Nurse Jackie

'Nurse Jackie' is a black comedy. The writing is exceptional, the acting outstanding. Two reasons why I love this TV series, produced by Showtime.

Starring Edie Falco of 'The Soprano's' fame is brilliant as Jackie, the drug taking nurse and adulteress who is compassionate to criminal patients and patients she treats with her own medicinal expertise eg: in one episode Nurse Jackie dresses the wound of a Latino patient in haste while hiding him and his gun from a cop and feeding him instructions in his lingo of how to escape, simultaneously diverting the cop. In another episode, Jackie gets a patient suffering severe pain which cannot be fixed with conventional medicine, a hit of marijuana from her 'ambo' pot smoking colleague. Later she takes the patient hash cookies she has baked herself to his apartment, and advises him with care, how many to eat and when. She gives the patient contact details of the dealer.

Season 2 offers the same high standard of the first season. We see Jackie continue to find new innovative ways to get her drug fix without getting caught eg: by learning to master the new electronic drug system which has been put into place.

In another storyline, after failing to end her affair with pharmacist/ex colleague, Eddie, who is also one of Jackie's drug suppliers, Jackie is horrified when Eddie continues to cultivate his friendship with her husband Kevin. Jackie has kept her family life secret from Eddie. But he is injecting himself more and more into her other life which she hates and can't stop eg: in a recent episode when he was in her lounge chatting to Kevin and their daughters one night when she got home from work. Obviously this is leading to Eddie blackmailing Jackie as he threatens to tell Kevin about their affair if she stops the relationship, which will probably result in Eddie trying to make Jackie leave Kevin.

Other interesting characters include: The English, silver tongued, Dr O'Hara regarded as top notch in her field. She is Jackie's confidante, sophisticated, draped in haute couture. She is also Jackie's fellow druggie, who has come to work still high on Ecstacy from socialising the night before and slips Jackie percoset whenever she needs it, for her sore back of course; the vain and egotistical Dr Cooper, played convincingly by Peter Facinelli of 'Twilight/Eclipse' fame, who is Nurse Jackie's antagonist; and the hilarious and quirky junior nurse, Zoe.

The well played characters and layered script are clever. They keep me engaged and hooked on 'Nurse Jackie' Tuesday's, 9.30pm on TV 3.