In the same way, I think Thor's storyline is the most relevant of all, because if everybody's in some way a mirror for Jackie -- like how on Nip/Tuck there were only two or three characters, no matter how many faces you saw -- then looking at the whole Things That Feel Good/Comfort Food trap is a great way to get there. If the things that make us feel good are the things that are doing the damage, then you're right back to DFW's Addiction 101: Making the long-term choice over the short-term choice. With serious drugs that's a choice you make every few days or months or whatever the cycle, but if you're talking about the food that's killing you, killing your actual body, that's a choice you're making every second that you're awake. And everybody around you is also addicted, and the ones that aren't are much more annoying about it anyway.

I mean, I'm fairly liberal about drugs in general, like, I don't see a reason to regulate them because sugar and caffeine are used the same way other drugs are used, and kill people more often than real drugs, and are more readily available to feed an even larger host of creepy needs than the drugs we're told are evil and whatever. Not that I'm opposed to their use, in either case -- well, meth is tacky -- but in general, it's a personal issue, and it's only an ethical issue because of the Prohibition mobster situation we've created.

So to me, Thor's falling-apart body is more touching and more terrifying than the six miles of hell Jackie's putting everybody else through all the time, because the real face of addiction is not some crazy-eyed spun freak, the real face of addiction is lots of the people around you, slowly doing themselves in. Not to mention that the addiction and the psycho behavior come from the same root -- they aren't causal one way or the other, but symptoms of the actual problem -- and Thor's stuff demonstrates that better than anybody else on the show. I respect the show, and Stephen Wallem, for going there so intensely and fearlessly, because that's when it stops being a cautionary tale and just becomes a tale.

Puking lymphoma guy is checking out, with some new prescription and the name of a biofeedback clinic (rimshot!), and Jackie's sad about that, but even sadder when she sees how slowly he's moving. He's in terrible pain and completely sickened, and All Saints has not done its job. She wheels the guy past Coop -- snatching a pen from his pocket as he brags to Zoey about his goddamned Twitter some more -- and Zoey grins and wanders away from him, and then out past the food trays, snatching an apple before recruiting Lenny and heading out to his rig. Episode title, you've got me all excited.