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Poor sweet sad Lou is back, as well as the fake-asthma little girl from last week, and the devil man supervillain guy. Jackie, having lost some of her pills to the rats in the ceiling, goes begging to the devil man, and of course he gives her some pills in the most fucked up way possible (inside a sobriety chip container), with the scariest devil-man smile of all time. Along with this foreboding is the scary feelings of watching Lou circle the drain.
On the other hand, watching Eleanor and Jackie fake-fight over the little asthma girl's future so she won't be infected by the awfulness of her dickhead mom was one of the sweetest things this whole season, so it's a wash.
Gloria gets Jackie and Thor to help her steal the Virgin Mary statue from the chapel, and Thor is pissy about the way Jackie treats him for a second, but that's all the hospital stuff basically. Oh, and a stoned rat drops out of the ceiling onto Zoey's lunch wrap, so that was fun. Although when Jackie flushes it, you might learn that the visual of a big rat going down a toilet is viscerally upsetting.
What else? Coop's moms are breaking up, and one of them has turned into Judith Light. I loooove looking at Judith Light, especially wearing purple, so that is just fine. Coop is, of course, a massive drama queen about it, and adds several minutes to the show's already impressive collection of "Jackie Peyton standing there awkwardly while somebody hugs her" footage that will eventually be made into some kind of YouTube video.
So as we head into the halfway point of the season, we're seeing more recurring characters than this show usually has, and we also have devil-man finally stepping up to be Jackie's dealer. I am fascinated by this storyline, and by the ongoing awesomeness of poor sweet Lou, but given this show's history it's just as likely we'll never see either of them again, so I'm trying not to get my hopes up.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Zoey's pink bunnies inform Jackie's sensible nurse shoes that "Cantasha" -- aka Candace & Natasha, the non-asthma asthma pair from last week -- are back. And not only are they back, but they littered! Zoey can't figure any of this out.
Jackie: "...So nobody's sick."
Zoey: "Nobody's ever sick! They're always here and they're never sick!"
Jackie blows her off to bitch at Eddie for having textual communication with Tunie, pointing out that she's the sister-in-law of a ticking time bomb. Eddie checks her out, silently, finally admitting he's just looking for the leg to stand on. The hit connects and she throws her hands up, telling him to go for it. "But just so you know, she was up half the night hacking into her ex-boyfriend's email. Who is a pilot, by the way."
It's interesting, because nothing ever sticks on this show, but the thing that stuck is Eddie's new bizarre place in her life. No wonder she can't adjust; no wonder she's feeling something that just can't be jealousy. Jackie doesn't like it when the puppets go off book; especially when she has to start shit while pretending there's no shit to start.
Finally, nervily, Eddie offers her some Valium and she snits that she's not stressing about the possibility of her ex-boyfriend dating both her husband and his sister, and this with such voluble pissiness that she ends up coming off even more stressed about it than she actually is, which works just fine for Eddie but more importantly starts the ramping up of Jackie's stress level that will pay off at the end of the episode.
Which episode is, probably, the best of the season, so you should watch it again because this is as good as it's going to get. So: Round One to Eddie, which is itself a danger sign.
Thor comes running up to Jackie with his most adorable excited squealing, and she totally cuts him off in a way neither we nor Thor are used to seeing. The first thing I thought was, "That was totally a Zoey, she just Zoey'd Thor, how awful," and then later on he says the exact same thing.
In comes a GSW, meaning lots of running around for Eleanor and Fitch, both screaming for Jackie, but Jackie is nowhere to be found: Jackie's down in some office somewhere (The tapdancing room? Maybe the place she spaced out in the first finale?) retrieving drugs down from an acoustic tile. Sadly, the rats are back, and have seriously depleted her stash. She counts them out on a blotter calendar while the music gets more and more nervous for her: What was once seven grains, no more no less, has become five giant blue pills a day -- and her days are running out. She nearly starts crying, poor thing.
