Nurse Jackie
Stars: 4.5 out of 5

Stars: Edie Falco, Merritt Wever, Eve Best, Paul Schulze, Peter Facinelli, Haaz Sleiman and Anna Deavere Smith

The Big Idea: Jackie Peyton (Falco) is an excellent New York City nurse, a nurse who truly cares about her patients and is willing to go the extra mile to help them when she can, or to exact a bit of karmic healing when she can’t. Jackie’s got her own issues, though, namely a secret life and, thanks to a bum back, a raging painkiller addiction.

To Watch or Not to Watch: The dark comedy is must-see-TV, in fact. Falco wisely held out for another quality series after her Emmy and Golden Globe-winning turn on The Sopranos, where her Carmela was always, at best, second banana to hubby Tony. Not so for Jackie, whose commitment to her patients makes her a fierce heroine, while her double life (the details of which are too good to spoil here) and her drug jones make her a flawed one.

Jackie is surrounded by an equally compelling round-up of co-workers, from her hospital BFFs, the flip Dr. O’Hara (Best) and sardonic fellow nurse Mo-Mo (Sleiman), to nervous hotshot doc Cooper (Facinelli), pharmacist Eddie (Schulze), ball-busting administrator Akalitus (Smith) and Zoey, the scene-stealing, overly eager nurse trainee who wears scrubs covered with bunnies, bakes muffins to try to win over the staff and immediately takes to Jackie as her healer role model.

TV Screener Tidbit: Showtime provided the first six episodes of the series for review, and that batch contains a number of clever twists that, again, are too delicious to spoil. Suffice it to say they involve a bloody ear, the hospital’s plumbing system, a house in the ‘burbs, an unrequited Sopranos love that becomes quite requited, and that, during a joint guest appearance by Swoosie Kurtz and Blythe Danner, we learn Heather isn’t the only one who had two mommies.

Nurse Jackie premieres Monday, June 8, at 10:30PM ET on Showtime.