Jackie Burkhart

Jackie Burkhart
That '70s Show character
First appearance	"That '70s Pilot" (episode 1.01)
Last appearance	"That '70s Finale" (episode 8.22)
Created by	Mark Brazill
Portrayed by	Mila Kunis
Information
Nickname(s)	Jackie, Little Red Riding Bitch, Midget, Doll (a nickname that only Hyde calls her when they're dating), Venus, Biatch, Bitch Face, Kelso Lover, Tiny, Short, Boss, The Don, Brada, Satan's child, Tiny Loser, Devil/The Devil, Loud Girl, Funny Girl, Ice Princess, Green Jackie
Gender	Female
Occupation	High school student Cheese maiden Personal assistant Television show host
Family	Jack Burkhart (father) Pam Burkhart (mother, estranged) Grandmother (mentioned))
Significant other(s)	Michael Kelso (ex-boyfriend) Steven Hyde (ex-boyfriend) Fez (boyfriend)
Nationality	American

Jacqueline "Jackie" Beulah Burkhart is a fictional character and one of the two female leads on the Fox Network sitcom That '70s Show, portrayed by Mila Kunis.

Personality

Jackie is introduced in the pilot episode primarily as Michael Kelso's girlfriend, who is the youngest member of the group. She likes to give advice which often sounds typically thoughtless and superficial, but actually turns out to be correct. She is spoiled, conceited, and annoying but is often seen to have good intentions. She believes she has a place in the gang because she's dating Kelso. Jackie is popular at school, being voted Most Popular and Best Legs as well as runner-up for Snow Queen. She is also a chatterbox, and constantly ruins her chances for real friendship with the others due to her constantly belittling them. The negative in her personality begins to fade, however, as she matures throughout the seasons. By season five, Jackie begins to show a more vulnerable side as a result of her father's imprisonment and her mother's abandonment of her, as well as her failed romantic relationships. Her superficial attitude is revealed to be a defense mechanism, much like Steven Hyde's "Zen".

By season two, Jackie has become a core member of the gang and hangs out in Eric's basement even when she is single. While her personality becomes less one-note, she still sees herself as the ideal woman and demands a near-constant shower of praise. In contrast to Donna and the 1970s feminist wave, Jackie is a traditionalist and makes finding a man to care for her a top priority. By season seven, however, Jackie has found a new goal and begins pursuing a career as a television hostess.

Friendships

Jackie's friendships tend to be complicated. While people might be endeared to her good heart and her triumphs over major life upheavals, her habit of condescending to others keeps them at a distance. Jackie was also really friendly with Lauren.

Although she frequently criticizes Donna Pinciotti's dress, physique, and feminism, she repeatedly calls herself Donna's best friend. Even though she thinks Donna is boring and unattractive when compared to herself, she believes Donna could do much better than Eric. Despite their extremely different personalities, Donna serves as a Jackie's de facto big sister and often tries to look out for her when she feels Jackie is making a mistake, more often than not due to lack of common sense. After her father is sent to prison in the middle of season five, Jackie moves in with the Pinciottis after the Formans learn that she has secretly been living with Hyde in his basement room.

Jackie has mostly an acquaintanceship with Eric, though she has teased a close friendship several times. She once told Eric she considered him a great friend and nice guy, and he was the first person to whom she revealed her fears that she was pregnant. She also called Eric before he left for Africa saying she was sorry she couldn't say goodbye in person and that he was always special to her. For his part, Eric realizes how much he enjoys Jackie when Kelso dates Laurie, as the two of them both love to hate Eric's sister. During the course of the series, Jackie becomes an integral part of the gang and is considered a friend in her own right, as opposed to merely a friend's girlfriend.

Early on, Red remarked she was the favorite of Eric's friends for her ability to hold a flashlight on a car. Jackie has run crying into Red's arms no less than three times, all of which left him baffled and uncomfortable. Red finds Jackie as annoying as everyone else, but she still loves him because he's the closest thing she has to a father.

Relationships

When the show premieres, Jackie is dating Michael Kelso, a beautiful, brainless goofball. She loses her virginity to him when he is released from jail after being mistakenly arrested for driving a stolen car. Jackie gets on Kelso's friends' nerves on a daily basis and Kelso repeatedly says that he is going to break up with her. However, in the first season it was Jackie who ended the relationship - twice. First after Kelso was caught kissing Pam Macy (they got back together in the very same episode) and again after a pregnancy scare (they got back together at the Junior Prom).

