It's interesting to see Jackie's world continuing to unravel piece by piece, and it looks like things are going to really come to a head in the season finale. Eddie following Jackie to the bar came out of nowhere, but at least he knows the truth now despite how offhanded he found things out. It still doesn't account for how Jackie has carried on all of these lies for all of these years with no one knowing the wiser except O'Hara, but maybe this is all a start for next week. This was the first time that I thought that Merritt Wever could actually make a go of it in supporting actress in a comedy series next year. I think that this would be a great tape for her giving Zoey some great range, impact, and comedic moments (like in the restaurant where she finally figured out that Thor was gay). It was nice seeing Victor Garber, even though he didn't have that many lines before the coma. It would have been nice to have his character around as a future love interest for Akalitus. Coop's crush on Jackie now post-kiss is great. Peter Facinelli has grown on me leaps and bounds since the pilot, and this might be turning into one of his best roles (along with his guest arc on "Damages"). I hope that the finale delivers. The previews to it looked strong.

Grade for "Pill-o-Matix": B

quote:

I hope that the finale delivers. The previews to it looked strong.

It does. It was very good and a great way to end the season.

I haven't been around to talk about this show, BUT MY GOD! IT IS AMAZING! All the bashing I see on this board about Edie Falco needs to stop because she is just brilliant as Jackie, if she were to win the Emmy next year, I would be VERY HAPPY! The supporting cast is also brilliant. Eve Best is just wow.

I haven't been "bashing" Edie Falco or anything of the sort. My problems with the show have to do with its writing, but I've always said that Edie Falco's the best aspect of this show, and any awards attention she gets in the future would be well-earned.

quote:

Originally posted by Atypical:
I haven't been "bashing" Edie Falco or anything of the sort. My problems with the show have to do with its writing, but I've always said that Edie Falco's the best aspect of this show, and any awards attention she gets in the future would be well-earned.

I;m sorry Atypical, that wasn't directed at you, I have been reading this thread and I know alot of people were complaining about Edie Falco probably winning another Emmy, and I just meant it towards them, and to be honest, I have loved all of your reviews of the show.

I think Showtime screwed this show this year. I really think that this have been eligble for this year's Emmys instead of next year, where I hope like hell, it doesn't get forgotten because the show is damn good. I have enjoyed every episode and Edie Falco could submit any episode and probably win with it.

I like how this show almost evenly balances the comedy with the drama. This is how United States of Tara should have been.

quote:

Originally posted by flaming tail:
I think Showtime screwed this show this year. I really think that this have been eligble for this year's Emmys instead of next year, where I hope like hell, it doesn't get forgotten because the show is damn good. I have enjoyed every episode and Edie Falco could submit any episode and probably win with it.

I like how this show almost evenly balances the comedy with the drama. This is how United States of Tara should have been.

See but Showtime is playing this smart, the Second Season is gonna be starting during Emmy Voting, so it works out better for them. This way voters can connect with the characters even more. Also, SHowtime won't allow this show to be forgotten. They always put out a great Emmy Voters DVD.

I watched the season finale last night. There were parts that were tense (involving Eddie), parts that were hilarious (involving all of the supporting characters), and parts that were heartbreaking (involving Dr. O'Hara).

Overall, this show has had one of the best first season of any show I can remember. I loved almost every minute of every episode this season. I really hope the show takes the Emmys by storm next year.

I hate a double standards that people here have. They accuse Toni Collette of playing a dramatic part in "USoT", but when Edie Falco is palying even more dramatic part in "NJ" they are okey with it. Shame on you! SHAME ON YOU!

quote:

Originally posted by Scout:
I hate a double standards that people here have. They accuse Toni Collette of playing a dramatic part in "USoT", but when Edie Falco is palying even more dramatic part in "NJ" they are okey with it. Shame on you! SHAME ON YOU!

Nope I accuse both of them for playing dramatic parts. Edie just does it better.

If this weren't for Merritt Weaver and Eve Best this show would be a drama.

