Recovering

I came back to Nurse Jackie this season after a long absence, and boy, am I ever glad I did. While one of the things that had driven me away from the series when I quit before was a frustration with the titular Jackie (Edie Falco) for making so many bad, selfish, self-destructive decisions, all of which had painful repercussions for the people who loved her, returning in time for Jackie to make a serious attempt at sobriety was perfect for a viewer like me: I was just in time for the series to explore the challenges of being good.

As much as I love shows where people are mean to each other all the time (Archer) or shows where the point is that people are explicitly not being or doing good (Breaking Bad -- it's right there in the title!), TV is a great medium for stories about characters who are trying to do their best in ordinary circumstances. It sounds boring until I start listing the shows that I think exemplify this mission: Freaks & Geeks. Friday Night Lights. Parks & Recreation. Just because they're not trying to figure out how to turn America's electricity back on or foil terrorist plots doesn't mean these characters don't get into compelling, inspiring, heartbreaking situations, which are all the more meaningful to the viewer for being so recognizable. Nurse Jackie has occasionally thrown in a dramatic patient-of-the-week emergency this season, but in general the story has moved forward through the normal, outwardly unremarkable movements of its opening-credits cast.

Some characters, of course, haven't moved at all. I should have known, when Akalitus (Anna Deavere Smith) told Roman (Betty Gilpin) that All Saints was terminating her residency, that it wouldn't last: of course Roman would use her ubiquitous phone to find an unscrupulous lawyer who could coach her as to what barely veiled threats would get her reinstated. And though she'd actually started to show signs of conscientiousness at work -- I guess almost killing someone would have that effect on a supposed medical professional -- this triumph over her momentary setback is not likely to keep her on this path. Now, instead, she knows she's untouchable, and will remain so until the moment she's not being watched and actually does manage to kill a patient, which seems like an inevitable story point next season. Coop (Peter Facinelli) hasn't really changed either, except to look like a hero of medicine next to Roman; he's still basically a buffoon -- and, we now know, one without much self-respect, either.

Just last week, I wrote a little appreciation of Zoey (Merritt Wever) in the middle of a post ostensibly about Ike (Morris Chestnut), and I love that she ended the season without leaving the viewer in any doubt as to her confidence or professionalism or all-'round adult-womanhood. Old Zoey might have melted at that (very cute) "butterflies" joke of Ike's, but New Zoey we've come to know was able to be firm in her need to be discreet at work. Old Zoey might have tried to mend the rift that opened between her and Jackie last week with a gift or just by importuning Jackie to be nicer; New Zoey can flatly tell Jackie that she needs to apologize -- and get Jackie to do it. Old Zoey would have been too shy (and, to be fair, too far removed from Jackie's personal life) to encourage Grace (Ruby Jerins) to attend Jackie's sober anniversary despite the current difficulties between mother and daughter. Zoey is not just becoming the show's conscience: she's well on her way to Tami Taylorhood -- and that is not an honour I bestow lightly.

But it's still Jackie's show, and her path this season has been fascinating. She was always a great nurse, even when she was using, and she still is; the thought that she will lose any of her authority with Roman now that Roman knows she's a recovering addict is a drag. But going through the twelve steps has, obviously, affected her personal life -- giving Kevin (Dominic Fumusa) and Grace rightful claim to the moral high ground and humbling her where she had always been indisputably in charge. She hasn't always been great, this season, at navigating sexual ethics as a divorced woman who married young, but she managed to end things properly with Mike (Bobby Cannavale) and bravely proceed, unencumbered, with Frank (Adam Ferrara). She was faced with a series of tough situations outside her love life, too -- not having the girls on her birthday; losing O'Hara (Eve Best) to England and motherhood; every damn thing Grace did, pretty much -- and always managed to do the right thing, even when it was hard (like giving Kevin custody), without touching that one pill she kept in her nightstand, tucked inside her wedding ring, two emblems of the old life she's left behind.

Then, after making up with Frank, after getting dolled up for her anniversary party, after making it a whole year -- a hard year -- without using anything, Jackie got that pill out of its hiding place and took it. The secret is out anyway -- Grace gave it away in last week's episode -- and if anyone goes looking for it, Jackie can say she flushed it.

Why take a pill on this particular day, which had, on balance, been a pretty good one and was about to get better? The way this scene plays out, she doesn't agonize over it or ponder it or seem especially anguished; she takes it like the addict she is: without reflection, because she wants it and it's there, and quickly, in case someone suddenly comes in who might catch her.

Maybe she took it as a reward for making it a year. Maybe she took it on this day so that it wouldn't be there to tempt her on a worse day, when she'd want more than one. Maybe she didn't even make any such rationalizations -- it certainly seemed like she didn't. And when her cake came out and she proudly told the room that she was one year sober, maybe she really meant it, and didn't consider one pill a slip or a relapse, maybe considered the incident so inconsequential that she's actually forgotten it in her excitement over the cake she's about to eat.

But, probably, Jackie knows quite well that she isn't one year sober, and she lied, for the same reason she took the pill: she's a drug addict.

Leaving aside the real-life stats on prescription drug addiction (except to say that 60% of addicts will relapse), Jackie's season-ending slip doesn't invalidate the hard work she put in up to that point. In a way, the ease with which she took the pill makes it all the more impressive that she hadn't taken it sooner. But it also goes to my initial point: it wouldn't be interesting to watch people being good on TV if being good were easy -- for them, or for any of us. The struggle makes the moments of grace -- as when Jackie administers last rites over Wally (John Cullum) -- that much more precious. When Jackie looks up and sees that O'Hara's snuck into the party, it's beautiful; and when Jackie lies to her face about her sobriety, it's sad, but it's not incomprehensible.

And now we just have to wait a year or so to see how grave a slip this actually is. Dammit.