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Nurse Jackie is an upcoming dark comedy series set to premiere June 8, 2009 on Showtime.
The series stars Emmy- and Golden Globe Award-winner Edie Falco as title character Jackie Peyton, a “flawed” emergency room nurse in a New York City hospital. For Jackie, “Every day is a high wire act of juggling patients, doctors, fellow nurses and her own indiscretions.” Showtime says the half-hour series “is at turns wicked, heartbreaking and funny.”
Yesterday Pilot of Nurse Jackie aired. Will it be a success or not?
Complete Recap and Spoilers Nurse Jackie Series Premiere – S01E01 – Pilot
Sirens and a white tunnel of light lead to cheery music and a panning shot of a bathroom and Jackie laying on the floor, quoting T.S. Eliot in a voice over. She’s awake, but upset she’s only got one pill left for her bad back. Fancy graphics show the 16 grains of pill goodness bouncing out of the pill into a line. Just enough to get her bad back up and running, she says before she snorts a line.
Jackie attends to a man in the ER as Dr. Cooper hangs up his Bluetooth and shoves her aside. Jackie checks the patient’s eyes and tells the doctor he needs a brain scan. She’s sure he has a bleed on his brain, but the arrogant doctor brushes her off.
Cut to Jackie turning off his machines. Acute subdural hematoma. A 27-year-old bike messenger she tells the transplant team. Then she hangs up and forges his signature on his license for organ donation, telling him he should not have died but he won’t die in vain.
She meets with his mother and oafish brothers, who are only worried about his $3,000 bike.
Jackie walks in to talk to Dr. Cooper, acting all excited and confident. She tells him to stay the f— out of her way. She chews him out for not listening to her and letting the messenger die. Then Cooper randomly grabs her boob. “Is this happening, not happening? I can’t tell,” she says. He babbles something about having a problem with involuntary sexual touching when he’s nervous, like groping Tourette’s.
She leaves, in a daze and hides from the hospital administrator. She meets a new nursing student, Zoey, who is wearing bunny rabbit scrubs.
Mrs. Akaltuis catches up with her and harangues her about adhering to hospital guidelines about overtime before asking her to work a double on Monday.
Jackie gets to know Zoey, whose mouth has no off switch. She likes quiet people. “Quiet and mean, those are my people,” Jackie says.
A doctor, Eddie, gets Zoey to wheel a cart of chemo meds up to the fourth floor. This gives Jackie and the doctor a moment alone to go at it against the table. Halfway through she stops, creaming about pain in her back. They stop and go to a cot nearby where they can lay for the six minutes she has. He offers her something for her back. She turns him down, but then takes him up for some Oxycodone. They get a moment of silence before a code is called.
More grams of Oxy go up a straw.
Jackie attends to young woman who’s bleeding severely. She’s saying the guy looked nice and asking why he had to cut her so bad. Then she shows what she has in her hand – his ear. “Good girl,” Jackie says. She hands it to a stunned Zoey, telling her to put it on ice and also, puke away from the ear.
Jackie sits with her friend, Dr. Elenor O’Hara. Neither reacts when a screaming woman is wheeled by. They need food. They go to lunch. She tells Elenor about Cooper squeezing her boob. Elenor says Jackie is the only sane one there. As she goes on about Jackie’s dedication to the job they both notice and ignore a woman choking at a nearby table. Then Jackie gets up calmly and helps the woman.
A guy who put a firecracker up his butt comes into the ER. He’s totally loaded. Jackie guesses what he’s on and says she doesn’t drink. “I like to have a clear head,” she says. Zoey asks permission to snap a picture of the guy’s blown bits as a cautionary tale to her little brother.
Mo-mo the nurse comes for Jackie. The bike messenger’s girlfriend Beth wants to talk to her. She didn’t know about him being an organ donor. She tells the girl, who is pregnant, that she’s “deeply sorry” but his body will save lives. Beth pauses a minute then asks for his heart. Or a kidney. She wants to sell one. Doesn’t he owe her that? She starts crying. She asks what she’s supposed to do. She can’t even pay for a cab home. Jackie hugs her and pats her head.
More grams fall and go up the straw into Jackie’s nose.
Jackie sees a man holding his bandaged head in the lobby. A cop tells her he’s the one who slashed the woman but he’s with the Libyan Embassy and has immunity. He only came back for his ear. As she tends to him in an exam room, Jackie tells him the prostitute he cut needed 200 stitches and he says she liked it. Jackie hangs up his jacket and bank roll and leaves for a moment.
In the bathroom, she picks up his ear and says into clearly: “F— you” and then she flushes it.
Jackie and Mo Mo lounge on the hospital church pews. They try to figure out what would have gone with John the Baptist’s head on a platter. Cole slaw. No, mac and cheese. She tells Mo mo she knew about the bike messenger’s bleed and waits for him to say she did all she could. He asks if that’s what she wants. Her silence implies it’s not necessary.
Jackie sends Zoey home. Zoey thinks Jackie is a saint. As Zoey leaves, Jackie changes a patient’s IV. When there’s an urgent beeping noise she realizes she made a mistake. She tells the comatose person she almost killed them. She kisses their forehead.
Jackie walks the halls, seeing Beth sleeping in the waiting room. She takes the fat bankroll from the Libyan’s jacket and leaves it in Beth’s hands.
Outside, Eddie asks if she wants to come over. Not tonight, she says. He brought her something for her back. A Dr. Pepper, Moon Pie and a pill packet. They say “I love yous” and leave.
Standing at the corner, a guy on a bicycle pulls up next to Jackie. She tells him to be careful. He says F you. So, while he’s looking away, she slashes his tire before he can ride off.
Jackie walks home, musing about Augustine the Saint who knew there was good in him, but not all good. “Make me good, God, but not yet,” she says. She comes home to two young daughters, happy to see her. She walks into the kitchen, slipping a ring from her pocket onto her ring finger. A man waits in the kitchen. He made pancakes for dinner.
“It bears repeating,” says the voice over, “make me good, God, but not yet.”