Awesome show - can't wait for season 2!
Having never watched the Sopranos (heresy, I know), I didn't have any preconceived notions of what type of person Edie Falco should or should not be playing. Many of my friends tell me that the character of Nurse Jackie is a far cry from her Carmelo Soprano alter-ego.
Jackie is a full time nurse in a public hospital in New York City. Like most nurses and emergency medical workers, she is overworked and underpaid and trying to make do with what life has handed to her. On the surface, she is hardworking nurse who is a loving mother of two little girls and a devoted wife to Kevin Payton who runs a local bar. Scratch the surface just a little bit and the perfect facade peels away to reveal a drug addicted adulterer who regularly breaks the laws in order to suit her own perceived morals.
Nurse Jackie tackles quite a few heavy subjects during its initial season including assisted suicide, underage children caring for their parents, as well as the rigors of raising...
Thumbs up from a nurse..
As a nurse, I love this show. You'd think I'd hate it, due to the fact that Jackie has a drug problem and she cheats on her husband. But, she is actually a good nurse in spite of her flaws. What I like about this show is that nurses aren't painted as helpmaids to the physicians. My problem with many of the medical shows is that they show doctors doing stuff that nurses do on a daily basis and the nurses are all but invisible.
Nurses aren't saints..we are professionals who want to be compensated for the work we do. And we're human. Sometimes, we're tired and cranky. Quite often, we're frustrated with a system that is more about the bottom line than actual patients. That's why Nurse Jackie rocks..because Jackie for all her faults and cynicism still gives a crap. She is a good nurse, and her faults can't change that.
I also enjoy the student nurse character..very realistic.LOL, she has that "deer in the headlights" look that we all had starting out..
A Perfect Platform for the Brilliance of Edie Falco
I see some complaints that "Nurse Jackie", as played by Edie Falco, is not a positive role model. They have a point - Jackie cheats on her husband with a pharmacist who thinks he is her main squeeze, so that Jackie can be kept with a steady supply of narcotics.
But like the proverbial onion, Jackie has layers, and like another of my favorite Showtime eponymous characters, Dexter Gordon, Jackie is not by any stretch "all evil" and she is never, ever boring.
Jackie's an adulterous druggie - but she's more. Years of having to literally manhandle patients in the Emergency Room more than twice her size have left Jackie with an aching back, and she could pursue more permanent treatment, but she and her family need this week's paycheck, so she masks her painful back with ill-gotten hard stuff. Merritt Wever plays Zoey, a young nurse who is everything Jackie is not - na
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