Nurse Jackie 6/3/12 Chaud & Froid

Cafe Society
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We haven’t had a Nurse Jackie thread in quite some time and with the season rolling to an end I thought I would start one and see how many people are still on board. Also, I thought this was a really good episode.

While I’m almost never a fan of the “character does X/character is forced to take responsibility” formula. It bugs me when I read a thread about a show and people moan and bitch about how some character has been cheating on their wife or doing drugs (or making drugs) or killing people or has whatever character flaw and never gets whats coming to them. Because, ya know what, some people do glide through life with no consequences. We all had that friend in high school that cheated on every homework assignment and test and still graduated with a 2.9 (etc etc etc). Having said that, I think they did a phenomenal job in this show of having Jackie’s life very subtly unravel as the drug addiction took a backseat. It didn’t feel like “You did drugs/you lost your husband.” At least for me, you almost have to go out of your way to remember that all the divorce stuff is happening because of the drug addiction.

There’s only two episodes left this season so I’m going to guess that the rest of the season is going to continue downhill for her with next season possibly being on her way back up.

While I’m guessing…here’s something just to toss out there. On paper, Jackie has always been a great nurse, everyone there can vouch for her and would probably tell the chief of medicine that she could run the floor. Perhaps Cruz will get fired or have to leave if something happens to his son and she’ll get his job. IIRC the only people that would be up for it would be Coop and O’Hara. O’Hara’s having the baby and Coop, who knows. First off, I don’t think he’s competent enough to do it and they seem to be setting him up to get together with O’Hara. I could see her not letting him take it so Jackie could have it if things go that way. Just to follow this train of thought for a second, I could also see the stress getting to her and her very quickly starting to use again. Now, everyone tell me what ginormous detail I completely overlooked that makes this scenario unpossible.

Lastly, this is my damn thread. There won’t be any spoilers. Everything is free game. You can talk about the previews, you can discuss things you think you know about next episode or next season, anything you want.

Speaking of the previews I really liked the exchange between Jackie and Coop.
Jackie-Gloria and Eddie were fired
Coop-Cruz?
Jackie-No, Zooey let them go.
Coop-How could Zo-[Makes face as if to say 'oh, wait, I get it, you’re making fun of me because I’m dumb, ha ha, good one :cool:)

Lastly, I see a blurb on the IMDB page that they were renewed for a fifth season but it specifically mentioned that there’s no word on how many episodes were ordered. I’ve never seen that caveat before.

Lastly for the third time. I think I may have been a little hard on you all about the spoilers thing. I don’t want to ruin the thread for anyone, but I also really don’t want a threadful of spoilers. You’re not going to ruin anything for me and this isn’t really the type of show that there’s much TO ruin. But if you feel strongly about putting something in spoilers go for it.

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[spoiler]

Just kidding[/spoiler]

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Heck, Jackie is clearly a high-functioning addict. I’m sure we’ve all met them in our daily lives and not known it.

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I’ll be interested to see how they bring Eddie and Gloria back. They’re major characters in this thing, so I don’t see them disappearing completely. I’ve been wrong before. How Jackie could NOT be fired is a different story. Not for being an addict, but for stealing drugs from the hospital.

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That is a pretty tight-knit clique at the hospital, and somehow I don’t see this ending well for Cruz. He is frustrated and pissed off about his son and how things are out of control, but Management 101 teaches you not to alienate your entire staff and expect kudos.

I think this might be a one-season gig for Cruz and then things return to “normal”.

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There’s no record of her stealing anything, no record of her having a positive drug test, in fact I don’t think there’s anything negative at all on her. The closest thing they have is a video of Gloria throwing away something, that’s it. Gloria made an interesting comment. She said that lots of people have tried to fire her, but he’s the first person who did it. What did all these other people do that resulted in her not getting fired? All he did was tell her that she was fired? My only guess is that she was basically admitting that the camera feed was what it appeared to be…or she has something else up her sleeve.

Also, Cruz’s son’s health depends on Jackie’s future employment, at least for the next episode or two.

As for Eddie/Gloria/Cruz, the previews hinted at a mutiny.

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I kinda like Cruz, but I figure him firing Eddie and Gloria but not Jackie is going to get him in the end.

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I hate to be the Grim Reaper, but I don’t think Cruz’s son Charlie is gonna last much longer. He’ll either OD or take a header out of the rehab hospital window.

Cruz will then feel he’s got no reason to keep Jackie, and he’ll go to fire her, but I bet HE’s an even higher-functioning user than she could ever be.

Which explains why Cruz and his son would never be able to get along: the kid knows about his old man’s habit, and all he sees is the hypocrite.
~VOW

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Well, it’s not inconceivable that the kid will kill his dad and then himself, though how this might lead to the rehiring of Eddie and Gloria, I couldn’t say.

