The Nurse – Season 1 Episode 2 “Dream Team” Recap & Review

Dream Team

Back in 2012, episode 2 of The Nurse sees Kenny declaring publicly at his brother’s funeral that Arne did not commit suicide. The rumour mill is rife with the news, but Kenny knows it is not true and hopefully, that will come to light by the end of the series.

Pernille’s stint as the nurse in emergency ward 3 continues and the calendar turns a new year, 2015. Christina and Pernille have grown closer and call themselves the “dream team.” Medics, colleagues, and doctors all believe they are the best pair of nurses when it comes to handling emergencies.

The new resident nurse Lærke is a troublemaker in Christina’s eyes and she vows to confront her for the wrongdoings. For that night, the dream team is sharing duties with Ditte and Pia, a recent hire for the hospital. While in the medicine room, Pernille’s eye is attracted to an open box of diazepam. She notices that several of the tablets inside are missing. Since they aren’t giving any tablets currently to the patients, she finds it strange. Niels and she promised to go out on another date soon.

While fixing a patient’s medical equipment, Pernille clumsily gets blood all over her neck and face. Christina is in the room with her, and after Pernille washes it off, she walks into Christina strangely telling the story as if it happened to her.

Pernille is quite stumped as Christina does not even bat an eye while lying and seems normal. She does not confront her at that moment, while Ditte warns Pernille about her growing closeness with Christina. She seems to think that Christina always seeks attention, which makes her untrustworthy.

Pernille takes Alberte horse riding, which proves to be a great bonding experience for the mother-daughter duo. Later that day, Pernille goes up to Christina’s apartment and sees she has brought patients’ records home. Christina pleads that she wants to be perfect at her job and not leave any stone unturned. It stems from the death of Cecilia, her sister, who passed a couple of years ago from leukemia. Christina is overqualified to be a nurse but still prefers that over being a doctor due to the freedom it gives her.

Marlene, Pernille’s colleague, tells her that Christina once had sex with Niels in the medicine room, disturbing Pernille. She gets further suspicious of Christina when Marlene cannot find the two ampoules of diazepam that were kept on her desk. Christina had just got up from there, so it seems that she’s definitely taken them. The fact that the ward has two patients currently is no coincidence. Out of the blue, one of the patients flatlines. Pernille performs CPR but Christina storms in, pushes her away, and climbs onto the bed.

Her compressions are violent and swift. Her body language suggests that she is having a high doing CPR. It is positioned like she is having sex with the patient. Pernille finds it all very disturbing but it helps save the patient’s life. Pernille confronts Niels about the rumour that night and he vehemently denies it. He also downplays Christina’s “passionate act” when Pernille mentions it. The two start kissing and it is an indication a relationship is brewing. Lærke pulls up Linda for the unsupervised administration of diazepam and morphine to patients.

Christina comes in the next second and announces she was in a car accident. Pernille does not believe her at first but comforts her when she starts crying. While going back, Pernille sees Christina’s car is in perfect condition and becomes even more suspicious about her behaviour. Pernille goes to Katje’s home after work to discuss her, but Katja says opinion is divided over Christina; some find her brilliant, others over the top. She agrees to keep an eye out for anything weird and mentions the missing medicine to Pernille.

Linda takes offence to Pernille requesting her to change her partner. She wants Pernille to be loyal to Christina, who might become Linda’s deputy someday. Still, she accepts Pernille’s request nonetheless.

Katja and Pernille have paired up, where Pernille notices Niels making passes at her and teasingly invites him into the medicine room, where he is not allowed.

Pernille is taking care of John, a patient being kept overnight for monitoring. She gets on well with him and we learn he will be discharged in the morning. The catch in this situation is that Pernille is not on night duty; Christina is. And Christina has also seen Pernille is avoiding her.

The next morning, Pernille finds out that John died during the night. And not just him, two other patients did too. Pernille tells Ella, John’s wife, about the news. Ella is shocked and initially she does not want to leave his side but Pernille asked Ella to go ahead and be with her grandson that night. Pernille gets into action mode and looks through the attendance diary. It has information regarding which nurse was with the patients and at what time.

Pernille finds Christina was with twenty-two patients, most of whom have died. She strongly suspects Christina killed them all and brings her suspicions to Katja.

The Episode Review

Ella’s reaction definitely spurred Pernille into believing herself. Her instincts were guided throughout this episode – and the last one – to convince her that Christina was behind the murders. The Nurse operates very smoothly to gradually take us toward that conclusion. There are no abrupt twists and turns in either of the episodes.

The most sought-after moment would be when Christina’s underlying motives are revealed. The fundamental reason could be excessive attention-seeking behaviours. She might be drugging the patients to save them promptly afterwards. Except that in three cases out of four, she couldn’t and was later caught.

This episode also saw the personal life of Pernille flourish. Her moments with her daughter Alberte and Dr Niels might indicate that the makers will play the angle of them falling in danger later in the series.