I resisted watching Showtime's Nurse Jackie for a very long time. I'm not really a TV series person. Too much commitment. Plus I don't have Showtime. And past medical shows have usually disappointed.
But recently I watched my first episode of Nurse Jackie on Netflix. Within 2 weeks I had binge watched all seven seasons. I found the show so addictive and the storyline so compelling that I couldn't wait to watch each following episode. I'm still processing it and analyzing why it had such a hold on me.
Nurse Jackie is set in the emergency department of All Saints Hospital in New York city. The main character, Jackie, is an ED nurse, as is her perky protege, Zoey.
I got hooked because the main characters are nurses, the storyline is compelling, and Nurse Jackie herself is a train wreck. Edie Falco does such a phenomenal job of being Nurse Jackie that I feel as if I know her, that we could work side by side next shift. Or maybe I was hooked because of the secret vicarious thrill I got when Jackie mouths off to administrators and doctors (with good reason, mind you).
Categorized as a comedy/drama, it's a dark comedy and more drama than comedy. Warning- it's not PG. Not for everyone and not a feel-good Hallmark type series. (There's way more sex going on in that ED than any ED I've ever worked in).
The show is really about drug addiction. Jackie is a top performing ED nurse...and also a pill-popping addict. At first, no one knows except for Eddie, the Pharmacist, who supplies Jackie with pain pills and who incidentally is also having an affair with her.
As time goes on, Jackie's drug use increases and her world starts spinning out of control. Colleagues at work begin to suspect she is using. Fentanyl patches go missing. Narcotic counts are off. At home, Jackie's husband, Kevin, divorces her while their two daughters are hurt by her unpredictable behavior and begin to act out. The story goes on to show the high cost of addiction.
As soon as it aired back in 2009, the show was instantly controversial. Some nursing associations protested that a show featuring a nurse doing many of the truly shocking and harmful things Jackie does should be taken off the air.
But there's no denying Nurse Jackie is much more realistic than most medical shows involving nurses. It shows a new doctor who misdiagnoses a patient, despite Jackie's warning. As a result, the patient dies. There's trauma and drama in every episode, craziness that only ED nurses know too well. There's short-staffing and frequent flyers.
Drug use aside, Jackie is a committed clinician whose passion is helping patients. Then there's Zoey. Zoey follows Jackie everywhere, a newbie soaking in everything. You fall in love with charming Zoey and admire Jackie while being horrified at her behavior- the behavior of a user.
Personality-wise, there's a version of a Nurse Jackie and a Nurse Zoey on every nursing unit.
Nurse Jackie
Nurse Jackie is a drug addict who steals your heart. A sociopath and a saint. Nurse Jackie breaks the rules, she's irreverent and a rogue nurse at times...but only when it helps patients. On one episode, she performs an emergency needle decompression of a tension pneumothorax, saving the life of a cab driver. Completely out of nursing scope of practice, but there was no doctor available, and Jackie saved his life. What would you do?
She rules her ED. She's witty and willful. Bossy and biting. Cynical and compassionate.
Tough with a heart, she cares about each of her patients and fights for what they need.
She has zero work-life balance. A nurse to the core, her entire identity is based on being a nurse. She once said "if I'm not a nurse...I'm no one. I'm nothing." Sad. Outspoken and mouthy, she's brutally honest (except when she's lying :).
The Nurse Jackie on most every unit? They are the ultimate pro, the gruff charge nurse, the nurse everyone respects and looks up to. They even intimidate doctors.
Nurse Zoey
Nurse Zoey, Jackie's protege, is soft and self-effacing. She wears kitty scrubs. Sweet and spunky, she lacks Jackie's sharp edges. She's adorably quirky and in addition to starting her nursing career, she is moving out of her parent's house and dating a paramedic she met at All Saint's.
Unlike Jackie, who rarely filters herself, Zoey chooses her words carefully and tactfully. She is honest and sensitive. Nurse Zoey is becoming an excellent ED nurse in her own right under Jackie's tutelage but doesn't yet know how good she is.
Zoey is a best friend to Jackie to the end. She's loyal, supportive and refuses to believe anything negative about Jackie, her hero.
Is Nurse Zoey really just a younger Nurse Jackie? Idealistic and inexperienced?
Are you a Nurse Jackie or a Nurse Zoey? No doubt you, like most of us, are a complex person. Maybe you are a mix of both, a strong nurse with frailties.
And maybe that's one of the points of the show's writers.