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Oh, I don’t think Charlie will kill his dad. But Cruz DEFINITELY would not be able to handle it if his son offs himself.

And Cruz will absolutely learn that you cannot separate “work life” from “home life.” Duh.
~VOW

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Well, if I was going for a “TV-reality” idea (i.e. the kind of stuff that only happens on TV shows)… Gloria returns on the later day mentioned to get her stuff, and that’s when Charlie comes in after taking an overdose. Gloria and Jackie perform so heroically to save his life (though the effort ultimately proves futile), that Cruz relents, rehires Gloria and resigns.
Or at least that’s how a badly written show would handle it.

12

OK, so we have come to the end of the season and I see that some of the predictions here were close to the mark. I hadn’t actually seen this thread when it first was posted, which is funny. I’m usually constantly searching for people to talk Nurse Jackie with me.

I felt kind of sucker-punched by the Charlie story even though we all saw it coming a mile away. I can’t even really explain my reaction. I think something about the fact that they are father and son in real life, and my own son being a source of concern this weekend (not for drugs; he has pneumonia) and Cruz having said earlier in the episode, “I don’t give a shit what my kid wants.” Just…oof.

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Oh my God, where have I been? I’ve only seen the last three episodes of this show. I am so hooked. I’ve been a fan of Edie Falco since I saw her on the Sopranos. She rocks this show. Needless to say I’m still pretty uncertain who the characters are. Cruz is a douchbag. Is there a reason that he’s such a DB; or is it like someone said above… he’s a hypocrite user himself?

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Excellent season finale. They packed a lot in that half hour.

The nice thing about this finale is they can go anywhere starting next season. They can keep or fire Cruz, Jackie can stay clean or fall off the wagon after what has happened, the pregnancy storyline is over, the staff is united; yeah, they have a pretty clean slate to go in any direction next season.

If you have never seen the show, you should catch in On Demand or if Netflix has it, give it a try. My only complaint is the show is too short - wish it were an hour.

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Do yourself a favor. Go back and start from the beginning.
I actually envy the viewer who has all the seasons in front of him/her. But this was my favorite season thus far. People worried that clean and sober Jackie would kill the show, and I feel like it’s stronger than ever.

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I took that as "My kid is a drug addict and I’m not going to bargain with him…espcially not when my professional life is involved (and it didn’t work the first time). Besides, he quite correctly read that [way to keep a promise to your kid] as a last ditch effort from another addict.

Cruz is the epitome of a corporate guy who’s come down from on high to whip the hospital into shape and turn it into a money making machine. He symbolizes the suit who only cares about money and doesn’t know what it’s like for the people down in the trenches…the people who are making his money.
He’s Dr Kelso from Scrubs, Mr Crabs from Spongebob, every business owner who’s ever ever sat in his plush office and heard an employee say ‘you don’t know what’s it’s like out there’ while he replies ‘fuck what it’s like out there, just do your job’.

Next season should be interesting. We could see Cruz leaving and Gloria back (and Jackie using). We could see Cruz staying put and blaming Jackie for Charlie. It’s possible he’ll assume she told Charlie that she got fired and makes it hard for her to get another job in the health care field. Also, O’hara (and probably Coop) is going to be on Maternity leave. Even if Cruz stays he’s going to need some help and like it or not, Jackie has proven herself competent time and time again.

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Nah, as I said earlier, they’ve put the addiction in the background, but it’s still there. Akolitis and Eddie losing their jobs, Jackie getting fired, Fi getting pulled out of school, the divorce, Kevin punching Eddie…sure that all happened after she got on the wagon, but it’s all very much fallout from her addiction.

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Well, yeah, I took it that way, too. But if I ever heard those words come out of my mouth and then later that same day, my kid died (I want to throw up even typing that), I wouldn’t be concentrating on what the intent of my statement was.

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BTW, did it bother anyone else that the only way to get from the street to the L&D floor was to go through the Emergency Department? I wish they could have come up with a reason for her not having gone through one of the other 10 doors around the perimeter of the building. Even just a ‘Shit! Why haven’t they fixed this fuckin’ elevator yet" and have her get caught on the way to the elevator over by the ED where she could have gotten into it with Cruz and seen Charlie coming in.

Also, I think Cruz pulling her over to help says a lot. He could have just shoo’d her away but he took her with him.

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I think the intent was ‘fuck it, I’m done doing it his way, now we’re gonna do things my way’ But I think it was a heat of the moment thing. He was fed up with Charlie, fed up with Jackie, fed up with work, fed up with life.

Besides, it’s not like anything had happened between him and his son between saying it and his son dying.