Episode Two begins with Jackie (Edie Falco) ironing in the basement. She cautiously looks around her and up the basement stairs, listening for her family. She takes down a box labeled “Easter Stuff” and begins to shake the colored eggs, listening for hidden pills. It’s not surprising that she’s thought ahead to stash drugs wherever she might need them and wherever they won’t be found by unknowing family members.
When Jackie comes upstairs, we see her daughters are eating breakfast and getting ready for school. Her oldest daughter, Grace, is continuing with her extreme fears that bad things will happen to them. We saw this in the first season. Grace is full of anxiety and is constantly worrying about things. This morning she is worried that their house will burn down. She’s been unplugging appliances and has saved up her allowance money to purchase some fancy-schmancy smoke detector. Jackie and Kevin (Dominic Fumusa) exchange nervous glances as they realize her problems are getting worse. They tell her not to worry about these things and that they (the parents) will take care of everything.
Jackie heads to work and encounters Dr. O’Hara (Eve Best) who is enjoying a hot dog outside of the hospital after a long night of clubbing. She’s been mourning the loss of her mother in odd ways and ended up taking some ecstasy. In fact, as she exclaims, she is still rolling after nine hours. Jackie seems preoccupied as Dr. O’Hara gabbles on about how Jackie needs to appreciate every moment with her daughters. Zoey (Merritt Wever) arrives in a taxi cab, clearly enjoying her “Walk of Shame” as she comes to work for the day. “Hey Guys!” she says with a mouthful of breakfast and a spring in her step. Zoey is definitely more relaxed with Dr. O’Hara now and also with Jackie. She’s really begun to feel like she fits in at the hospital. But more importantly than Zoey’s newfound confidence, who is this mystery date? Will we get to see him in the next episode? Or is he going to be one of those surprise guests we only get to meet at the end of the season?
We next see Jackie attending to a patient. He’s a young boy who might have cystic fibrosis. His parents are really worried because he’s been having trouble breathing and want him to have a “sweat test”. He’s scheduled for one later in the month but because Jackie is such a wonderful nurse, and cares so much for her patients, she tells them that the hospital can do the test for them that day. Jackie again exhibits her willingness to do whatever she can for her patients. She might sometimes be obsessed with finding her next fix but she’s always looking out for others.
Dr. O’Hara and Zoey have a run-in in the hallways. Normally Dr. O’Hara is short and quick to shrug Zoey off but today is quite different. Under the infulence of ecstasy, Dr. O’Hara calls Zoey “ma petite fleur” (French for “my little flower”) and wraps her scarf around Zoey’s head. Jackie flies by and grabs Dr. O’Hara before Zoey can really respond. Zoey is thrilled by the scarf and the positive attention from Dr. O’Hara.
Sam (Arjun Gupta) , the new nurse, finds Jackie giving Dr. O’Hara an IV to flush out her system. Sam guesses correctly that Dr. O’Hara has been taking drugs. He seems eager to recognize an addiction in her. Like others who have recently been through rehab, he’s anxious to find addictions in other people and thinks he can see them immediately. Is this just a typical recent rehab grad way of life? Or can Sam really recognize addictions in other people better than others who haven’t undergone rehab?
Let’s not forget about Eddie (Paul Schulze)… who this season should really be named “Creepy Eddie”. (Seriously!) He’s exhibiting all the traits of those ultimate creepy characters who befriend people only to end up stalking them and brutally murdering them: showing up randomly & when the victim is alone, remembering all the little stories the victim had talked about, forging friendships with unknowing victims… and being flat out creepy. Like when Eddie shows up at Kevin’s bar in the morningtime. He asks Kevin how things are going and “How’s your wife? It’s uh, Jackie, right?” trying to be all friendly. Kevin doesn’t even catch on to the weirdness; he even comments that Eddie has a good memory. When Kevin asks Eddie how he’s been, Eddie tells Kevin that things haven’t been good and that he attempted to kill himself. Things get serious for a moment until Eddie says that he was just kidding, that he has a sick sense of humor. A sick sense of humor? Sounds like a set-up for some bad action this season! Kevin has no clue how creepy Eddie is being – even when Eddie orders a beer and toasts “To love, to women… to Jackie!”