The line is somewhat blurred as to whether this show is a comedy or drama, but I consider it a dark comedy. If you look at Falco's work in episodes like the "Pilot," "Pupil," and "Ring Finger," she does an excelelnt job at balancing the comedy and drama. This should definitely be a contender in the comedy categories at the Emmys next year, though.

I love both Tara and Jackie. I agree with Rrussaw, Nurse Jackie is Dark Comedy, and I also consider Tara Dark Comedy. I think people seem to forget that Comedies can have dramatic Elements.

quote:

Originally posted by Awardshq:
I love both Tara and Jackie. I agree with Rrussaw, Nurse Jackie is Dark Comedy, and I also consider Tara Dark Comedy. I think people seem to forget that Comedies can have dramatic Elements.

And dramas can have comedic elements. Look at Lost, Grey's Anatomy, even Mad Men, and especially House.

The average episode of House has more jokes than the average episode of Nurse Jackie.

At the end of the day is the show trying to make you laugh or trying to move you? I feel like Tara and sometimes Nurse Jackie try to hit you more with emotions than humor. What's more the title characters don't pull their weight comedically and are steeply rooted in drama.

Which is fine. Sort of.

I have no problem when the shows are trying to move you and create powerful stories while making you laugh chuckle smirk along with the dark comedy.

My problem is when they are unsuccessful at this as Tara so frequently was all season. Nurse Jackie does a much much better job in my opinion and is a much better show as a result.

Even so, I still feel both Collette and Falco are playing largely dramatic roles. By which I mean it's my opinion that those characters are meant to be twisty and dark and compelling and emotionally charged. Meanwhile supporting players in their show do all the comedic work. The fantastic Eve Best, Merrimet Weaver, Rosemarie de Wiit, Brie Larson ect. At this point I wouldn't mind Falco in 2010 winning (Though I have to see the rest of the condender's 09-10 seasons first.) But I'd feel a bit unsettled with a Collette victory this year, as talented and breath taking her performance in the pilot may be.

Sigh.

The sad fact about this show is that Edie Falco is the least appealing character. I don't know what it is but her actions really bother me i.e. cheating on husband, lying to all co-workers, lying to her boyfriend, all the drugs, and being a "Holier than thou" person in the ER but really being the biggest hypocrite of them all.

I think "Nurse Jackie" has one of the best supporting casts but I just don't think they are utilized enough...I can't figure out if I want the show to be funnier and stay the same length or make it a longer and more dramatic with more time for the others...

I too have seen the season finale, and while the similarly slow-starting "United States of Tara" I think found its footing mid-season, I don't think "Nurse Jackie" really did, and the season finale amounts to an anticlimax that retains the same promise as the pilot, but also the same shortcomings.

Whether this is a comedy or drama doesn't interest me so much at this point. So many shows have blurred the line, to the point where it has become an almost arbitrary distinction. I think "Gilmore Girls" and "Desperate Housewives" are dramas. I think "Tara" works better as a drama, but passes as a comedy. Whatever. That's for the producers to sort out for the Emmys. More important is whether it's good.

"Nurse Jackie"? It doesn't suck. But it's not a show at the caliber we'd expect for something with Edie Falco at its center. In the early episodes, I complained about the mishandled supporting characters, who I thought were written with exclamation marks around their annoying quirks. O'Hara is cold and fashionable. Zoey is spineless and awkward. Dr. Cooper is an immature goofball. Akalitus is a ball-busting authoritarian. Mohammed is, well, gay. Twelve episodes later and that's still all they are, with the exception of O'Hara, who grew during the season, through her scenes with Jackie more than her subplot about her sick mother. I have the opposite reaction to Bubbareese's: I think Jackie is an interesting, dynamic character surrounded by one-note clowns. (Mohammed is written and acted in tones of recognizable humanity, but he's underdeveloped thus far.)

I'll return for the second season. I like it enough to keep watching, though I can't say I'll be counting the days until its return. The show wasn't quite able to overcome the problem of its premise. It's not the moral implications of Jackie's affair that bother me, but the logical implausibility that she's worked at this hospital for as long as she has and been able to hide her family from the hospital staff and the hospital from her family without anyone getting wise to it. She's a private, intimidating person, but I just don't believe that a working woman balancing a drug addiction and two young children could so thoroughly compartmentalize her life. It doesn't hold water.

