Nurse Jackie

Development and production

The series was first conceived by executive producer Caryn Mandabach after being told various stories from an ER nurse about her experience on the job. Using the nurse's stories as an inspiration, Evan Dunsky developed a script for Showtime. By this time, the series had been under the title Nurse Mona and was a considerably darker version of the show with vague supernatural elements. Edie Falco initially passed on the project, but was very intrigued by the main character. Liz Brixius and Linda Wallem had written a pilot about addiction for Showtime titled Insatiable; the two were asked to rework Nurse Mona and infuse it with more comedy. Nurse Jackie was officially ordered by Showtime in June 2008, with Falco attached to star and the season to begin filming later that year. Co-creators Brixius and Wallem served as showrunners.

The story of Jackie's addiction was personal for Falco, Wallem, and Brixius, as all three were recovering alcoholics. According to Brixius, "There are massive consequences to addiction, that in order to keep using, you have to keep rationalizing and tell yourself a different story and underplay the damage that you're doing, and that is the interesting part of Jackie... And it's also where a lot of our comedy comes from. It's not that it's funny, it's that it's absurd." Producer Liz Flahive recalled the writing staff of Nurse Jackie was majority female and half-consisted of individuals from the LGBTQ community.

For the show's fourth season, which saw Jackie enter rehab and attempt sobriety, Falco said "the last thing I wanted was to give the impression that it's all fun and games, and isn't it funny what she gets away with. It's important that we are accurate as far as showing the ramifications of this kind of behavior." Wallem claims that she and Flahive were long opposed to the idea of Jackie entering rehab until it just seemed right for them: "It just hit me and it was like our own experiences of sobriety...during the break in between [seasons] three and four we had this long talk. We started to talk about what that would look like. I had to divorce myself from my own experience of rehab."

After the fourth season, Wallem and Brixius departed as showrunners. The two, who had been in a relationship prior to the start of the series, were said to be having major disagreements that were affecting production. Nurse Jackie was renewed for a fifth season on May 31, 2012, and Clyde Phillips was announced to be taking over as showrunner. In discussing his hiring, Phillips recalled that Showtime "wanted [the show] darker and funnier and with a greater sense of consequence. Jackie's been a drug addict trying to live a triple life and basically threw a hand grenade into everybody's lives. They wanted to see the effect of what happens when the shrapnel goes flying around."

Plot

Jackie Peyton (Edie Falco) is an emergency department nurse at the fictional All Saints Hospital in New York City. She has two daughters and is married to her husband Kevin (Dominic Fumusa), although she is having an affair with the hospital pharmacist Eddie (Paul Schulze) in exchange for pills. Her allies at the hospital include Dr. Eleanor O'Hara (Eve Best), new nurse Zoey Barkow (Merritt Wever), and hard-lined administrator Gloria Akalitus (Anna Deavere Smith). Over the course of the first season, she spars with Dr. Fitch Cooper (Peter Facinelli), whom Jackie finds obnoxious, and tries to help her anxious daughter Grace (Ruby Jerins). Other All Saints staff members include Momo (Haaz Sleiman), Thor (Stephen Wallem), Sam (Arjun Gupta), Dr. Ike Prentiss (Morris Chestnut), Dr. Carrie Roman (Betty Gilpin), and Dr. Bernard Prince (Tony Shalhoub).

Jackie's affair with Eddie comes to an abrupt end when Eddie is fired and subsequently discovers that she's married. Despite this, he continues to try to ingrain himself into her life by becoming friends with Kevin. Eddie eventually returns to the hospital and he and Jackie remain friends, although she needs a new source for drugs. She begins faking back pain and asks that O'Hara provide her with medication. Meanwhile, O'Hara is left with a windfall of cash after her mother dies and insists on financing Jackie's daughter's education. Although Kevin refuses, Jackie secretly takes the money and uses it to pay off debts she's accrued from her drug habit. After inquiring about a fake MRI, O'Hara discovers that Jackie lied about her back pain and Kevin discovers she took the money without consulting him. Furious, he discovers Jackie's debt and comes to the conclusion that she's a drug addict. Kevin and O'Hara stage an intervention on Jackie but she insists that these expenses were for their daughters. Although she's able to repair her relationship with O'Hara, the Peyton marriage remains on the rocks.