The GSW codes immediately, which Coop takes as an opportunity to start his Chief shit with Eleanor again about how they were both there, so the guy died on both their watch, so whatever, competitive pressure. Their conversation is pretty great:
Coop: "Look, I respect you as a doctor, but I also respect you as a competitor."
O'Hara: "One of the many differences between you and I, Dr. Cooper..."
(But of course she's too classy to leave it there.)
O'Hara: "...Is that you keep score on things that never should be scored."
Coop: "You're gonna need those coping skills when you're my subordinate."
O'Hara: "Surely any woman that's ever been under you has needed coping skills."
Fitch bounces for cottage-cheese pancakes with his moms at the Central Park boathouse, and Jackie finally shows up to take care of the body. Eleanor is still wearing her civvies and her hair is adorable, so she's even sadder-looking as she leaves Jackie to it. "Bless your heart," she tells the young victim; you can't help thinking maybe she could have saved him. Two doctors, one Jackie? No comparison.
Cantasha is all over Zoey and Sam, in Admitting, and it's this unbelievably frustrating conversation about how they need her to fill out her paperwork but she refuses to fill out the paperwork but they need her to fill out the paperwork, etc. She is belligerent and annoying, just like everybody in Admitting, and randomly calls Sam India.Arie, which is kind of funny. There's a little moment where the eye-rolling tween does an amazing impression of her mother she doesn't even know she's doing, and your brain starts trying not to do the poverty-cycle math on them.
Jackie appears and is brusque and charming with the mom, sliding the clipboard under the window glass, and the mom gives her this instant-death look that is kind of chilling. Once she's gone, Sam notes that he's familiar with Cantasha from every other hospital in town, back when he was temping. Jackie finally explains to them that it's about making hospital visits on record so they can get more assistance, like we thought; as usual, she's dismissive and mean to Sam at the same time she's treating him to Jackie 101. Wisely, Zoey keeps it schtum at this time. Jackie heads out, straight into this awesome conversation:
Gloria: "Have you ever stolen anything?"
Jackie: "Yes, many times."
Gloria: "Good. Chapel, half hour. Bring Thor."
Eleanor's bandaging up Lou when Jackie gets back to the beds; my God just seeing him makes me start welling up. I don't know, I mean, they kept saying how awesome he was last week and I guess on some level you take that onboard and love him too -- who are we to argue with the heartfelt attachments of Thor and Zoey Barcow -- but honestly it's just entirely the actor, Michael Cumpsty. I love him on such a basic level that I got startled into crying when he showed up in Eat Pray Love for all of five seconds. He could turn out to be playing a child molester and I would still want to hold his hand. Of all the wonderful casting coups this show poaches from Broadway all the time, this is the most brilliant casting thing I can think of that they've done. His face is the most beautiful thing in the world.
And so, along those lines, goes the latest Lou thing: The hypertension is acting up, and he's falling down a lot more, and this time he broke his wrist and chipped a tooth in that magnificent head of his. Jackie -- happier to see him than she usually shows anybody besides Fiona, even Eleanor -- asks him why he isn't taking his medication, after last time.
The first thing he does is apologize for forgetting her name. He's a salesman, Lou Babiak; knowing names is the thing he does.
Eleanor disappears, as Jackie's getting the whole bastard story from him: Lost his job, COBRA ran out, everything ran out, time is running out, he's humiliated, he's never missed child support in twenty years, his children are going to hate him. He is so slow, and quiet, and noble, and still. A failure?
Jackie: "First of all, nothing could be further from the truth. Second of all, our kids love us blindly. Believe me, I am counting on it."
She's getting him dressed when Eleanor comes back, bearing a crisp white paper bag containing a year's worth of meds. "Come and see me in a year," she says, and he's at a loss for words. "Say nothing," she grins. "I just broke the law."
