As lousy as this summer TV season has been on the broadcast networks, cable outlets have more than made up for it, especially Showtime's "Nurse Jackie," which has its first-season finale tonight at 10:30.
What most impressed me about this dark comedy was how quickly the show felt whole. The supporting characters quickly began to feel like real characters with the possible exception of Mrs. Akolitis (Anna Deavere Smith), who's depicted as too much of a comic buffoon for my taste. Otherwise, I love them all but most especially I adore just about any scene that features innocent, daffy Zoey (Merritt Wever), a wide-eyed, naieve young woman who allows the funniest strings of words to escape her lips.
Of course, the show would not be as grounded if not for the no-nonsense title character, played to brilliantly flawed perfection by Edie Falco. In tonight's season finale, the chickens look like they come home to roost for Jackie. Last week, her lover, Eddie (Paul Schulze), discovered she's married. You can bet that will have consequences.
And yet that's the one thing about the show I do not understand and that the writers seem to have purposefully kept from the audience: Why is Jackie cheating on her nice-guy husand, Kevin (Dominic Fumusa)? It can't be just that Eddie supplied her with pills; they seemed to have more of a connection than that. As much as I appreciate that the reason does not appear to be a TV cliche -- he beats her when he's drunk! -- it also drives me nuts that we don't know. It's Jackie's worst flaw, more disturbing than her pill habit. (Falco addressed her character's motivation in a story yesterday in Sunday Magazine.)
Maybe the writers will shed more light on Jackie's motivation in season two -- which can't start too soon, as far as I'm concerned.
Posted
Aug 24 2009, 12:37 AM
by
Rob Owen