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Nurse Jackie – Lost Girls Review: More Drama, More Problems

The latest episode of Nurse Jackie pays an equal amount of attention to Jackie's family life, including the issues surrounding both of her girls, and to a traumatic experience involving a patient at the hospital. Following the conclusion of her divorce in the previous episode, the drama involving her and Kevin has decreased, although new problems have started occurring involving their daughters. In an episode titled "Lost Girls," it seems that Jackie has lost control as a parent and feels that her girls need help. The events that happen to Fiona and Grace are things that are common to rebellious children of any kind, but particularly ones that are going through a traumatic experience such as a divorce, making this seem like a very realistic situation.
 

As so many children tend to do shortly after a divorce, Fiona and Grace both start showing signs of acting out and rebelling. Fiona acts out during school by swearing at a teacher and creating a scene, which causes Jackie to leave while she's with a patient in order to meet with Kevin and the principal. Meanwhile, walking back from the school, Jackie and Fiona bump into Grace, who has just gotten off the subway, and they find out that she has a new boyfriend who is three years older than her. Later in the episode, Jackie finds out that Grace left again in order to see her boyfriend, after she was told not to see him. In a very bold and Jackie-like move, Jackie finds Grace in order to make it clear that she is too young for her boyfriend, and takes Grace back home in an embarrassing scene. Jackie is always such an expressive person, and her face certainly conveys how she is feeling. Falco was also quite impressive in the bold speech that she made to the boy playing guitar on the sidewalk.

Much of the drama going on in the hospital involves Gloria Akalitus and her forgetfulness. Dr. Prentiss brings Gloria's memory problem to Jackie's attention, knowing that it was Akalitus' responsibility to post the new nurses' schedule (a task that Gloria did not do), and Jackie takes credit for it, in defense of her longtime colleague and friend. They have built such a strong relationship over their years at the hospital, and it is nice to see that the two of them have such an impressive connection. However, Jackie does need to realize what is going on and try to distance herself in this situation as well. Gloria's memory has been getting worse, and her problem seems even more serious when it appears that she has lost a patient and does not deal with a patient in the way that Jackie has requested before Jackie has to leave to deal with her daughter.
 

In the end, it turns out that the patient was never actually lost, but Gloria was only hiding her in an effort to save the patient from the husband who abuses her. The nurses all joined together in an effort to get the patient to safety, but broke a number of hospital procedures in the process; their rule-breaking was noticed by Dr. Prentiss, who wants to make sure they let him know when something like that happens again. Dr. Prentiss is new and clearly wants to assert that he has authority in the hospital, but the whole nursing staff, as well as Eddie, who is trying to build a friendship with Jackie, unite in order to take credit, guaranteeing that no one will be blamed for what has happened. Gloria makes a joke at her own expense after the incident, saying "Maybe I helped a few people out along the way, I forget," which is helpful to show that she is realizing what is going on, but is not willing to let it bother her. She also felt the need to help a patient in this case, no matter what the consequences are. Anna Deveare Smith's acting in her portrayal of Gloria continues to be exceptional, and illustrates well how her character has changed over the course of the show.

A very childish back and forth sort of teasing continues to occur between Dr. Cooper and Dr. Roman in this episode, resulting in them hooking up in the hospital towards the end of the episode. Dr. Roman's presence on the show continues to annoy me, as she acts like a girl in middle school, getting the attention of Dr. Cooper and toying with him and his emotions. How she ever became a doctor is a complete mystery to me, and anyone else who watches the show, I'm sure, as she does not seem capable of doing anything that Dr. Cooper and Dr. Prentiss do on a routine basis. She has been toying with Dr. Cooper ever since she started working at the hospital, making him do the jobs that she does not want to do and taking advantage of him because of her good looks, something that should not be tolerated in the environment of a hospital. This manipulation is painful to watch.
 

Throughout this episode, Jackie takes charge, and while both of her daughters are getting into trouble at the beginning, fixes the situation between Grace and her boyfriend, and Eddie even comes over to help Fiona with her math. It is refreshing to see Jackie happy again, particularly when it comes to her new romantic interest (we see her going out with him at the end of the episode). For too long, Jackie has been forced to deal with a load of problems in her personal life, and it will be interesting to see where the show takes audiences as her life starts to change.

Rating
8.6

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