Nurse Jackie
We’ll be going into withdrawal after today because it’s our last Nurse Jackie (2009-2015) fix. The series ends with Jackie (Edie Falco) overdosing yet again. The acclaimed dramedy has mimicked real-life addiction, with Jackie ending season after season in a nightmare addiction trap. “The story of addiction is that they are often highly loveable individuals – charismatic, charming… They systematically go about destroying all feelings of attachment to the people around them,” says Edie. But along with Jackie’s trail of destruction, we’ll also remember the show’s highs, like…
Jackie’s righteous vengeance when she swore into a sexually abusive diplomat’s severed ear before flushing it down the loo to avenge the hooker he stabbed (season 1 episode 1, 2009). Stern Akalitus (Anna Devere Smith) moaned about irresponsible staff when she found a taser abandoned on the hospital floor, leading to hysterical flailing after she accidentally shocked herself (season 1 episode 5, 2009). A cute rat paid for eating the drugs that Jackie hid in her ceiling by dying and falling down onto Zoey’s (Merritt Wever) salad wrap, so Jackie wrapped it in a tortilla and flushed it… like an ear (season 3 episode 5, 2011)! In a brilliant and shocking confession, Jackie admitted to her rehab group that she started taking drugs not because she hurt her back, but because her baby Grace screamed for two years straight (season 4 episode 2, 2012). And we loved the way that Zoey’s collection of over 47 different patterns of medical scrubs throughout the series – from alligators to pink pigs to frogs holding flowers – reflected her joyful spirit. The bunny scrubs were Merritt’s favourite.