Eddie into the race, as though that makes sense.)
Eddie: (Can't stop being nervous about his big barbecue date with Kevin and his sister.)
Coop: (Spaz spaz spazzing.)
Zoey: (Same.)
Lou: "I was interviewing for an ad sales job, because I am the only person on earth who has ever enjoyed doing that. I recently quit my hypertension medicine because my life is going down the toilet. It started with doing a sensible alternative-treatment regimen that was actually working, but now that I am poor and have no job and a family, and I'm living out that sad park-bench cliché of a man with no job and a family, I can no longer afford real medicine, much less fake rich-people pretend experiment medicine."
Jackie: "For being Lou, you deserve real medicine. Luckily, I am a champion stealer of medicines of all kinds."
They: (Are totally cute some more, because Lou is the best.)
Coop: "I am here to ruin everything!"
Fitch demands a cortisone shot so that he can, I don't know, challenge Eleanor to a b-ball game of the hoops, but Jackie finally breaks it to him that he has a bunion -- he acts like she invited him to come out of the closet to her in private, but then for him this is probably the masculinity equivalent because he has no clue about anything.
Jackie: "Hey, New Dad. Aren't drugs the best?"
New Dad: "I love Valium. I am now clear-headed and ready to desert my wife and new child."
Jackie: "That's not what drugs are for! Except for usually, they are. You know, it's perfectly normal to be scared."
New Dad, verbatim: "You know what's scary? Watching my wife scream for ten hours, then shit right in front of me. They tell you that might happen, but you think No, not her. Not my girl. When I was born my parents had a house. I have an alcove studio and about $1,000 in my savings account. What is that?"
Jackie: "It's a start."
(Both are valid arguments.)
Jackie marches the New Dad -- who has embraced the cliché to the point of Facebooking old girlfriends -- up to Maternity, borrowing a couple's infant on the way so he can smell the head of the baby.)
Jackie: "Put your head right here. Inhale, okay? This is what you're gonna smell every time you feel like you don't know what you're doing. Just smell. Okay?"
(It is magic*, Jackie is magic, sinners and saints, blah blah.
All New Parents: (Immediately erupt into backbiting, sniping, worried headaching bad citizenry. It is the way of things.)
*(NOTE: This only works on women. I love babies more than anybody I know, but the head-smelling trick is solely for the ladies.)
Coop, verbatim and deliciously: "I'm picking up a few extra hours this week. Bonus Coop!"
Thor: "We're working on changing our fantasy football team name from Man-Crush to Cooper-Duper."
(!!!)
Coop: "You like me better than Dr. O'Hara, don't you?"
Thor: "I'd like you a lot more if you focused on your receivers."
(Yeah yeah, that's what they all say.)
Free drugs for Lou, Lou leaves, the whole ER team goes into swoon mode about how awesome Lou is, and he totally is so well done show, and also Zoey gave him her pedometer so he can measure his slow sad march toward ignoble death one step at a time.
Jackie feels weird admitting it, but the motorcycle ride Queensward is actually kind of awesome. Eddie forgets himself and touches her hair, and she very smoothly takes that shit out of the equation. Out back, Eddie and Tunie have already hit it off, having that conversation TV people and regular people can't ever stop having about lighter fluid vs. no lighter fluid.
Grace: (Much crazy talk about CO2 offgassing, carbon footprint, turning the lights off when you're not in a room, etc.)
Eddie & Tunie: (Humor her lovingly, because at least she's not prophesying the end of days as usual. Then they flirt.)
Upstairs, Kevin's missing and there are a shit ton of clothes missing from the closet and drawers; clearl
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y he has finally left Jackie's horrible ass. She comes zooming downstairs like they got pharmaceuticals.
Tunie: "Stop hyperventilating. Kevin took clothes to the girls' school for a clothing drive."
Fiona: "FOR THE UNFORTUNATE."
Jackie: (Moderately unclenches.)
Fiona: "What does fortunate mean?"
(Oh, honey. Don't even bother.)
Tunie: "Yeah, you know, just like stuff like all Kevin's clothes, apparently, and also stuff from all your drug-hiding spots down in the basement. No big deal. During the barbecue he is throwing for his friend that barely knows either of us."
Jackie: (Reclenches; Tunie drags her off for an aside once Grace realizes he's been gone for like two hours.)
Tunie: "Okay actually he went to an Al-Anon meeting, but since addiction is a shameful secret and recovery should be kept in the dark and moldy parts of our households, I was just lying before."
Jackie: "Oh, sorry. I don't care anymore and totally checked out about Kevin. Now, you said something about my drug-hiding places?"
Jackie, agonizing minutes or hours or days later: "Welcome home, Kevin! You sure haven't been gone a suspiciously long time! During this party that you threw for your friend who barely knows the rest of us as far as you know. Hey, listen, Eddie and Tunie are having a great time out in the backyard. I think age-inappropriate relationships nobody ever mentions are the most stable of all."
Kevin: "Yeah, look at us!"
Jackie: "Annnnyway, I'm going to go rifle through those clothes you donated and steal back my drugs from those nuns, okay? Or hey, do you want to come? I've done much sketchier shit in front of you and you still never notice, so I'm sure it'll be fine. Plus I need to be distracted from how my boyfriend is now somehow dating both my husband and my sister-in-law."
Kevin: "Listen, our marriage is doing great. You do whatever you want. I'm content to flirt with you for a bit and then let you run out into the metropolitan night to act weird like usual. I'm still tired from that Al-Anon meeting I may or may not have attended."
Jackie nearly clotheslines a nun at Sacred Heart for stupidly getting in between her and her drugs:
Nun: "Hey, crazy-eyed drug addict mommy! You just go rifling through those donations all you want."
Jackie: "I mean, it's my kids' baptism outfits."
Nun: "Say no more."
Jackie: "Yeah, that worked on my husband too."
Drugs, muffled under I guess all of the clothes that Kevin owns: "We're in here, Jackie! Inside this mitten! Right where you left us!"
Jackie: "Found ya! You little stinkers, I was worried!"
Drugs: "We weren't, Jackie! We knew you'd kill that nun if you had to."
Jackie: "You can count on me, little guys. It's because I love you."
Drugs: "And also because you're a sleazy lying drug addict."
Jackie: "Oh, damn. You're right. That feels terrible when you say it like that."
Drugs: "Luckily we have the perfect suggestion on how to deal with bad feelings!"
Jackie: "Oh yeah? What's your suggestion?"
(An agreement is reached.)
The end.
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