‘Nursing’ Is Hard Work: ‘Nurse Jackie,’ Episode 2

Note: spoilers for episode 2.

So, episode 2 … Our nurse continues her wise ways, subduing a violent patient with a well-timed dose of courtesy when physicians and police were having trouble. I liked this subplot, but not much the rest of the episode, in which a seemingly bizarre suggestion about a patient’s condition from Coop turns out to be correct (this outcome could be seen coming a mile away; also, why wouldn’t Dr. O’Hara listen briefly to a colleague? Is this normal? Healthcare professionals, clue me in …) and nervous nurse-in-training Zoey both becomes nervous about her chosen profession a bit too easily and then gets reassured a bit too easily by Jackie’s mix of moral support and sternness. Nor did I find the unknowingly-high antics of hospital official Gloria Akatilus (Anna Deveare Smith) to show any subtlety or humor.

The show continues to suggest that nursing is gritty work that allows a real sense of accomplishment and requires a quietly ingenious daily pragmatism to be done well. This message and the mood used to help convey it are compelling, but the narratives used to portray them are so rushed—again, this series needs a full hour—that the delivery feels didactic and a bit trite. A case in point is Jackie’s drug use—a harrowing, ambiguous narrative and emotional backdrop for the series, but one whose gravity is undercut by using Falco’s narration to discuss it, as though it’s a casual activity entirely under her control. Since it’s a solitary activity, this narrative technique is understandable, but so far the show hasn’t shown her to have any experiences with drug use that convey any deeper, more complex information about its role in her personality and coping that might make it interesting on its own terms. We’re just supposed to gather its meaning from what Jackie tells us about it.

Remembering that Nurse Jackie is a comedy, I feel a little friendlier toward it. Its settings and characters are more complex and interesting than what I associate with sitcoms, but this show purports to be about characters and institutions as well. So far it has not transcended cliché in these areas, but it’s still a young series, and I admit I enjoy it, in a voyeuristic sort of way. I just don’t find it as interesting or moving or thought-provoking as it seemed to want to be. Perhaps I can sum up my feelings thus far by saying that this is a “dark comedy” that seems to skip the “dark” part almost entirely.