Nurse Jackie Recap: Piling it On

After so many weeks of sobriety, Jackie starts this episode hitting paydirt, and swallowing said paydirt like it’s no big thing. She’s rooting in her desk drawer, and finds beneath a pack of artificial sweetener the real sweet stuff: one of those bright blue horse pills she craves like air. Without a moment’s hesitation, she stuffs in in her mouth, then gets approached from behind by Cruz, who’s wearing an inexplicably neon pink tie. She proceeds to make out with him, right in the middle of the ER. What?

What foolishness is this?

Oh, it’s just a dream. She wakes up from a nap and tells her dream to O’Hara, who promptly tells her it was not a dream, and that everyone saw her. But then she wakes up once again, and THAT was also a dream.

Scenes like that always spark random conversational tangents in my living room. Exhibit A:

Blue Canary: Oh! It’s like that panel in Sandman where Morpheus condemns a guy to an endless cycle of dreaming, where he always thinks that he’s waking up, only to have a severed head fall onto his blanket and tell him he’s still asleep. Remember?

Mr. Canary: ….no?

Blue: It’s just like that.

Mr.: *rewinding DVR to rewatch the scene my babbling drowned out* If you say so.

He can’t get enough of me. So anyway, Jackie is actually safe in her own bed. She hasn’t used drugs or attempted to tongue her boss, and has her kids back this morning. She’s even aware they’re under her roof, so yay progress! Not that she has to do much, because a kimono-swathed Zoey is reveling in the role of Mommy. Jackie seems irritated, but I can’t tell if it’s the behavior or the kimono that’s causing it. She doesn’t do much to stop it, though, and the girls seem to appreciate someone giving then the time of day. In any case, they get along with Zoey just fine. Jackie sadly, desperately paws at Grace’s head as she’s leaving for school, and even more sadly barely acknowledges Fiona. I get that she feels guilty concerning Grace, but the favorites thing is getting obvious.

Don’t worry, Dear. In a few years you can start acting out, and Mommy will remember you exist.

And Zoey’s got some news: Lenny, I guess still determined to get her to move in one way or another, has proposed! Jackie wonders if she’s going to wear the ring to work, because rings tend to get in the way of gloves. And inappropriate workplace dalliances, though she swears that’s not what she meant. Zoey feels bad about being engaged while Jackie’s marriage is disintegrating, but Jackie sweetly tells her not to.

O’Hara is the picture of prenatal health, washing down her vitamins with goddess tea disguised as coffee. Apparently no one can know she’s practicing healthy living for the sake of the fetus, lest it appear she’s spoiling it. I don’t get that mentality, but whatever. Jackie tells her about the Cruz sex dream, and O’Hara approves, but the fun chitchat is ruined by a call from Kevin’s lawyer. And bam–he’s suing for custody.

Fresh off the shock wave from that little nugget of information, Jackie zombies her way into work, where Thor is bugging Zoey for non-existent wedding details. Jackie, I guess wondering if her subconscious knows something she doesn’t, is focused on checking underneath the fake sweetener in her drawer, and is so distracted she blows off multiple greetings from Sam. There are no pills to be had, though, and then Jackie has some seriously uncomfortable déjà vu when Cruz approaches her from behind and whispers in her ear to come with him. You know this isn’t a dream, because he’s wearing a much more subdued tie.

She follows him to his office, but instead of some down and dirty desktop boning, she gets the third degree. He wants to know why her employment file is so thin. No vacation time, no drug test results, no complaints, no nothing. Jackie has no answer–she just took all that vacation time, as he knows, and Coop alone has filed more than enough complaints to warrant paperwork. Yet Jackie’s file is empty.

“You seem like a much bigger bitch than your file suggests.”