Where Does Jackie Go From Here?

As I wrote around this time last year, I came back to Nurse Jackie after a couple of fallow seasons, at a time when the whole series had reset itself around its titular protagonist's sobriety. And while Season 5 offered a lot to hook me, as Jackie worked on rebuilding her life without pills, Season 6 returns Addict Jackie to the fore, except...worse.

Re-reading that Season In Review post about the fifth-season finale, I want to find my one-year-younger self and chuck her on the shoulder for her dopey innocence. Maybe it's because I've been fortunate enough not to know any serious substance abusers in my actual life, but when Jackie took that one pill from her ring box, I really did think there was a chance nothing more might come of it. But then, I guess if Jackie really got sober and stayed that way, there wouldn't be a show, and Jackie didn't just get off the wagon: she rolled off the road, into a ditch, and then started digging a hole.

The Jackie I had known in earlier seasons took a lot of pills, using a lot of drug-seeking methods I'd seen in my years watching (and recapping) ER, and hid her addiction from everyone around her by being great at everything she did -- nursing, parenting, marriage (as far as her husband knew), infidelity (with a guy who'd known her a long time without any idea that she was even married). Formerly Sober Jackie started Season 6 with things well in hand again: she had a nice boyfriend, was still dominating the whole ER as its best nurse, and had her drug connect conveniently rolled in with her workouts. (Seeing how efficiently she powered through her workout and main errand made me wish my gym could serve my needs just as well, though I'm less in need of a girl to tuck opioids in my towel than an on-site bank and manicurist.) She could take a couple of pills in the morning, and then go to an AA meeting and take more while judging other group members for, I guess, not being as good at drug addiction as she? Based on how seriously she took her supposed sobriety in the episodes to come, one might suppose she was going to meetings mostly for tips.

But by the end of Season 6, the situation is very different. She got rid of the boyfriend when he got too nosy about her drug use. She got rid of someone who was trying to be her friend by tricking her into abandoning her sobriety and checking her into rehab. She found evidence suggestive of her daughter's drug use and just took that stash to get herself out of a bind with a dealer. She manipulated her boss into writing her a guilt prescription for Vicodin and colluded with her to hide from the DEA. She talked a dying, alcoholic former nun into covering for her actual law-breaking. She almost killed a patient, while high, and blamed it on a doctor -- a doctor we hate, but still. This takes us up through the finale, when, with the Nancy Wood/nun deception finally suspected, she rejects offers to salvage what's left of her credibility, declines self-admitting to rehab, and instead tries to flee the country with a suitcase absolutely stuffed with pills.

And, I mean, I guess she might as well? A heartbroken Zoey has turned on her. Her daughters are old enough (and, sadly, experienced enough) to see through her bullshit. Her job, the last thing she could point to as a source of personal satisfaction and pride, is slipping away due to her recklessness. This bitch has nothing to lose anymore, and that makes her terrifying.

If that Season 5 finale had been it for the series, I would have been satisfied not even finding out what the slip meant -- and I don't just say that because of the shocking depths we've seen Jackie fall to this season. (Actually, "fall" is the wrong word; that makes it sound like what's happened is a series of accidents out of her control. She hasn't fallen to these depths: she's climbed down to them, knowing the whole time exactly what she was doing.) Those last moments of Season 5 would have let us part from Jackie seeing her in all her ambiguity and complication.

But Season 6 is different: there will be serious consequences, and now I need to see exactly what they are. All those other times, we only thought we were seeing what Jackie's like when she's cornered; this is really fucked up. Will Eddie, her last ally, even be around, or will he be facing prosecution of his own? What's Jackie going to do with no support system? What's going to be her motivation to change if there's nothing waiting for her on the other side?

And also...even if Roman really is pregnant -- WHICH I DOUBT -- that can't be Coop's baby, RIGHT?!