Jackie, Take Four

Note: Spoilers for this episode

I thought episode four was fine. It dealt with the death of a character it had bothered to humanize quite a bit, and this unblinking treatment was surprising and affecting. The drawing used to illustrate Jackie’s daughter’s anxiety was an effective device, made more so by the counterpoint of another child’s drawing at the end. Her effortlessly caring approach for a worried parent and her instruction to Zoey in this matter were also powerful (you really want someone like Jackie to care for you when you are in the hospital).

But somehow the episode fell rather flat, I thought. The half-hour time frame continues to work against the show: our investment in the characters depends on their change over time, but the events here seem so rushed and episode-bound that I am diverted more than intrigued by the latest crisis. The daughter’s problem could certainly provoke some interesting conflicts, but her time onscreen so far has been quite limited. Presumably that will change if this subplot is going to develop. The hint of conflict with her husband also seems like it could become interesting, but so far her juggling of her multiple relationships is so nearly seamless that it’s hard to care about this issue. The text messages from her lover that she gets while with her husband (one is afraid he’ll see them) suggest the conflict here may intensify. That would be good. Because for all the messiness of Jackie’s life, she is handling things too smoothly for dramatic purposes. Even a comedy, especially one with not much good comedy, needs emotional stories to tell.