Longtime ER nurse Jackie Peyton bends the rules to bring some good from a patient's senseless death, while concealing her addiction to a pain killer she gets from her boyfriend, the hospital pharmacist.

Jackie and her husband, Kevin, become concerned that their older daughter Grace is suffering from anxiety disorder; hospital administrator Mrs. Akalitus drinks Jackie's Percoset-laced coffee.

An elderly patient checks in who has been treating his heart disease with chicken soup; Jackie discusses her daughter's anxiety with Dr. O'Hara; Eddie learns that he is to be replaced by a pill-dispensing machine.

Jackie and Kevin consider enrolling Grace in private school; the stoic Dr. O'Hara must endure the emotional thanks of a boy whose twin brother she saved; Zoey loses a patient for the first time.

Jackie breaks several rules and regulations to help a 10-year-old girl caring for her lupus-stricken mother; Mrs. Akalitus accidentally tasers herself; O'Hara treats Zoey to a meal at a four-star restaurant.

Jackie is caught off-guard when a nurse (Judith Ivey) she used to work with, who is dying of lung cancer, asks Jackie to help end her life. Meanwhile, Coop’s mother (Blythe Danner) is admitted with a gall bladder attack. We learn that he is the only son of lesbians…a fact that delights Jackie and O’Hara.

A man is admitted with a steak knife sticking out of his chest. Eddie gives Jackie a Cartier bracelet for their one-year anniversary, but she rejects the gift. A baby is left in the nurses’ station and Akalitus takes the infant to her office.

Jackie discovers that a new temp nurse is abusing drugs, but when she confronts him, he calls her on hypocrisy; Mrs. Akalitus still has the foundling infant left at the hospital; Coop reveals to Eddie that Jackie has a child.

Jackie and Grace begin mother-daughter tap class. Coop threatens to expose Jackie for falsifying a donor’s record. Jackie has forgotten to remove her wedding ring, and needs to get it off before meeting Eddie for a quickie.

Kevin decides to buy Jackie a new wedding ring. At work, the automated pill machine replaces Eddie. A movie critic is admitted with a broken elbow.

Kevin invites Jackie to a midnight rendezvous in order to give her a new wedding ring; the comatose movie critic wakes up but his tastes have radically changed.