Nurse Jackie Finale Preview

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Nurse Jackie's phenomenal first season draws to a close with tonight's finale. While many of the threads are tied up (the movie critic in the coma, Eddie discovering Jackie's personal life) the season finale focuses more on Jackie's unraveling. For a spoiler-free preview of the episode entitled "Health Care and Cinema," follow us after the jump.

Ever since she hijacked scenes from hefty mobsters carrying guns in The Sopranos, we knew that Edie Falco could handle a title character. And with her return to premium cable as Nurse Jackie, Falco has proven that she can juggle more roles than any other female, male or vampire on television today, acting as nurse, wife, girlfriend, mother, friend and mentor. Like any mortal, over-worked healer though, Jackie was bound to implode, and that she does gloriously in tonight's finale when her professional and fiercely guarded professional lives converge.

Growing increasingly frustrated by the Pill O-Matix, Jackie struggles to get her fix now that Eddie is gone, while comforting patients and settling the disputes and nerves of her coworkers. Zoey (Merritt Wever) sulks around All Saints, hoping that the movie critic she accidentally overdosed (Victor Garber) regains consciousness. Dr. O'Hara (Eve Best) collapses in a rare moment of weakness and low defenses. Mo-Mo (Haaz Sleiman) continues to lean sexily against any non-toxic surface in the hospital and shares an intimate moment with frat boy Coop (Peter Facinelli), who is still nursing wounds from Jackie's confusing rebuff last week. And the endlessly annoying Mrs. Akalitus (Anna Deavere Smith) gets some comeuppance, but not before a run-in with poor, forlorn Eddie (Paul Schulze), whose return to All Saints sends Jackie into a tailspin that brings the whole season full circle.

In an age where writers alternatively create arcs out of thin air for A-listers willing to guest-star during sweeps week and kill off characters abruptly because of behind-the-camera drama, it is impressive that Nurse Jackie manages to end its season without introducing any mysterious, new characters, pregnancies or deaths in the last 60 seconds of the finale. Enjoy tonight's episode and then cool your heels for an entire year before Nurse Jackie's second season.



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