Sex, drugs, and beautiful people: What more could a viewer ask for in a great television series? For starters, they could ask for more Nurse Jackie please. Nurse Jackie is a dynamic, dark comedy about drug addicted, quick-witted, highly intelligent emergency room nurse Jackie Peyton. Her satirical humor draws audiences in with comments like, “Percocet should never be crushed, broken or chewed. Unless you want it to hit your system like a bolt of lightning. Which is only a problem if you’re afraid of lightning, which I am not.” This comment pertains to a scene where she crushes a Percocet tablet and packages it in small sugar packets so she can snort the drug later at work. Jackie is an extremely round character. Her life is full of complexities, including her drug addiction, her extramarital affair with the hospital pharmacist, her battle to help her anxiety ridden child, and the stresses she faces at work. Her realisitic character is a breath of fresh air for television viewers. Nurse Jackie is hands down the most realistic and humorous medical drama that has ever graced America’s monstrous flat screen televisions.
Jackie’s drug addiction is one of her most realistic complexities. Addiction is a widespread epidemic in the real life of nursing due to the availability of narcotic medications. She claims to have issues with her back from the many years of physically demanding hospital work. Jackie, as a round character, contradicts herself in many ways with her addiction. She preaches to her patients and coworkers about addiction, yet she is waist deep in it. In one episode a young married woman arrives in the emergency room withdrawing from opiates, and Jackie greets her by saying, “You can’t just stop taking opiates just like that; you have to taper off them. You’re on a slippery slope. Trying to get pregnant while taking painkillers recreationally is not a great plan.” Ironically, Jackie tells the patient she will give her information to an addiction specialist, and as she is rooting through her purse for the information she pulls out a Vicodin tablet that just happens to be stuck to her notepad. She then proceeds to swallow the narcotic like a pro and goes about her daily hospital life. Who said all fictional medical shows are boring? Nurse Jackie is so much more satisfying than watching George Clooney from the show ER perform chest compressions to save a dying patient.
Jackie has an extramarital affair throughout the show with Eddie the hospital pharmacist. This behavior notes the other parts of her complex “life”. Affairs are something we all unfortunately know too well of, but when they are fictional it is so juicy and fun! It seems that she is happily married to her gorgeous husband Kevin, and has two beautiful daughters Grace and Fiona. On the contrary, she lives a double life that she hides extremely well from all of her coworkers; they do not even know she is married with children! After a fight with Eddie, her best friend and fellow nurse Mo-Mo asks why she is frustrated, and she says, “I had a fight with my…boyfriend.” He gasps in shock and says, “Boyfriend?” She quips, “Honey, you do all the talking.” Her dearest friends have no idea about her real family life! This is truly great television.
Grace, Jackie’s eldest daughter, has issues with extreme anxiety and obsessive compulsive behaviors. Grace’s school calls Jackie and Kevin in for a meeting with the school psychologist, nurse, and Grace’s teacher. They explain her anxiety ridden behavior, and Grace’s teacher says, “She circles her desk three times before she sits down. She told me it’s so planes don’t fall out of the sky.” The school nurse then suggests counseling and a low dose anti-anxiety medicine. They both start to panic, and Jackie shouts, “Thanks for your time. It’s amazing to me, you think a kid has a problem and you just make him take a pill? That’s nice work.” Please note the ironic statement that came from the prescription drug addict. Irony is the perfect recipe for an amazing television series! Their solution to help fix their stressed out child is to foot the expensive bill to a private catholic school. Jackie feels helpless as a mother in this situation, and she proceeds to do what she does best; she takes more pills.
Our heroine’s motivations are purely implicit. Jackie never quite says what drives her, what she is trying to accomplish, or what her dreams may be, but as an audience we do know that she is trying to make the healthcare system a better place for patients to thrive. Zoe, a student nurse, tells Jackie, “You’re a saint.” She sees the softness in Jackie despite her tough outer shell. Jackie goes above and beyond by making sure she always becomes friendly with the family of the patients, and she is always there to help the other nurses. Her tough love works wonders with the student nurse Zoe as Jackie says this to cheer her up:
What’s this about, nobody ate your muffins? You found an ear in the toilet? So what? This job is wading through a shit storm of people who come into this place on the very worst day of their lives. And just so you know, doctors are here to diagnose, not heal. We heal. All Saints is in the business of flipping beds, that’s it, end of story. The fact that you have even the slightest inclination to help people puts you miles ahead of 100% of the population. So stop crying, okay? Buck up. If you need to cry, go to the ladies’ room. Is that clear?
She shovels through the drama, tragedy, and less than comedic moments with great dignity every day she works. She has great compassion for all the patients that really need her help, and she teaches the ones that do not need her help to have compassion. Jackie is taking the fictional hospital healthcare system by storm each shift she works. Jackie’s portrayal of a fictional nurse is very much parallel to a real life nurse and it makes the show all the more appealing.
Jackie is furthest from a flat character. Her round characteristics include drug addiction, an extramarital affair, an anxiety stricken child, and a true passion to help patients. She is a static character throughout the show because it does not seem like she wants to kick her drug habit or stop having an affair with Eddie. Jackie is not ready to better herself, and that is very refreshing for a television series to show the protagonist as a real life person with real life problems. If that does not constitute an excellent show, I am not sure what would. What more could you ask for in a great television series? Nurse Jackie has sex, drugs, beautiful people, and kind hearted compassion. It is very rare that one finds a fictional show that is so realistic. I would like to pose a challenge to all the critics that think television writers produce flat characters: Watch Nurse Jackie with a warm bowl of buttered popcorn, a hot chocolate beverage, and a favorite pet, and I think you might just change your mind.