Running low on pills, Jackie steals several thousand dollars' worth of drugs off an epileptic man having a seizure. He survives and meets with Jackie: he's an AA sponsor who begins supplying Jackie with pills in exchange for cash. He also gives Jackie AA coins that she's able to present to Kevin, falsely claiming to be seeking treatment for her addiction. After her dealer is hit by a bus in a freak accident, Jackie begins going through withdrawal and resorts to taking medication prescribed to her anxious daughter. This devastates O'Hara. Jackie also steals several fentanyl patches from the hospital and blames a temp nurse. This results in an investigation and Jackie's urine is collected, although Akalitus disposes of the specimen because she knows what the result will be. Meanwhile, Kevin reveals to Jackie that he had a brief affair. Although he's willing to work things out, she demands that he move out. Her addiction continues to worsen until she brings a junkie into her home who dies after they smoke heroin together. After calling O'Hara for help, Jackie breaks down and agrees to go to rehab.

Cast and characters

Showtime called Jackie Peyton a "strong-willed, iconoclastic New York City nurse juggling the frenzied grind of an urban hospital and an equally challenging personal life," noting that she had "an occasional weakness for Vicodin, Percocet, and Xanax to get her through the days." The main characters include Dr. Eleanor O'Hara (Eve Best), a British doctor and Jackie's best friend at work; Zoey Barkow (Merritt Wever), a spunky, inexperienced nursing student from a community college, "the perfect foil for Jackie's sharp angles"; Dr. Fitch Cooper (Peter Facinelli), "a likable 'golden boy' whose calm façade hides a nervous disposition"; and Eddie Walzer (Paul Schulze), a pharmacist with whom Jackie is having an affair at the beginning of the series.

Other characters include the officious hospital administrator Gloria Akalitus (Anna Deavere Smith), Jackie's bar owner husband Kevin (Dominic Fumusa), their daughters Grace (Ruby Jerins) and Fiona (Daisy Tahan in season 1 and Mackenzie Aladjem in seasons 3 through 7), and Thor (Stephen Wallem), Jackie's kindhearted confidant, played by the real-life brother of show creator/executive producer Linda Wallem.

Main

Edie Falco as Jackie Peyton, RN; a senior ER nurse

Eve Best as Eleanor O'Hara, MD; an ER surgeon, later Chief of Emergency Medicine

Merritt Wever as Zoey Barkow, RN; an ER nurse, later ER charge-nurse

Haaz Sleiman as Mohammed de la Cruz, RN; an ER nurse

Paul Schulze as Eddie Walzer, PharmD.; the ER pharmacist

Peter Facinelli as Fitch "Coop" Cooper, MD; an ER physician

Dominic Fumusa as Kevin Peyton; Jackie's husband

Anna Deavere Smith as Gloria Akalitus, RN; the ER administrator

Ruby Jerins as Grace Peyton; Jackie's elder daughter

Daisy Tahan (season 1) and Mackenzie Aladjem (seasons 2–7) as Fiona Peyton; Jackie's younger daughter

Bobby Cannavale as Miguel Cruz, MD

Morris Chestnut as Ike Prentiss, MD; a trauma surgeon and the Chief of Emergency Medicine

Stephen Wallem as Thor Lundgren, RN; an ER nurse

Betty Gilpin as Carrie Roman, MD; an ER physician

Adam Ferrara as Frank Verelli; an NYPD Sergeant

Recurring cast

Rene Ifrah as Officer Ryan (seasons 1–3)

Arjun Gupta as Sam (seasons 1–4)

Lenny Jacobson as Lenny (seasons 1–4)