Possibly I should not wish to see Lou Babiak every week. Possibly it would just fucking kill me. Lou is a thing -- along with Zoey, along with Jackie, along with Gloria and God and tap-dancing Thor -- that the show can't help but do perfectly. (Harvey Fierstein climbing the walls last year: Compare, and contrast.) I'd like to meet Michael Cumpsty one day, and shake his hand. I'd probably start crying, though, in that shivery creepy fan way, and then probably I'd Zoey out and, like, push him down and run away. But it's nice to imagine that not happening.
Outside, Eleanor admits she was inspired by Jackie, it was a Jackie move, but that imitation is the only form of flattery she'll be getting as long as she wears those scrubs. (Dissing the scrubs, always funny on this show considering how ridiculously cute and unrealistically tailored Jackie's are. She looks like a bra model in those things.)
Jackie grabs Thor for their secret Akalitus mission, and he's very chilly with her due to the rudeness this morning:
Thor: "Totally dismissive. You talked to me like... Like I was Zoey."
Jackie: "Oh, Jesus..."
Thor: "And the hits just keep coming!"
Jackie: "I'm sorry, honey. I didn't mean to be dismissive. I just have a lot going on at home."
Thor: "That's another thing, you didn't even tell me you were married."
Jackie: "You didn't even tell me you were diabetic, I had to find out in the middle of a trauma."
Thor: "Um, that's a disease?"
Jackie: "My point is, it was personal and I just figured you didn't wanna discuss it in this... little shop of horrors."
(Consider Thor placated. One musical theater reference away, now that he can't eat sugar.)
Thor: "Before we go in, I just wanna make sure that you understand why my feelings were hurt..."
Jackie: "Oh my God let's go."
Heh. Jackie is so coded-lesbian -- see Fitch Cooper in a minute for the other side of this equation -- that when it jumps out at you like that, it's hilarious. See, lesbians and gay men have this thing about each other where both sides talk endlessly about their feelings while scoffing at the other side for doing the same thing. Lesbians roll their eyes when men have feelings because they're starting drama, and gay men roll their eyes when lesbians talk about feelings because it's the same conversation over and over, just basting in the mire of lesbian emotion.
But the truth is that lesbians use emotional processing to talk shit about each other, while gay men use personal conversation to talk endlessly about themselves. So when Thor brings up his feelings to coded-gay Jackie, it's annoying to her lesbian self because it's drama. And when coded-gay Coop in a second brings up his feelings to his gay mom, same deal.
Meanwhile, Jackie has, and causes, more drama than anybody in the universe -- but because it's never expressed explicitly, it doesn't count. And when Eleanor and her girlfriend, or Eleanor and Jackie, have their little romantic moments, it's the most boring thing in the world for guys, because confrontation ("drama") is how we solve problems.
In both cases it's really about the neurosis of the oppressed: If you are -- or feel -- voiceless, you just talk louder and say the same things over and over in the hopes that somebody will hear you, or even after somebody has heard you. And I think part of the repetitive nature of lesbian emotional processing is the fact that when you're gay and a woman, it's exponential how rarely you feel heard. But we're also trained not to bring attention to ourselves, so the natural response is either to shout it from the rooftops or stay completely focused on your own bullshit -- and both of these look just bonkers to the other.
Emotional processing looks, to us, like going to a well without water and hoping you'll never be thirsty again; the flipside is that sometimes a lady just wants you to listen without fixing: To me, the craziest request of all. Not to mention the fact that it insures we'll be having the exact same conversation in a week or two, which itself drives me bonkers. Anyway, Thor has feelings and they don't matter to Jackie, which is satisfying to see her say, because my God these gays with their endless needs, and these men with their endless needs, and I've got feelings and needs and drama aplenty of my own.
Gloria has recruited these two strongest soldiers in her army, of course, to steal some statues from the recently deconsecrated chapel before they're shipped off to Staten Island. ("Ooh, yikes," snarks Jackie.) The one that Gloria loves the most, a Virgin Mary, she describes thus:
"She's tall. She's got a lot on her mind. And I relate. Also, she's not judgmental. That's something I'm working on. It's irrational, but that's the nature of faith. We're stealing her."
