Nurse Jackie Recap: Bag Open, Cat Out

Before we dive right into the clusterfuck that is Jackie’s life, let me just express my sincere appreciation to all eight of you following these recaps. We don’t have the astronomical numbers of, say, Toddlers and Tiaras or Top Chef, but we’re a good little crowd. So much love to you guys! You show up every week, and for that I thank you, from the bottom of my blackened, cynical heart!

Now then–on to the clusterfuck!

Image unrelated to said clusterfuck, yet somehow still works.

We begin this episode in beauty, with a hilarious hypothetical breakup speech, It appears Coop is no longer getting it done in Thor’s world, and Thor is forced to set that bird free. This is all for Zoey’s benefit, of course–she’s decided to shatter Lenny’s world, and can’t get it together sufficiently to tell him in her own words, so she’s making everyone tell her what to say. This lends the extra special touch of having Lenny being the last one to know he’s being put to the curb. Poor Coop reminds Zoey that he’s been left at the altar before, and advises her not to do that to Lenny.

How much heartache can one man endure?

Then Dr. Cruz wanders by (more like blazes–that dude doesn’t wander), looking for Jackie. Jackie is out of pocket at the moment though, in a meeting with Laura, her straightforward divorce lawyer who isn’t interested in what a great guy Kevin is. In fact, she wants Jackie to dig up some dirt on him while simultaneously building up her own awful track record.

Laura earns her $750 an hour by coming up with all sorts of hypothetical ways in which Kevin could be considered a violent, unstable, asshole of an unfit parent. So far, all he really has going against him is he that he owns a bar and cheated on Jackie once. He doesn’t abuse any substances and he’s never hit her…but he has hit Eddie, so I wonder if that’ll be admissible, considering the circumstances? In Kevin’s defense, there’s a difference between beating up your wife and kids and beating up the guy who slept with your wife.

Plus, I can totally understand the whole “urge to punch Eddie” thing.

While Jackie seems adamantly against defaming him, O’Hara reminds her that Kevin is going out of his way to defame Jackie. Laura reminds her that every good detail about Kevin means more time without the girls, so Jackie leaves with instructions to think up some ways to make him look like shit. Meanwhile, she has to attend a bunch of AA meetings and generally stay out of trouble. she also needs some character references, and not from any lowly, shit-eating fellow nurses, either. Laura wants the power of doctors.

When Jackie arrives late to her shift, Thor informs her that Cruz is scouring the building for her. She finds him checking some X-rays, uninterested in her divorce lawyer excuses. He starts to rip into her, but before he can get very far he starts wheezing and has to suck on an inhaler. He blows it off as allergies, but our living room consensus determine its a panic attack, and he admits a few seconds later that his wheezing is stress-related. After she talks him down, he makes a speech about the importance of separating work and home, and not letting your personal problems affect your job. That’s a practical sentiment and all, but I’m willing to bet it was Charlie and not the hospital that sparked you inhaler craving, Miguel.

Anyway, Jackie leaves while she still has a bit of an upper hand, and runs into Akalitus. Akalitus has a weird predicament: she’s agreed to keep an eye on Dick, a former colleague, who’s being admitted for an angioplasty but has dementia, and thinks he’s still a working nurse. While Akalitus is reminiscing about her chaste date nights with Dick back in the day, the elevator doors open and there he is, gown open, ass out. Dick has no idea he’s actually a patient or that it’s not 1974, so Jackie and Akalitus decide to dress him in scrubs and keep him close all day, letting him act as a nurse.

Oh, Cruz won’t mind that at all, I’m sure.