Back at the hospital, Jackie just can’t stand Dr. Cooper (Peter Facinelli). Coop has been obsessed with “Tweeting” after every patient and after every time Jackie gets on his nerves. He refers to her as “the bitchy nurse”. Jackie gets upset that Coop is tweeting private information about patients. Coop assures her that it’s all anonymous. I’m left to wonder if his “anonymous” tweeting will come back to bite him in the ass later this season.
Sam starts grilling Zoey about Dr. O’Hara & Jackie at the pretzel stand outside the hospital. He’s pretty convinced they are both drug users and thinks Zoey is the one with the information. Zoey assures him that neither one of them uses drugs. He compliments Zoey on her scarf. She says thank you and that it’s from “Hermes”. Except she pronounces it “Herms” instead of the correct pronunciation. Zoey has no idea; she remains as blissful and confidently ignorant as ever. Sam is introduced (not formally) to the schizophrenic who lives in a building across from the hospital and shouts craziness at the passers-by. One passer-by, fed-up with the constant battery from “God” (the schizophrenic believes he is God) throws a bottle up and knocks him out. Zoey saves the day by getting the schizo into the hospital to be checked.
Zoey and the Schizo have a moment when he calls her an angel and then again when she tells him about her childhood desires to become a nun. Well, until there was “this boy”. She feels awkward about telling these things to the guy but the guy reassures her that it’s okay. He starts to reason that he’s not actually God and when Zoey confirms this reasoning, he freaks out and then Zoey freaks out. While Zoey has become more comfortable at the hospital, she’s still her jumpy self and hasn’t completely come out of her shell. The Schizo decides he doesn’t want to yell at people anymore because he’s not God and we can tell he feels sad about this. Zoey is now trying to convince the Schizo that he is maybe not “GOD” but perhaps more like Jesus who was important to the whole line of things anyways. Perhaps the Schizo is a messenger and he shouldn’t give up yelling at people. Zoey does good and all is well with the Schizo… for now.
Sam finds drugs on the ground (drugs that fell out of Jackie’s pocket) and asks Jackie where they came from, if they’re hers, etc. He questions Jackie’s swiftness in offering to take care of the problem for him. This undermining upsets Jackie and she demands the drugs and storms off to show him what the offical hospital policy is on lost & found drugs. Of course, she goes back to retrieve the drugs after he has gone away.
Jackie goes to lodge a complaint against Cooper to Mrs. Akalitus (Anna Deavere Smith) who informs her that Coop did the same against her for undermining him. Jackie is getting really fed up with his twittering and attitude. She also doesn’t like that Sam is hot on her trail so she tells Mrs. Akalitus that he’s paranoid and thinks everyone is on drugs. Jackie has to cover her tracks so no one finds out her secrets. She also asks Mrs. Akalitus for a good pediatric psychiatrist, under the guise of asking for a fellow co-worker who wants to remain anonymous. We’re not sure but Mrs. Akalitus seems to know that it’s really Jackie when she comments that “This doctor was so wonderful with my own son.”
Jackie is able to get a sneak peek at the test results for the young patient and the preliminary scores indicate a negative result. This is good for the young patient and so Jackie reassures his family that they can all go home to rest because things are looking good. Only later in the episode does Jackie learn that the test results actually came back positive for cystic fibrosis. Cooper is really upset with her because she went behind his back and now he has to call the family with the devastating news and be “the bad guy”. He’s really mad and Jackie realizes that she really messed up.
Jackie’s day ends as she comes home with a new smoke detector. As ridiculous as her daughter’s worries seem to be, as a mother Jackie wants to do everything possible to make her daughter feel safe.