Grade: B-

This message has been edited. Last edited by: 742,

Episode Title: "Health Care & Cinema"

Synopsis: In the season one finale, Jackie is pressed for time to meet Kevin for a midnight rendezvous and Dr. O'Hara, whom she promised to support when her comatose mother arrives from London; a distraught Eddie drowns his sorrows at Kevin's bar, and then returns to the hospital and causes a scene; the movie reviewer awakens from his coma to find that his critical senses have been radically altered.

Guest Star: Victor Garber

Discuss.

Can someone please refresh my memory about the deal with Dr. O'Hara's mother? Don't know whether it was the sound quality or what, but I missed 3/4 of that conversation between O'Hara and Jackie in the boutique.

Is anyone else sad that this first season is coming to an end? I freakin' LOVE this show, and I hope we don't have to wait a whole year for another batch of episodes. Yes, the supporting cast is superb, and their characters need fleshed out more. But at the end of the day, Nurse Jackie is far and away superior to the godawful Weeds right now.

If I remember, Dr. O'Hara said that her stepfather was barring her sister from seeing her mom.

And yes, I'm very sad that the show is over for the season, but I can't wait to see what they come up with for next season.

Eddie Falco can do more then most actors without words and those last few minutes were darn well impressive.

I always assumed she loved Eddie more then her husband but I noticed he wasn't in her thoughts at the end?? In essence I think she wanted the picture perfect family with nice house but doesn't have it.

Everything worked tonight. Acalitus in elevator, the down nurse, and I was glad to see OHara have nice character added sl

Thank God Jackie is coming back because its going to be hell for her now that she has been busted, stole the meds, and her inner turmoil will continue

Seeing Jackie implode like that once Eddie found out about her family was the most compelling moment of the finale. The mindset it takes to resort to stealing meds (knowing you'll get caught) and possibly overmedicating on morphine b/c you've hit so rock bottom is fascinating to watch, and Edie Falco was brilliant all through that sequence. Eddie's drunken rant in the ER was another great moment. I thought that he might crack and reveal everything to everyone, which would have at least been cathartic and begin to unravel all of the lies that Jackie's managed to keep for so long inexplicibly. I thought that Eddie really could have spilled the beans to Kevin at the bar the drunker he became. Zoey's gray scrubs and "breaking" the film critic was needed comic relief. I was embarrassed for Anna Deveare Smith for having to endure that elevator scene. Eve Best had a strong moment at the end of the episode when Jackie was M.I.A. when her comatose mother arrived. I hoped for more with Haaz Sleiman in these last couple of episodes than this though.

Now that the entire season has played itself out, I can say that Edie Falco carried these episodes wonderfully, and while I don't think she'll ever top Carmela Soprano, she did a whole lot to turn the page with Jackie Peyton, who is just as complex, equivocal, mercurial, and fascinating as anything she's done yet. I think she's earned all of the awards attention that she's going to get for this role. The supporting cast could have been better defined, but the talent is so there with the right material. Anna Deveare Smith was severely underused, and Haaz Sleiman could have been given more to work with. Merritt Wever, Paul Schulze, and Eve Best fared the best, so maybe the Edie Falco attention will rub off on some of them too. But what hindered the true potential of this season was the illogical writing treatment of Jackie's secrets. If she's worked at the same hospital for 15 years, someone had to have noticed that she was pregnant twice (unless she adopted those children, and the show's never hinted at that). She would have had to lie about her marital status and dependents for tax filling purposes and payroll, which could lead to tax evasion charges. She's never had her husband or children visit her at All Saints, and never had any sort of intersection of her dual lives until now (beyond O'Hara). Instead of trying to account for some of these issues, they played the finale as Jackie in preservation mode saving her ass. It's certainly one way to play it, but I didn't find it to be that satisfying of an end. Still, I want to see what they do with Jackie in season 2, and Edie Falco's too good here not to continue watching. But I hope the writing improves and deepens the material given to the supporting cast.

Grade for "Health Care & Cinema": B-
Season Average: B