NURSE JACKIE: Season 3 - On Demand → On Demand Weekly

NURSE JACKIE: Season 3 - On DemandApril 01, 2011

SHO

On Demand Weekly provides new movie reviews of hot movies and shows on demand from the POV of watching from the comfort of your home. Today’s review: “NURSE JACKIE: SEASON 3” (Showtime).

ALL SAINTS (HOSPITAL) BE PRAISED

By Jean Tait

At the end of last season, Jackie was in a corner. Her carefully built house (and hospital) of cards was collapsing all around her. Her husband and best friend had discovered her drug habit, her lover had become best buds with her husband, and there was nothing to do but surrender to AA or rehab. Or was there?

Getting herself out of tight corners is one of Jackie’s supreme talents, and she is the queen of the best defense is a good offense. And somehow, even though we really want her to get the help she needs, we can’t help but admire how she wriggles out of responsibility. How can someone so caring and compassionate to her children, patients, and strangers be so glib and deceptive to the people closest to her?

NURSE JACKIE (Showtime)

That’s the dichotomy that keeps us riveted to every nuance in Edie Falco’s harried nurse.

After we get past the will-she or won’t-she cliff-hanger, the show clips along at its usual terrific pace, balancing humor and hardness. No one in the cast slacks as we get some new subplots, with the especially good Anna Deveare Smith as beleaguered hospital administrator Gloria Akalitus dealing with the de-consecration of the hospital’s chapel and serious First Lady envy.

NURSE JACKIE (Showtime)

For those of us who live in New York City and know the controversy surrounding the closing of St. Vincent’s Hospital, Akalitus’ “May it rest in peace” and crossing herself every time St. Vincent’s is mentioned is especially hysterical.

The delightful Merrit Wever handles Zoey’s developing relationship with EMT Lenny with darling ambiguity, and Peter Facinelli’s Dr. Fitch gets to be almost sympathetic as his two moms (woohoo, it’s Swoozie Kurtz and Judith Light!) decide to split.

NURSE JACKIE (Showtime)

Just watch as Jackie’s husband (Dominic Furmusa) lover (Paul Schulze) and best friend (Eve Best) try to stay out of Jackie’s orbit. They know they can’t trust her, so they resist the pull, but her magnetism makes it difficult to resist.

Let’s just hope Eve Best’s O’Hara gets a little more to do this season. I know she had to take some time off to be Wallis Simpson in THE KING’S SPEECH, but I’m greedy! There is just not enough of Dr. O’Hara for me.

Actually, there’s not enough “Nurse Jackie” for me either! Each time an episode ends, I’m disappointed. I always want more. But I’m grateful it’s back, and I’ll take what I can get!

NURSE JACKIE (Showtime)

- Jean Tait

Jean
Jean Tait is a contributing writer to On Demand Weekly. Currently the Director of Programming for the Connecticut Film Festival, Jean has programmed for the Jacksonville Film Festival and Sundance Channel.