Here’s the thing about lying: Once you start, you really can’t stop. At least not without admitting the lies. You have to remember what you said to every person in your life — and you have to have a pretty sharp mind to keep up with your own stories.
And that is precisely what makes Nurse Jackie so compelling.
From a viewer’s perspective, Jackie Peyton is not a likable woman. We see how she manipulates the people in her life to get what she wants. Sadly, she seems to really care about those people — just not as much as she cares about her addiction.
So, she has an affair with a pharmacist. She pockets samples from a drug rep. She uses coworkers’ passwords to get pain meds from the Pill-O-Matix. She lies to her friends about back pain. She tries to get a recovering addict fired before he exposes her. She opens a secret credit card account with a corresponding secret post office box.
This week, so many straws were thrown on the camel’s back that we can hardly bear to watch. The last straw is close — very close. As close as Jackie’s best friend.
At the first of the season, Dr. O’Hara said that she would like to use some of the money she inherited from her mother to set up a college fund for Jackie’s girls. Hubby Kevin said no. But this week, something has changed.
Unfortunately, what has changed is not Kevin, but Jackie’s credit card balance. The big smile is not because the girls’ education is secure or because Eleanor is so happy. It’s because Jackie can pay her credit card bill. This will not end well.
When I watch Jackie protecting her secret with no regard for consequences, I can’t help thinking of some of the things I told people before I came out. I’m certainly not comparing sexual identity to addiction, but protecting a secret with lies can get ugly, whatever the secret may be. I often wonder how different my life might be if I’d been told that gay is OK. But I digress.
The only gay moment this week was courtesy of Thor:
I love Thor. And he’s right: the Skittles are lovely this year.
Is Jackie about to get caught in her lies? What do you expect for the final two Nurse Jackie episodes of the season?