In season 2, Kelso begins an affair with Eric's promiscuous sister Laurie. Jackie eventually discovers his repeated infidelities and breaks up with him. After this breakup she is openly hostile to Kelso and often insults him in front of his friends. She does eventually warm to him, and following his breakup with Laurie, Jackie devises a series of "tests" for Kelso to see if they should reconcile. He passes her tests, and they get back together. Kelso remains loyal to Jackie after that and stays with her throughout season four. However, when Kelso begins to neglect Jackie as a result of his joining a modeling agency, she is caught kissing her boss by Eric. This event spurs a period of discovery for Jackie and Kelso. Kelso realizes he cheated because Jackie has always insulted him and made him feel bad about himself. Following this revelation, he breaks up with her (true to form, the breakup doesn't stick and they later reunite).

In the season four finale, Jackie asks Kelso to marry her and his response is to flee to California. When he returns in the beginning of season five, he (along with the others) is horrified to learn that she has begun dating Hyde. By the beginning of season six, Kelso claims that he is happy to be over Jackie and enjoying their new friendship. At the end of season seven, however, Kelso drives Jackie to Chicago after her break-up with Hyde. He is later seen entering Jackie's hotel room in only a towel and implying that he and Jackie were about to sleep together, but runs off nude into the night when he sees that Hyde has come to the hotel to get Jackie back. In season eight, he considers marrying Jackie and claims he still loves her. When Fez tells her what Kelso intends, she considers the proposal and decides that if he asks she will accept. When he asks at Red and Kitty's anniversary party, though, she turns him down and they both feel an unexpected relief.

Jackie and Steven Hyde are, from the beginning of the show, polar opposites and even enemies. She is disgusted by his poverty and crass behavior, he scorns her superficiality and materialism. They strongly dislike each other during the first season, but begin to form a bond when Hyde helps Jackie cope with her breakup with Kelso in season two. This leads to a brief period in which Jackie is infatuated with Hyde, but her feelings gradually fade. It isn't until season five, when Kelso is in California, that their romance begins. After watching The Price is Right together all summer, the two begin making out every time they have a moment alone. When their friends discover the relationship, they each insist that they are not dating and that it is purely physical, but finally give in and admit that what they have goes deeper than just sex. They date for most of season five until Hyde sees Jackie holding Kelso in her arms. Despite her pleas that she was only comforting him and that nothing untoward happens, he doesn't believe her and he takes revenge by spending the night with another woman. When he realizes that Jackie has been telling the truth, he confesses his infidelity. Although she is in love with him, Jackie immediately ends the relationship.

At the beginning of season six, Kelso and Hyde are in competition to get Jackie back because they both still love her. She decides she needs time to think about it, leaving them to wait and agonize, but chooses Hyde in the end. Their relationship goes on for two more seasons until Jackie is offered a job in Chicago. She is torn between her relationship and her professional ambition, but tells Hyde that she will stay if he can gives her the merest hope that they will eventually get married. Hyde has no immediate answer, and when he finally decides, he is crushed to realize that she has already gone (or so he thinks). Jackie has no way out of Point Place, and in a final attempt to get an answer out of Hyde, she goes to the basement. Hiding his hurt and anger that she "left" him, Hyde tells her to have a good trip.

Hyde decides he still wants her, and goes to her Chicago hotel to persuade her to take him back. During his conversation with Jackie, Kelso walks into the hotel room with a towel around his waist and a bucket of ice in his hands and implying that he and Jackie were about to have sex. Hyde goes to Las Vegas. When he comes back to Point Place, he has impulsively married a stripper, Samantha, and brought her back to Wisconsin with him. This effectively ends his and Jackie's relationship.

Throughout season eight, Jackie remains single. She and Hyde, no longer together, have since remained on good terms, even friends. Fez tells Jackie that Kelso intends to propose to her, and she decides that she will accept. After considering the matter, she realizes that the life with Kelso would mean a shiftless and unfaithful husband who makes terrible decisions, so she refuses (which they are each surprised to realize makes them happy). Feeling that she is in a low point in her life, Jackie decides to find someone that would be perfect for her, and writes out a list of what she wants in a man. She is surprised to find out that Fez matches everything on the list. After a short denial, Jackie decides to wait for Fez to come to her, but he is clueless of her attraction to him and is instead seeing other women at the time. Jackie then kisses him and asks if they can be together, but Fez turns her down, since she had already been with Kelso and Hyde and he doesn't want to be her "sloppy thirds", remembering all the times she had turned him down in the past but now she wants him because she's desperate. Jackie then goes to the bathroom and cries, but almost immediately after vows revenge on Fez. She flushes his toothbrush, microwaves his lotion, and ruins his car with graffiti. To get back at Jackie, Fez dyes her hair green, and says that now she is ugly on the outside like she is on the inside. Hurt by Fez's words, Jackie decides to move out. However, she later learns through one of his friends that he loves her and wishes that he had never called her ugly. They eventually reconcile and in the final episode, Fez and Jackie finally get together and kiss atop the water tower.