Nurse Jackie Premieres on Showtime

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Depending on where you hail from, you may or may not have seen the ads for Showtime’s new original series, Nurse Jackie, which debuted last night. Edie Falco holds up a syringe, with the tagline, “Life is Full of Little Pricks.” How true.

From the opening scenes, it’s obvious that Jackie isn’t your typical ER nurse. (A fact that has some real-life nurses pretty angry.) She snorts Percocet instead of swallowing. She tells the really good-looking doctor what to do. When said doctor doesn’t listen, the patient dies. She also tells the incredibly irritating first year nursing student in a pink bunny shirt to “Shut up!” and praises a stabbing victim, “Good girl!” when she comes in grasping the ear of her attacker in her fist. (She later flushes the severed ear down the toilet.) And, Jackie has a good time *wink wink* with the hospital pharmacist on her break. This is all before lunch.

Overall, we have to give the show two thumbs up — one of them goes to Falco for pulling off the impossible task of making us forget that she ever played that pink terry-loving blonde, Carmela. While most of the other characters in the pilot were rather bland, she was incredible as the no-nonsense, opiate-craving nurse with a heart. Side note: Does she remind anyone else of the female version a certain cranky doctor over on FOX? The other goes to the writers for cooking up one of the better twist endings we’ve seen in a while. Keep the focus on Falco guys, and we promise to keep tuning in for more.

In fact, we want episode two. Stat. Do any of you who watched the premiere agree?