Editorial Reviews:
Synopsis
Still high and mighty! The Showtime® hit series "Nurse Jackie" ended season two with the ugly truth closing in on super-nurse Jackie Peyton. Jackie's best friend and husband put the pieces together about her pill-popping ways and confronted her about her addiction. But if the people in her life think one little intervention is going to stop her, they don't know Jackie. The great white liar returns for another hilarious season of 12 episodes on 3 discs.
Amazon.com
In season two, Nurse Jackie's title character was hiding prescription drugs in her daughters' plastic Easter eggs. Now, in season three (with 12 episodes, plus bonus material, on three discs), she's stealing pain medicine intended for cancer patients. And so continues the slow but inexorable downward spiral of Jackie Peyton (Emmy winner Edie Falco, excellent as always), one of the more conflicted and nuanced individuals on TV. It's not a pretty sight--compelling, yes, and often darkly funny, but sometimes also hard to watch, as a basically appealing character's reaction to the deep hole she's put herself in is to pull out a shovel and keep digging. As the season opens, Jackie has rejected an attempt at a drug intervention by husband Kevin (Dominic Fumusa) and best friend Dr. O'Hara (Eve Best). This is a "world-class liar," as one character describes her, and by now Jackie's very skilled at denying she has a habit while taking ever more sneaky steps to satisfy it, regardless of the effects on her relationships with anyone in her orbit (the task doesn't get any easier when her dealer is run over by a truck). Still, when it comes to the patients, she's also the most caring, if occasionally vengeful, caregiver at New York's All Saints Hospital, a nurse who comforts a father whose son has just died of renal failure, blindsides a jerk on a skateboard who nearly runs over an elderly woman (breaking his wrist in the process), or helps a kid whose own mother is a hopeless druggie. Meanwhile, the ensemble work by the other regular members of the cast--nurses Zoey (Merritt Wever), Thor (Stephen Wallem), Sam (Arjun Gupta), and threatening newcomer Kelly (Gbenga Akinnagbe); preening Dr. Cooper (Peter Facinelli); boss Gloria Akalitus (Anna Deavere Smith); and pharmacist/sometime boyfriend Eddie (Paul Schulze)--is better than ever at maintaining the show's balance of pathos, quirky humor, and interpersonal drama. There are also a few curves thrown our way--especially in episode 12, when an out-of-left-field confession reveals Jackie to be a first-class hypocrite on top of everything else--that are sure to keep viewers coming back for season four. --Sam Graham
