Nurse Jackie Recap: Shorthanded

He orders the amused EMTs out. He knows what she’s up to: deliberate insubordination, because she knows she can’t be fired. She tells him to go ahead and do it, but he says he’s not worried about getting another opportunity: he lives with an addict, and knows it’s only a matter of time before Jackie fucks up and gets herself fired for some unrelated incident. He then goes on a damn rampage and yells at everyone he sees.

O’Hara loves the feathers, and reassures Jackie that Cruz is too short-staffed to fire anyone else at the moment, even taking into account insubordinate tantrums. She herself could give a damn, because her back is acting up and she’s about three seconds from giving birth right there in the hallway. She pulls it together to check on Tasha, who’s suffering from an intense migraine, brought on by stress and bereavement. She’s just lost her mother, and it’s taking a physical toll ok her. Not to worry, Good Jackie is on the case.

Cruz heads for the sanctity of his office, only to find it all invaded by Coop, who insists on telling him right then and there what a big mistake it was to fire people. Telling Coop to butt out has never worked, but Cruz doesn’t know that, so they go back and forth with some pilot/co-pilot metaphors until Cruz has to leave to get the robotic Eddie replacement up and running, then meet with the QB guys. Coop isn’t happy about it, but has to consent to a flyby.

Zoey took it upon herself to reassure everyone that Jackie would do something to save the sinking ship, and Jackie tries to contradict her, but you know how Zoey gets. Even if Jackie was in the mood to go rogue, she’s on thin ice. It’s easier to just walk away and let things escalate.

Outside All Saints, Akalitus and Eddie show up, on their way to meet with HR. They approach a crazy old dude drawing on the sidewalk, and who should it be but God! He’s that wacky old guy who shouts philosophy and prophecy from his window. We haven’t seen him before now this season, and as usual he’s doing something cool: this time, he’s creating a chalk drawing of Washington Crossing the Delaware, only with the nursing staff in place of the colonists.

He’s awesome.

Then they almost get hit by a nail falling from the roof, a stray piece of flotsam from the helipad construction. Yikes, that could kill a person. More foreshadowing?

Jackie is making her rounds, checking on Tasha, when O’Hara runs up as fast as she can waddle with some bad news. Tasha has a sub-arachnoid hemorrhage, and needs to be moved upstairs for brain surgery, ASAP. Christ. Before they can move her, her phone rings, and it’s her dad. Jackie allows her to take the call, despite the no-calls policy, then intervenes before Cruz can get all snippy. To his credit and my surprise, Cruz actually barks out a human response, and Jackie is left with her mouth agape.

Tasha’s dad, it turns out, took a fall and is at Bellevue. She wants to be released to go get him, but the emergency brain surgery sort of trumps that, so Jackie appeals to Cruz, hoping he’ll let her leave the floor to do Tasha the favor. Unsurprisingly, Cruz draws the line. Zoey expects Jackie to go all renegade and go anyway, but Jackie’s hands are tied. She tells Zoey to handle things as if she was Jackie and go herself.

Eddie and Akalitus are hanging out by the Jesus, alternation between glee at the size of their severance checks and depression at the thought of leaving All Saints. But I totally no longer care, because it’s Coop and O’Hara, in the same room! All the warm fuzzies I developed watching them interact last episode have returned. Dammit, I was hoping that was temporary.

Nope.

They collapse in O’Hara’s office, hiding from the awful vibe of the floor, and Coop asks O’Hara of he’s decided what to name the baby. O’Hara is afraid to tell him, lest his inevitably overenthusiastic reaction ruin it for her, and as he’s promising to keep a poker face, he’s distracted by a photo taken at a summer camp he used to go to. She doesn’t want him to know anything about it, because it turns out that’s where her donor went, and she wants that totally separate from her real life. Coop’s rendition of the camp song gets him ejected from the office with orders to stop being a gentleman because it’s too disorienting. She doesn’t bother to tell him to stop being a douche, because that would be pointless.