During its first two seasons, Showtime’s Nurse Jackie has gradually ratcheted up the pressure between Jackie’s addict life/cheating-on-her-husband life and her good wife/good mother/good nurse life.
However the preview for next week’s season finale suggests that Jackie’s life of lies could come crashing down on her head with brutal force. And while that promises to be exciting drama, I’m crossing my fingers and hoping it won’t wreck the dramatic tension in the series for next season.
“No more lies.
No more secrets.
No more hiding.
Everything ends now.”
That’s what the preview for the finale says. But once Jackie is unmasked as a deceitful drug addict, what happens after that? What happens if/when Kevin finds out that she’s been cheating with Eddie? (I have no idea if the finale will delve into the cheating angle.) Nurse Jackie could become something entirely different than what it’s been for two seasons.
The freshman season ended with Eddie learning that Jackie was married and had children, a fact that she hadn’t widely shared with colleagues at the hospital. This season, as Eddie’s life unraveled and then slowly came back together, you kept wondering if Eddie was going to tell Kevin about the affair with Jackie, given that he had a wealth of opportunities to do so what with Eddie becoming Kevin’s best drinking buddy and going to ball games together.
That didn’t happen and Jackie continued on with her merry, cheating, lying, addict ways, using everyone around her, even stealing drugs from a guy to whom she was providing medical care on the street. She also used her extremely tolerant best friend, accepting the money Dr. O’Hara offered for Jackie’s daughters’ private school tuition but used it for drugs instead.
So if — as previews suggest — Jackie’s husband Kevin will learn that his wife’s an addict, what will this mean for season three? Will Jackie having “no more lies, no more secrets” completely transform the show, similar to the way that romantic tension between lead characters is often shattered when the characters finally hook up?
Clacked by Meredith O'Brien 
on Jun 03, 2010 @ 12:40 EST5EDT
Even if the season does end with everything coming out into the open, the real question that hasn’t been addressed at all is why she leads a double life. Why does she need two men in her life? Is she overcompensating in some way, for the man-free lesbian life that she really desires? Why does she avoid getting the MRI that could probably lead to a cure for her back pain, and instead go through the pain and the addiction to pain killers? Is she punishing herself for something? So far we’ve seen the character’s flaws and numerous frack ups. We’ve yet to see the psychology behind her behaviour and choices, but then, I think that she has lot more falling and fracking up to do before she reaches that point where she’s forced to seek therapy.
*POST AUTHOR*
I agree.
We haven’t been given anything by way of a real back story for Jackie, other than Jackie’s “back injury” to explain the drug addiction. Nothing about why she started sleeping with Eddie, unless starting up with him was simply an elaborate con to get more drugs out of him. (When he was no longer the pharmacist and kind of flipped out, she stopped seeing him.)
So Nurse Jackie could explore those issues, and I wouldn’t object to that at all, however it would become a different kind of show with Jackie’s double life no longer a factor (if indeed that’s what happens in the finale). Then it would be kKind of like when Jennifer Garner’s Sydney Bristow stopped being a double agent on Alias. It was still a good show after SD-6 was no more, but it had a different feel to it.
It will be interesting to how they deal with her double life.
I love the show! I love that she doesn’t take any crap from co-workers or patients. I’m also an RN and I wish I could have her attitude instead of letting everyone walk all over me. I understand the need for “substance abuse” to get thru a grueling shift. It doesn’t affect my work but it makes being there a little easier. I have changed my place of work several times, I have attended counceling, etc. Nothing works. No, sorry, I don’t have anyone else to depend on for help with the bills so I could work less or in a different job. I am 50 yrs old and Jackie Peyton rocks.