Most critics like Nurse Jackie, and nearly all of them like it for the same reason: Edie Falco. The reviews return again and again to her performance as a nurse holding together prescription pills, lies and a family, and to the series’ refusal to soften her or to make the addiction romantic. Several also credit the hospital around her, the supporting cast and the comic troublemakers who fill out the ward once the show has found its footing.
The reservations arrive with the later seasons. The Guardian finds the third run watchable but stagnant, with Jackie harder to sympathise with as it goes on, and Variety, the one outright negative review, says a new showrunner does little to shift a familiar formula, its best moments dramatic rather than funny. The spread is wide, from warm early notices to a weary later one, which suggests a series critics admired more at the start than they did by the end.