Nurse Jackie recap episode 11 – Flying high never looked so promising

Nurse Jackie recap Season 7, Episode 11 “Vigilante Jones” (original airdate June 21, 2015) Jackie’s back in blues and ready to return to All Saints. As she strolls along to work with her beau Eddie (Paul Shulze) suggests he stops in and gets some doctor signatures to help pad his sample report. Come on Eddie, seriously? Give your gal a fresh start, it’s her first day back. Thankfully, Jackie takes a pass thinking the same and requests that they stop today and not “bring the mess” back into All Saints.

Jackie’s literally rocking the rounds, as if she’s never been gone. She reaches back into that same pocket in her scrubs and chucks a handful of something down her throat. It better be vitamins! At first Jackie’s return is a bit awkward to Zoey (Merritt Weaver), she’s sitting in Jackie’s spot, but it’s not of concern to Jackie (Edie Falco), she slides comfortably into a new desk.

Zoey fields a call from Akalitus (Anna Deavere Smith), who we just saw strolling the city streets with a giant pretzel in hand. She claims she’s got a terrible case of the flu and won’t be in the entire week. “She sounded really healthy, you are the flu,” Zoey confesses to Jackie.

Jackie runs into Dr. Prince (Tony Shalhoub) in the pharmacy where he’s struggling to remember the name of a headache medication. “Fioricit?” Jackie offers. That’s it, Prince says, claiming it’s not for him but he downs it immediately leaving. Prince prefers to be on the hospital floor doing what he loves, as long as he can, over resting in some bed. Things aren’t looking promising for the Stage 4 terminal new doctor we all love.

A patient from the Middle East arrives and their typical translation service isn’t going to be of help. Jackie draws some picture diagrams to help diagnose what’s going on, which leads them to a suitcase the woman brought, which contains 10-years of medical records on her chronic liver disease. Her name is Tazim (Purva Bedi) and she flew from Delhi to the ER, looking to get treatment. She needs surgery but there’s a 12-hour wait in the OR. “Mother fuckers,” Prince says frustrated with the wait. “Let’s keep her in here so she doesn’t get overwhelmed.”

Karlsen (Jeremy Shamos) arrives at All Saints with a bouquet of flowers, so large that he almost runs into Zoey. “Your friend will like these, right?” he wickedly teases.  Zoey’s clueless as to who he means, so Karlsen gives her a gut punch, telling the flowers are for Carrie. “We are having a fling or [as Americans might refer to it] a sexual affair.” Disgusted by the thought, Zoey leaves.

Vigilante Jones is the newest patient at All Saints. He claims to be a superhero (Thor found him trying to climb the building). He thinks lot of people need protecting from the evil that lurks in the city. Zoey’s on board with that philosophy and reminds Carrie of it and the current evil she’s playing with (Karlsen).

Jackie walks in on Prince performing a surgical procedure on the woman from India. “What are you doing,” Jackie panics. “You can’t do a procedure like this by yourself.” Prince claims he’s done it a million times and doesn’t want this woman to suffer for 12 hours when he can take care of it now. Prince’s tumor gets in the way and his vision becomes distorted, forcing Jackie to call for assistance. “I need you to step away from my patient, now” she tells him. Jackie has him talk her through the procedure so she can finish what he started. It works.

Carrie marches into Karlsen’s office and she’s pissed — he can’t just go around telling people of their thing as she works there and he has a wife. Wait, what? She actually is doing it with this creep? “Carrie, I don’t worry about people. I saw something. I wanted something and I got it,” he tells her. “And, now, it is over. That is why I got you these beautiful flowers.” Ouch!

“Is that how it is done in Norway?” she asks, and then she moves in on him fondling his package and laying him out on his desk for a hot kiss. Enough time so she can grab his phone and exit, saying, “Tit for tat, dick smack!”

