Making Oxycontin Abuse Safe for All: Nurse Jackie

AN HOUR AND A HALF to Halifax. Five and a half more to Banff. Screens are out on Air Canada. They run out of newspapers instantly, and the hot sandwiches sell out by Row 3. This is an airline in serious kaka. Yet the only thing that makes Flight 185 bearable is the kickass cabin crew. That's the 2nd time I've noticed that lately on Air Canada. While they quibble over pensions and how they screw their employees, that traditional malaise you've seen with the Air Canada crew seems much, much improved. I don't know why. They're taking the brunt of a bad situation every day with every flight. Seriously, if not for the crew today's flight would have been Lord of the Flies.

Along with the uncomfortable job of reviewing scripts and making notes with a laptop wedged at the chin, (ah, reclining seats + six foot four, you're awesome) I got to take a little break to watch a preview screener from TMN of the new Showtime series Nurse Jackie, which premieres this weekend on TMN/Movie Central in Canada and Showtime in the USA. (Check that: actually it's Monday June 8th.)

Most of the buzz and reviews on this show deservedly focus on the wonderful Edie Falco, who actually does do the impossible and make you forget Carmela Soprano. The show is witty and dark, and raw about how things really work in the world, and how messy people can be even when they're trying to do good. There's a peculiar thread of Catholic kind of humor running through this one that of course I appreciate. (The NY Hospital Jackie toils at is All Saints.) "Make me good, God" Jackie intones at the end of episode one. "But not yet."

What strikes me about Falco in this show, besides the brave, unflattering and practical short haircut, is how sexy she is. I know others felt differently, but I never found Carmela sexy. Not even when Furio was mooning at her. But the contradictions and the fire and the passion lurking in Falco's performance -- she has the thing that I wish Canadian series would discover more -- sometimes all you have to do is light and let the eyes say everything -- is just...wow.

Hot.

And fun. And great. Sadly, I know about three writers who are going to be depressed by this show because it's an idea that just needed to be done...and this is it. This is the world weary, nurse on the edge, circling the drain show that's been needed forever. Great (but not particularly original) idea meets wonderful execution, meets superlative TV performer.

The show's attitude toward forgiveness, and the way it deals with addiction, is so out of the realm of TV too. I read somewhere I believe that both the (female) writer/producer/creators are in recovery. It smacks of when David Milch used to talk with affection about Andy Sipowicz: "he got clean before I did." This is that kind of show, too.

Hooray for Summer and the return of the quality cable show. Nurse Jackie is a prescription everybody needs. And stat.

Yeah, I made the prescription joke. EIGHT AND A HALF HOURS ON A PLANE. You don't like it, %@# me.