What to Watch

Doctor’s orders: Why you should watch ‘Nurse Jackie’

‘The Sopranos’ star Edie Falco’s performance as a complicated and often outrageously awful antihero is exactly why you should stream all seven seasons, stat.

Edie Falco in 'Nurse Jackie'. Credit: Showtime

The received knowledge goes that being typecast is bad, limiting an actor’s ability to demonstrate their full range. But sometimes a star is just so good at playing dirty in the anatomy of grey that it would be a crime to stop them.

So it is with the mighty Edie Falco, who memorably depicted Carmella, the Jersey-based gangster’s moll to the late James Gandolfini’s mafia boss, Tony, in celebrated HBO show The Sopranos. As a woman deeply invested in her Catholic faith, glorious drama lay in how Carmella squared that away with the profitably murderous actions of their unruly clan while standing by her philandering man.

It was a tightrope walk Falco would deftly walk again in darkly comic, five Emmy Award-winning show Nurse Jackie. Created by Liz Brixius, Linda Wallem and Evan Dunsky, the Showtime classic ran for seven seasons from 2009, just two short years after The Sopranos’ infamously ambiguous conclusion.

While Carmella kept a nurse-like watch over her husband’s hospital bed, Falco fully embraces that role here. As Jackie Peyton, she’s a harried nurse working in the daily maelstrom of the ER at the fictional New York City institution, All Saints’ Hospital.

Jackie is married to Dominic Fumusa’s bar owner, Kevin, who’s hopelessly devoted. They have two daughters, with their eldest, Grace (Ruby Jerins), struggling with anxiety, and her younger sister, Fiona (Daisy Tahan in season one, replaced by Mackenzie Aladjem), who can get a little bratty.

But Jackie’s also having a long-term affair with Eddie Walzer (Sopranos co-star Paul Schulze), mostly because, as a pharmacist, he has the keys to the hospital’s extensive pill supply. The show doesn’t shy away from how he abuses his power in this situation.

Addicted to painkillers, Jackie will do almost anything, including sexual favours, to keep that need satiated while spinning all these precariously balanced plates in a vain effort to prevent it all crashing down around her.

That’s no easy task when your day job is literally a life and death scenario stuck on repeat, as anyone who watched the SBS documentary series The Hospital: In The Deep End would know. With impossible pressures bearing down on nurses daily, both mental and physical, including the threat of violence from patients, it’s a wonder anyone manages not to crack.

Eve Best as Dr. Eleanor O'Hara and Edie Falco as Jackie Peyton. Credit: Showtime

Falco excels as Jackie, who is very much not coping. Right from the off, we witness her stealing money from a shitty patient to give to one she deems more deserving, then flushing the ear of another nuisance down the toilet. But it’s not all about Robin Hood-style vigilantism; Jackie’s dependence leads to dangerous decisions that threaten the lives of the patients she (mostly) holds dear.

Later, we’ll learn that Jackie fell into a hole after the birth of Grace, quite possibly experiencing undiagnosed postpartum depression. That’s when she turned to opioid-containing pain relief pills, Percocet, dulling the panic induced by her newborn daughter’s seemingly incessant crying.

While addiction can be portrayed as very black and white on screen, loaded with heavy-handed moralising, Nurse Jackie reframed the conversation, acknowledging both the emotional onslaught of her job and the price of saving (and often losing) lives, as well as the everyday pressures of a family life we’re not all necessarily cut out for.

Not that Jackie is portrayed as a saint, with the show refusing to resile from the messy truth of addiction and the way this hunger changes you. Just like Carmella, Jackie’s very good at airbrushing reality. An impeccable liar with the quick wit to back up her face-saving fabrications, there’s little she won’t say or do to get her fix.

That includes Jackie’s inability to connect with her home life, with upsetting consequences for her daughters, who desperately crave stability. Things go down-hill from there and the family implodes. It’s a desperately sad depiction of how addiction can fray the patience of even the most devoted supporters, further collapsing the safety net around people with an addiction.

The rolling catalogue of betrayals against Jackie’s family is mirrored in her relationships with trusted work colleagues. Good friend Dr Eleanor O’Hara (Eve Best) will do anything she can to help her mate, but this loyalty is twisted out of shape by Jackie when she needs to open new avenues to get her fix.

Merritt Wever as Zoey Barkow and Anna Deavere Smith as Gloria Akalitus in season two of 'Nurse Jackie'. Credit: David M. Russell / Showtime

Jackie thinks nothing of pinning blame on her assigned trainee nurse, Zoey Barkow (Merritt Wever), when things get a little too hot for comfort in the chase. Her wild risk-taking also sees no-nonsense hospital administrator Gloria Akalitus (Anna Deavere Smith) get her hands dirty to make a near-miss go away, inspiring more rule-bending as the seasons progress.

Along the way, Jackie butts heads repeatedly with cocky, occasionally kind, though often kinda careless Dr Fitch Cooper (Peter Facinelli), who has Tourette’s. It’s fair to say she also has a complicated relationship with replacement administrator, Mike Cruz, as played by Bobby Cannavale, whose real-life son also shows up in an intriguing role when Jackie tries rehab on for size.

Edie Falco as Jackie and Stephen Wallem as Thor in 'Nurse Jackie'. Credit: Ken Regan/ Showtime

Elsewhere at All Saints, Jackie bonds with Muslim nurse Mohammed de la Cruz AKA Momo (Haaz Sleiman) and big-hearted bear Thor Lundgren (Stephen Wallem), in a show that’s refreshingly queer, thanks to out showrunners Wallem and Brixius’ positive influence (also look out for an episode directed by iconic Hedwig and the Angry Inch helmer John Cameron Mitchell). This duo helps balance Nurse Jackie’s darkest, most traumatic moments with an at times effervescent, occasionally utterly wacky sense of humour. Remember that ear??

Other notable directors include Paul Feig (Bridesmaids), Fargo star Steve Buscemi and Daisy von Scherler Mayer (Party Girl), with Falco shining at the heart of it all.

A suitably complex antihero, Jackie is undoubtedly an incredible professional striving to achieve the best outcomes for her patients. Still, her high-functioning ability to do so begins to falter as the show (and her addiction) wears on. Can she keep it together, or is all hope for a happy ending DOA? We prescribe a seven-season binge of this knotty morality play to find out.

All seasons of Nurse Jackie are streaming at SBS On Demand.