Jackie hunts down Prince where she tells him she thinks he’s the best chief their ER has ever had, but I think the smart thing to do right now is to remove yourself from the floor. “You’re a nurse, you don’t have the fucking authority to say these things to me,” Prince yells. “I would be careful about how you are addressing this. This is only your first day back. …. I am in charge here, not you.”

Zoey then approaches Prince for some signatures and he becomes belligerent with her, and confused — claiming he can’t drive patients home and that she shouldn’t be questioning his authority.  He fires Zoey, but Zoey’s pretty sure he can’t do that. “What the hell was that? Who the fuck was that?” Zoey asks Jackie.

Jackie thinks they need to get Prince off the floor fast but only Akalitus has the authority. The plan is to give Carrie patients, push paperwork on Prince and Jackie will go find Akalitus. On her way she runs into Eddie who says he has some shit going on and he needs her help. Jackie explains how she’s on the job now, a lot is going down and that she’ll have time to talk to him later. Eddie still asks for her help, but she dismisses him and runs off to find Akalitus.

Carrie is working off of Carlsen’s phone and calls his wife outing him on their affair. She tells Zoey that she really does care what Zoey thinks of her and about the hospital.

Jackie arrives at Akalitus’ house with soup — well, no, it’s actually Diet Coke, but whatever, she didn’t want to come empty handed. She brings Akalitus up to speed on Prince’s Stage 4 symptoms and that she doesn’t want him to hurt anyone and suggests she remove him from the floor. She’s on board and will involve HR and security removing him gently, but she needs time off — she’s not coming in. “I don’t know how to begin to apologize for what I did,” Jackie says. “Then don’t,” Akalitus responds.

“I never meant for it to get ugly and personal. I didn’t want to hurt you. I did and I am sorry. But that’s not what I wanted to do,” Jackie says. In the back of her apartment she sees her son Michael.

“If it didn’t get ugly and personal I would have never gone and found his last known address, now he’s here. So thank you, and fuck you,” and she closes the door on Jackie.

Now it’s Carlsen’s turn to be all hot and bothered. “You called my wife,” he charges at Carrie, and then issues a few threats against her. Vigilante Jones was in earshot and comes to her aid with a can of pepper spray and takes out Carlsen.

Jackie arrives back at All Saints and finds Eddie with Prince trying to get his signature. Jackie’s appalled at Eddie taking advantage of Prince. “I’m sure you’ve done worst,” Eddie says, explaining that he didn’t even know at first that he was sick but needed the signatures.

“You got to get out of my hospital,” Jackie tells him.

“Your hospital? I’m fighting for our future here,” Eddie counters. “I’m trying to fix this shit so we can move forward.”

“Don’t you understand you are fucking everything up? It’s my first day back,” Jackie yells. “You know what it took to get back here.”

“And you did that all on your own,” Eddie snarls back, quickly realizing that Jackie got what she needed from him and that she’s “fucking selfish” and will run over everyone she loves to get what she wants. But Eddie thinks she’s going to cut him loose “right at the end of the rainbow.” He storms out telling her this isn’t going to end good for either of them.

Jackie chases after Eddie trying to get clarification on what exactly he means, but the fire alarms are going off in the ER. Looks like Vigilante set his bed on fire and is now missing. Jackie runs to the top of the building where she finds him ready to jump. “I’m not crazy. I can’t be tied down. I’m not going back to another hospital,” he tells her. “I’ve got things to do. I’ve got a job.”

Jackie tries to convince him into believing that she is one of the people that needs him. He moves away from the ledge and gives her a kiss and tells her she doesn’t need him. “You’re going to be just fine.” Just as emergency crews arrive on the roof, he breaks free of her hold and jumps off the roof. “Holy shit,” Jackie says, as she witnesses the unbelievable. “He flew. He just fucking flew.” And maybe that’s the sign we needed, people, to tell us she’s going to be just fine. What do you think?

Photos Credit: David M. Russell/SHOWTIME