On this week's episode of Nurse Jackie, we jump right into the action on the day following the previous episode. It is Jackie's birthday and there is all sorts of drama going down at the hospital, but more importantly, she is in a fierce custody battle for her two girls, Fiona and Grace. Last week she requested that her husband, who she is in the middle of divorcing, let her have the girls on her birthday, even though it does not fall on her assigned day. The episode starts out with Jackie and Kevin in a room discussing custody, and Kevin explains that he does not feel that Jackie is in a position to have shared custody because of the unpredictable hours that she works.
The next scene takes us to the hospital where a boy has been admitted and appears to be screaming and out of control. Dr. Cooper examines him and immediately takes a look inside his ear, due to the commonality of ear infections in children. Being the goofy doctor that he is, Coop tries to relate to the kid by moving his tools, making light-saber sounds, and saying "I am your doctor" in a Darth Vader voice. Dr. Cooper soon discovers that a spider has crawled inside the patient's ear, and Dr. Prentiss is able to get it out. Even in serious moments, Dr. Cooper tends to act immature which is inappropriate for a doctor, and Jackie calls him out on it later in the episode, after Dr. Prentiss is appointed to be the new chief of the ER.
The next patient featured, who ends up becoming a part of the story for the rest of the episode, involves a young woman who is severely misdiagnosed by the new doctor, Carrie Roman. Dr. Roman finds nothing wrong with the patient other than back pains, and she accuses the patient of simply looking for an easy way to get medication. In fact, the patient has developed sepsis, (a deadly infection) due to the treatment that she received at All Saints for her previous condition. In a very funny encounter following this scene, Dr. Roman is looking at the x-rays with Jackie, and when neither of them find anything, Dr. Roman tells Jackie how she is always able to spot an addict and she is sure that is all that is wrong with the patient in question. Knowing Jackie's recent past and her character on the show, it was of course very ironic to hear her make such an outrageous statement toward Jackie, and Jackie's reaction is perfect as she makes the most appropriate face, one that only audiences familiar with her past would get. Her shocking face exclaimed "Really? You can spot an addict anywhere? Well, I'm right here."
Jackie, with her sarcasm and inappropriate behavior, is always entertaining to watch, and her reactions to others' statements have become one of the funniest parts of the show. A continuing storyline throughout the episode revolves around a bouquet of flowers sent by Jackie's father, flowers which she does not want. After the flowers attract the attention of other staff members, she attempts to throw them away. Eventually, she resorts to taking them to other patients in order to get rid of them, but Thor jokingly brings the bouquet back to her desk each time, and eventually Jackie simply throws the flowers on the floor in frustration. It is obvious that Jackie has a number of issues with her family and as Thor says, "it was ten years after she started working here that we even found out that she was married." Jackie tends to be very secretive, and needed to be in previous seasons, while she maintained her drug habit.
Throughout this episode, Jackie continues to urge her boss Akalitus to let her have more flexible hours in order to be able to spend time with her girls. She eventually gets her boss to make a deal, and immediately calls Kevin to tell him the news, but he still continues to insist on full custody. Her two daughters have had a mixed relationship with her over the years, but Fiona, being the youngest, needs her and appreciates having her around. Zoey tends to add a good dose of humor to the show, and confronts Jackie, who needs to vent about the drama that is going on with Kevin, but Zoey tells her she sounds like a self-help book and proceeds to tell her to go away.
Jackie is capable of taking care of the girls, and as the main character on the show that we have all grown to love over the past four seasons, I know everyone is rooting for her, as I am, in this custody battle. She has gone through some unfortunate circumstances with her drug addiction, and the hours that she has to work at the hospital are a hinderance, but she deserves to be a part of the lives of her girls and at least have joint custody. Kevin has not been good to her at all lately, and when he makes a comment about the hours that she works, Jackie snaps back at him, reminding him that he never complained about the hours when they were paying for his bar. In a pleasant surprise to Jackie and the audience, Zoey brings the girls to her at the end of her birthday, and she is able to have a nice evening with them, enjoying the company she had been longing for all day.
Kevin fires one more attack at her by telling her he wants the girls to have psychological tests, assuming that they will prefer to be with him due to Jackie's problems. Jackie finds out more about the psychological tests, and has Grace take them, hoping to find out where she stands and what her chances are of obtaining custody. In a brilliant move on Jackie's part, she has Grace draw a picture of her family (similar to a psychological test), and Grace ends up drawing the three of them together with Kevin off to the side. To close out this exciting and event-filled episode, we cut to the credits as Jackie explains this situation to Kevin while he is at work, signaling that she may have the edge on him.