The media is fawning over the finale, including the ambiguous final scene in which it's not clear whether Jackie lives or dies. I thought it was a cop-out. I also don't think the show was ground-breaking. It began with that potential, but unfortunately wasted it. I'm not willing to give credit where none is due.

The series, as originally envisioned, was one that would show addiction is a life-long disease, and that while recovery is fraught with relapse issues, recovering addicts could lead productive lives, perform competently at work, do good deeds and be good citizens. It had the potential to remove some of the stigmas associated with drug addiction.

Instead, it morphed into a stereotypical portrayal of addicts as sociopathic liars who ruin their own lives and the lives of those who care about them. Instead of offering hope or understanding, the show fell prey to furthering the notion that no matter how much effort an addict puts into recovery, he or she is doomed to fail. Instead of offering a distinct and progressive view of addiction, it ended up as same-old, same-old -- down to the heavy focus on the need for addicts to suffer moral consequences when they relapse.

The show's current executive producer, Clyde Phillips, in an interview on the finale, explains the focus on heavy moral consequences for Jackie. That seems like a moral judgment and the antithesis of the show's premise when it began, which was that drug addiction is a disease.

You wouldn't suggest a cancer patient has to suffer negative consequences. Also, many people manage to live non-sociopathic, happy lives with potentially fatal diseases.

Phillips, who took over after the series creators left after season 4 had been filmed, seems to have some very inconsistent views of Jackie and drug addiction. While he claims in the interview linked above that the series "offer[s] the benefit of raising awareness and understanding of drug addiction", he also says "Jackie Peyton is a train wreck. She’s a sociopathic drug addict who has destroyed everything in her life." That sounds more like Reefer Madness than it does a new understanding of drug addiction. And beginning with season 4, the Reefer Madness version is what viewers got.

The last enjoyable season was season 3, before the show changed gears and shifted its focus to the moral necessity for addicts to suffer consequences. At that point, it became a typical anti-drug show.

Show co-creator Liz Brixius who left the show after season 4 was filmed and a few weeks into its airing, says it was Showtime entertainment chief David Nivens who decided Jackie must face consequences. Apparently, Edie Faclco agreed:

"The last thing that I wanted was to do a show where I’m playing an addict and it's all just fun and games," Falco tells THR. "[It] sort of inadvertently gives the message that addiction is fun and that recreational drug use is a cool thing. So, it was very important to me that there be ramifications. It had to go this way. This way or she had to die."

Brixius' original vision was different:

Liz Brixius, who co-created the show, says Falco and the producers had a specific vision for the character. "We wanted a picture of a woman with addiction on TV that wasn't pathetic or slovenly or slurring her words," she says. "Like, somebody who is still incredibly competent at what she does."

From season 4 on, that's not what we got. The show became trapped in a repetitive, predictable and ultimately boring cycle: Jackie gets high, uses people and sleeps around, followed by Jackie's family gets mad and punishes her, followed by Jackie goes to rehab, followed by Jackie falls off the wagon and lies and does bad things to get herself out of trouble. The cycle then begins anew. At the beginning of season six, this reviewer wrote the show felt tired and it seemed like Showtime was just keeping it alive to milk it.

On the ambiguous ending: Since the series has been terminated, it really doesn't matter much whether Jackie lived or died. She's not coming back. But since this was the series finale, not just a season finale, I think the ending should have been clear. Either she died, or she didn't. We don't need a cliff-hanger when the series is over.

Show-runner Phillips says they purposely made the ending ambiguous. He personally views Jackie as surviving, but thinks she has a miserable life ahead. (That new job at Bellevue will be gone, her ex will become more of a thorn, Eddie will go to prison, she'll have to start over at rehab, etc.) Taking the opposite view, this reviewer thinks she died.

I thought it was pretty obvious she died from the overdose. First, she snorted three big lines of heroin, which is a lot for a non-habitual user, even one who regularly takes oxycodone or oxycontin. From the look on Zoe's face when she spoke her last words to Jackie, "You're good, Jackie", it seemed to me Zoe's intent was for Jackie to hear something positive before leaving this life, not something to reassure her she'd survive. Even as Jackie eyes flutter open as if acknowledging she heard Zoe, the look on Zoe's face indicated to me Zoe knew Jackie was gone, or at least that her situation was hopeless, even if for no other reason than they had no equipment and it was unlikely an ambulance from Bellevue would get there in time.

Most telling,I think, was that as Zoe is saying "You're good, Jackie", two other hospital workers are just holding Jackie's hand while Eddie is rubbing her leg. There was no rush to find paddle jumpers, or had the paddle jumpers been removed due to the hospital's closing, thump on her chest or give her mouth to mouth resuscitation to revive her. A paramedic was there to put her on a stretcher, and other on-duty paramedics wearing FDNY Paramedic shirts were in the room. While Zoe called out for "a line" and "O2", there was no call-out for Naloxone. NYFD paramedics, like NY police, began carrying Naloxone for overdose cases in 2014. Even if the Naloxone was on their ambulances outside, why didn't one of them rush outside to grab it?

The atmosphere seemed more one of resignation than panic. My translation: Jackie was beyond help by the time of her final eye flutter, and they knew it.

Series co-creator Brixius said a few years ago, she envisioned only one possible ending for Jackie:

"I would have her die; I think that's the truth," says Brixius, who adds that she had to go to rehab four times before her sobriety held. "I don't think, as a viewer, I would trust her sobriety. Having her walk into another rehab center, it would be, like, 'Yeah. Right.' "

TV networks in the U.S. usually fall short when they address drug use and trafficking. With the exception of Breaking Bad, Weeds (and reportedly, the Wire, which I haven't watched since I don't like cop shows), U.S. produced shows about drugs end up being one dimensional, portraying drug users and traffickers as sociopaths or morally bankrupt with few, if any, redeeming qualities. The networks should take a cue from their Latin counterparts like Caracol, RCN, Telemundo, Unimas, and Mundofox, which consistently turn out shows that humanize drug users and traffickers, without making moral judgments or reducing them to mere sociopaths or, on the flip side, glorifying them.

Edie Falco is a great actress, and that's the major, if not sole reason the show lasted as long as it did. For me, many of the other cast members became simply irritating. Even Zoe's goody-goodiness and hand-wringing got on my nerves after a few seasons. As a result, I have no problem saying the death of the series Nurse Jackie was long overdue. I would have no interest in watching Jackie start at square one yet again if she survived, and no interest in watching the other cast members continue on in her absence if she died.