Even More To Like About Ike
When so very many shows let us down by having characters we like suddenly and for spurious plot reasons turn shitty, I was wary that, after expressing my love for Nurse Jackie's Dr. Prentiss (Morris Chestnut), he would turn around and pay off the sexually charged looks he exchanged with Roman (Betty Gilpin) at the end of last week's episode by sleeping with her last night. And indeed, he did get his swerve on in the latest episode. BUT NOT WITH ROMAN Y'AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALL!
And look, if more people watched this show, I have no doubt that today would be filled with "think" pieces about whether it's credible that someone who looks like Morris Chestnut would sleep with someone who looks like Merritt Wever, just like after that episode of Girls that made me have to stop watching (but not because Lena Dunham is arguably less conventionally attractive than Patrick Wilson -- a bullshitty critique of the episode that Dunham addressed last week). But what this season of Jackie has done so nicely is demonstrate what a truly awesome woman Zoey (Wever) has become. She's always been competent at her job, but now she's grown into a really excellent nurse -- efficient and resourceful, calm and reassuring. She's confidently moved into the next phase of her adulthood by getting an apartment all her own. She's become a cool surrogate aunt for Grace (Ruby Jerins).
Most importantly, Zoey can organize an office like a motherfucker. And when Akalitus (Anna Deavere Smith) tried to give her shit for doing something that didn't interfere with her work and must certainly be making Prentiss more effective in the ER, Zoey found a way to express all the fucks she didn't give without crossing any professional lines. She's not soft anymore -- but she's not hard either. And now we know for sure that Prentiss is a person of substance, because we've seen that he can recognize another one when he sees her.
And, unlike with Girls, we didn't need to see any scenes of actual coitus to be pretty sure they rocked each other's worlds.