Such a great episode. What an enjoyable, tight, heartbreaking, hilarious thing.
Fitch bores his moms with about a million photos before they can get him to sit down for brunch. To review: Swoosie Kurtz is the Julianne Moore, and Judith Light is now playing the Annette Bening role originated by Blythe Danner. They both look like about a billion dollars, of course; I never really noticed how truly lovely Judith Light was until Ugly Betty. (Especially in violet, which she'll be wearing in a minute.) Judith picks and picks and picks, and Swoosie hems and haws and mumbles and holds off, but they finally get there:
Judith: "We have news we don't want you to get all dramatic about. Deal?"
(Hushed sidebar with all the drama of counsel at a murder trial.)
Coop: "You guys are so cute! What is it?"
(Obviously they are getting divorced.)
Judith: "...Annnnnnnnd there goes the chin."
Eddie's cracking wise about pilots with Tunie when Gloria enters, stomps through the pharmacy, and installs the Virgin Mary in what used to be Eddie and Jackie's secret rendezvous spot. Left alone with Jackie, Eddie shoots for contrite and just ends up naughty-little-kid: "She called me, all right? She's out at the airport, she's bored, and I..." Jackie shakes her head: This is how she sucks them in. And of anybody in Eddie's life, Jackie would know. How it happens to him, how it happens to everybody; how it is done.
Poor little Fitch has paddled himself in a little boat out into the middle of a lake and is refusing to talk. Finally he pipes up:
Coop: "Fine! This is bullshit!"
Judith, fiddling with her Bloody Mary: "If he's just going to sit in that little boat and curse, I'm getting a cab."
Boys and their drama. He shouts across the lake -- people staring, Swoosie blushing -- that Judith is leaving Mom for a somebody named Dina who, as it turns out, is her basically straight business partner.
Coop: "...You were straight too once, remember?"
Swoosie: "Honey, your mother and I love each other very much. We just can't bear to be in the same room together anymore."
Coop: "Dina. Dina? How ridiculous!"
Swoosie, as Judith makes a panto uh-oh face and slurps away: "...How straight is she?"
When Jackie gets back from the Pharmacy, Lou's sitting in Admitting. It's not good. I don't know that I have much to say about it. Here comes the chin.
Jackie: "Lou, are you all right? You know you were discharged... Do you need somebody to walk you out?"
Lou: "No, I left, but I... I went home, and then I came back again. I... I uh... I keep falling. Not literally, but -- well, that too, but -- I feel like I'm gonna do something stupid..."
They say when things get that bad there's two kinds of people: School shooters and suicides. Basically, that depression is anger turned inward, and anger is fear turned outward. And I grew up around clinical depression and I know what suicide looks like, and I am totally the other kind: Total school shooter. My anger, of which there is a great deal, doesn't really turn inward. So already, I don't understand how you get there.
I mean, I understand depression, I understand the inability to think your way around a dead engine, the inability to remember how you got out of the handcuffs before. The Eight of Swords. I just don't understand the part, where the action that you take is no action at all. Where you solve the problem that way.
But even more incomprehensible to me, and I think to Jackie, is the bravery just beyond that realization, when you go to someone and actually ask for help. When you admit that you're not capable of being responsible for your own welfare. That there are two yous, the one watching and the one hurting, and the one watching is no longer in control of what the other one's about to do. It just seems so lonely. I mean, I guess, that I still have so much to prove. What I don't understand is how you can say, "Just listen without fixing," and somehow know that that's what's going to fix it.
Jackie: "Okay."
Lou: "I didn't know where else to go."
Jackie: "Okay, you're all right. Come with me."