Michael Buscemi as God (seasons 1–4, 7)

Bill Sage as Bill (seasons 2–3)

Jaimie Alexander as Tunie Peyton (season 3)

Gbenga Akinnagbe as Kelly Slater (seasons 3–4)

Jake Cannavale as Charlie Cruz (season 4)

Marcy Harriell as Marta (season 5)

Laura Benanti as Mia Peyton (season 6)

Julie White as Antoinette Mills (season 6)

Michael Esper as Gabe (seasons 6–7)

Tony Shalhoub as Bernard Prince, MD (season 7)

Jeremy Shamos as Johanes Karlsen (season 7)

Mark Feuerstein as Barry Wolfe (season 7)

Reception

Critical reception

The premiere of Nurse Jackie was met with generally positive reviews from critics, and received a Metacritic rating of 76 out of 100. Entertainment Weekly gave the first episode a B+, stating "Edie Falco brings a genial forcefulness to Nurse Jackie." New York magazine called the Showtime series "smart, acrid, alternately sharp and sentimental" and "the best series yet in the cable channel's ongoing meditation on the nature of addiction ... and the setting for a truly breakthrough female character." James Poniewozik from Time magazine ranked Nurse Jackie's episode "Tiny Bubbles" (106) as 5th on his Top 10 Episodes of 2009 list. Variety and Salon struck the primary sour notes, with Variety noting, "The series increasingly feels like all style and limited substance – a star showcase that's less 'triumphant return' than 'Nice to have you back, but...'" However, it was criticized by New York State Nurses Association, who claimed that the title character's violations of the nursing Code of Ethics promoted a negative image of nurses.

The second season also received positive reviews, with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 83% based on 24 reviews and the critics consensus reading, "While the tone begins to falter slightly in the second season, Nurse Jackie still triumphs due to Edie Falco's outstanding performance." Robert Bianco of USA Today gave the season a perfect score, stating: "What's remarkable is the fine balance producer/writers Linda Wallem and Liz Brixius maintain between the comic and tragic. Jackie can be a dark show, and it's going to get darker. But there isn't an episode that doesn't leave you yearning to see the next." Amelie Gillette of The A.V. Club was more mixed in her review of the season premiere, praising the actors but criticizing some of the dramatic elements: "Despite the rather lame drama swirling around her, Edie Falco's coolly exasperated Jackie still somehow rises above."

The third season also received positive reviews from critics, though less positive than the previous two. The season has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 76% based on 17 reviews, with the critics consensus reading: "The upheavals at All Saints Hospital still make for addicting television, but this third season suffers from formula fatigue as Jackie's actions continue to escape meaningful consequences." Kathy Sweeney of The Guardian said of the season, "You can't help feeling the show is treading water. True, she is a great nurse, if you overlook the fact she's whacked out of her head as she dispenses her unorthodox brand of healthcare, but it's getting increasingly hard to see Jackie as a sympathetic character." Verne Gay of Newsday was more positive, giving the season a B: "Comedy or drama? Drama or comedy? Nurse Jackie continues to have it both ways in the third season, which is certainly a smart strategy."

Genre

On August 29, 2010, at the 62nd Primetime Emmy Awards, in her acceptance speech for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series, Falco exclaimed "I'm not funny!" Later, while speaking to the press, she expanded upon her statement and said that she felt her performance was dramatic. Several articles have since been written addressing this question, with some writers even calling for an overhaul of the Emmy categorization process as well as a "Comedy-Drama/Dramedy" category for the awards.

Broadcast

The June 8, 2009, series premiere was Showtime's most successful ever, with one million viewers for the premiere and over 350,000 for the repeat broadcast. Showtime immediately picked up the series for a second season.

Foreign versions

The Netherlands: Charlie: A Dutch remake of Nurse Jackie began production for Dutch TV Network, Nederland 3. Starring Halina Reijn, Katja Schuurman, and Benja Bruijning, the show began airing on March 13, 2013.