She doesn't look away, she doesn't do anything: She fixes without thinking. We heal others to heal ourselves; sometimes for reasons even better than that. She takes Lou -- not by the hand, not with anything less than the total dignity and grace he deserves, and carries with him -- up for an eval, and a bed. A short battle of wills later with the receiving nurse, and they take him in.
Lou's glasses are fixed in the middle with tape, from where he took his spill today. Jackie borrows them, just for an hour. He smiles at her, beautiful. The rats are in the ceilings, chewing at the crumbs. Listening.
Tasha's breathing okay, as Eleanor's examining her; just in case, they check her breath, mother nattering on all the time. Showing concern, in her way. Jackie pulls Eleanor aside a moment, and they regroup.
Eleanor: "Everyone's entitled to decent health care!"
Jackie: "If you come in sick I will fix you, if you pretend to be sick I am gonna pretend to fix you."
Eleanor: "Recent history notwithstanding, I do know when I'm being swindled."
Jackie: "Oh, all right. Let it out."
Eleanor: "You'd better hope I never do."
Jackie's point is that Eleanor is encouraging Tasha to play the system, and Eleanor grins at her: Encouraging Tasha is exactly what she plans to do. Jackie's not always a step ahead. Eleanor is just rocking it this week:
"So you've been to lots of hospitals, looks like? Pretty boring, I imagine. Waiting rooms are miserable places. I really appreciate your patience. Much more interesting on this side of things. Did you ever think about becoming a doctor? Bet you'd be wonderful."
Jackie grins. She loves in Eleanor the things we love in her:
"Well, there she goes again. She always tries to get the smart ones to become doctors. The smartest people I know are the nurses, you should become a nurse. It's much cooler."
They play-fight over her, like tiger kittens. She breathes easier. Jackie breathes easier.
Since Thor won't tell Zoey if he's ever been with a woman (hoo-wee the answer is a resounding no), she won't tell him what she's eating for lunch. Sam sneaks a peek and tells, and Zoey rolls her eyes madly: "I'd have told him. When I was ready."
Thor's already happy to be unimpressed by other people's food -- it's a salad wrap, presumably from Quizno's -- when the fat, drugged, dead rat drops out of the sky and into Zoey's lunch. She jumps into Thor's arms, and everybody stares up.
Jackie drops the tortilla on the corpse and takes it into the bathroom, pissed as hell: "You messed with my stash," she grunts, and we're treated to the incredibly troubling visual of a giant grown-up rat being sucked down into the industrial pipes.
Immediately thereafter, she runs into Coop outside: He throws himself on her, once she makes the mistake of asking if he's okay in the wake of the divorce, and sobs all over her horrified self. Soon enough, he straightens his back and braves it out: "You know what I'm gonna do now? I'm gonna heal some shit." He sniffs it back and pops his shades back on, leaving her in eloquent and hilarious silence.
At the diner, Fiona's on the phone telling her all kinds of things when the Devil comes in. He gives her the drugs in a thirty-day chip's commemorative box; it will be a long engagement. The chip belonged to a client who didn't quite make it. "I'm rooting for you," he grins.
He listens. He doesn't fix.
They finish up Lou's glasses and she takes them to his nurse. No need to see his face again, now. The last thing he did was smile. It was beautiful.
She drops the chip in one pocket just as an exterminator walks by.
"Rats," Jackie says. They listen and they steal and the hide in the places you don't have to look at. They need to be exterminated. The pills go in the other pocket, and she heads back home.
He helps you find the bottom, and when you've found the bottom he hands you a shovel, and that's the way to come back to life. He burns out everything that makes you God, little king of your little kingdom, all the back-up plans and secret stashes, until nothing else is left but you and your fear. Turned outward, it is anger. Turned inward, it is death. Take the impossible step of turning to face it, and letting it burn you: You'd have to be a saint. You'd have to be as strong as Lou.
The Devil is a salesman, too. He listens, but he doesn't fix. That's the fix: When you have no moves, no actions left to play. "You'd better hope I never let it all out," we say. It just seems lonely.
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