Episode: “Frankenlaura”
This Week’s Theme: Sometimes things just cannot be saved.
Who Was Nice Enough to Tell Us About It: Sean probably comes the closest but it is never explicit (weird, huh?)
I guess you could say that this is the closest to a Halloween episode that Nip/Tuck would give you. Why? Well, it kicks off with the Dynamic Duo (Christian and Sean, of course) visiting a local morgue/funeral home/crematorium. The owner pulls a body out of one of the freeze bays to show the Duo. The woman died of uterine cancer and, yet, is missing an arm. Turns out she’s not the only one as the crematorium operator was building himself a woman in his off time. The home would like to hire the firm to take apart the patchwork lady and put everything back where it belongs. Christian, ever the pragmatist, is ready, willing, and able. Sean, however, wants no part of it, good money or not, because of how it might damage the firm’s already reeling reputation. (All together now: Thank you, Kit. And the Carver too…I guess)
With little to no cash in the coffers, Christian sets off to the unfortunate business of letting Gina now that the gravy train must stop. He’ll still pick up the prescription bills for her AIDS medications, but the rent and car payments…those have to stop. Gina takes it all in with such empathy: she calls him a bastard and storms off. Mostly because she was going to ask him for a loan on top of the money he was already paying out and now, she cannot. Classy dame.
As Christian gets told off for having the nerve to have been falsely accused of a crime and thus see his business take a severe hit, Sean is out trying to raise money by talking to old people. Sadly, besides one woman, they just do not seem to be buying.
As Sean later points out, how they look is the last thing these people are worried about.
Gina, now all calm cool and collected again pays a visit to Julia. She leads in by telling Julia, “I admire you,” which is usually something someone says when they want something. Sure enough, after letting the cat out of the bag about the firm’s money troubles, Gina asks Julia if she’s thought about “investing.”
Back at the firm, Liz does what she can to help by resigning. This way, in her thinking, she can be around for surgeries, but they do not have to consistently pay her while there are none coming in. The Duo tries to convince her otherwise, but, no dice. There is much hugging and sweetness. I wonder if it will last.
Now, finally acknowledging that the firm does need the money, creepy money or not, Sean agrees to take apart the patchwork woman. This seems to be happening a lot more than usual this season. Someone in the firm says, “No, we will not do that job,” and then later, for some reason, they decide to do it. It happened with the monkey, it happened with the gang member (sort of), it happened with Agnes (the woman who’s husband had Alzheimer’s), it even happened with Rhea Reynolds.
Anyway, after they take the job, the home drops one more interesting tidbit. They have no idea where the head came from. Sort of a big deal, I’d think.
Back with the hustler, Gina is making her pitch to Julia. Essentially, she wants to take a small hotel that used to be hip and cool back in the day but has since become a hangout for society’s unwashed and convert it back to a boutique hotel. Then, she wants to turn around and sell it at twice the price. Julia has a better idea and says she will give Gina the money if they become 50/50 partners and they instead convert it to a recover spa.
I should mention, at this point, that I find Gina and Julia to have such a similar facial structure that, for all intents and purposes, they could be the same the person with different hairstyles. It’s sort of creepy. Like Troy/McNamara has a “house” style or something.
So, the ladies, now partners, take their business plan to the firm who they’d like to see involved in some way or another. Christian mocks it (and none too gently), Quentin thinks they should get in on it. Sean questions his ex (for real this time) wife’s commitment to anything. The ladies leave, without the firm’s support.
The Duo gets to work at the home and things are going fine until Christian finds a sex toy in the body. Sean is considerably freaked, he still sees these people as people. Christian is fine. He thinks it is wrong, but the body stopped being people some time ago and if such a thing as a soul exists it has already left. Then the owner reveals there is a hope of finding the head. Sean only need go speak to the crematorium operator.
Back at the hotel, things are humming along nicely. A little too nicely in fact. I know that Gina is “working” (and yes that means what you think it means) the contractors and construction guys, but still…things are progressing way too quickly. Oh well. The process looks like it is sure to hit a brick wall when Julia finds out how Gina is such a strong negotiator because the concrete delivery man requests a “hot lunch”. The mind cannot begin to contemplate what that is code for. Or it can, but perhaps it should not.
Sean visits Silas, the crematorium operator in jail, and the two chat a bit. According to Silas, there really is no difference between what he was doing with the patchwork lady and what Sean does with living people. It is a ridiculous corollary of course, but Sean been roughed around a lot as of late and he is very susceptible to suggestion. After enduring a bit more of Silas’s stirring rhetoric, Sean promises to “save the head” in exchange for information on who it belongs to. Not content to be sort of creepy, Silas hisses “Her name is Laura and she is my sister,” putting him, proudly, way over the top.
Meanwhile, back at the work site, Julia confronts Gina about the “hot lunches”. Gina owns up to it and proclaims Julia naïve. Julia scolds Gina, telling her that she is better than that and by doing things like this, she denigrates all businesswomen. Gina acts sort of touched, so perhaps she will change her ways. Although, this being Nip/Tuck, probably not.
Sean, fresh off one disturbing conversation, decides to instigate another and drops in on the ex. He apologizes, explains the firm’s money troubles, and is met with a none too pleased response from Julia. Apparently, she’s not buying it, saying, “I’m tired of destroying and rebuilding a relationship over and over again.” At this point I thought, “Hey, I’m pretty tired of seeing that too!”
From that harsh rebuff it was back to the firm for Sean to tell Liz she can have her job back since they are flush once more. Liz, however, already has a job. With Julia and Gina’s new spa. Ahh, insult to injury.
Maybe a little business will brighten the day and that ray of sunshine arrives in…a woman from the nursing home. Sean, having a sudden change of heart, tries to dissuade her. Christian overrules him and into surgery they go. The woman’s skin is too thin, according to Sean, which causes him to leave the OR. He just cannot do this anymore, he says, and away he goes to the funeral home instead. Would not be my first choice, but, like I said, Sean’s had a rough time of it as of late. He removes the head and sends it into the fire, finally giving Laura her everlasting peace.
It occurs to me that two things were left unexplained at the conclusion of this episode. A.) Where did the torso come from? Is there really a head, two arms, and two legs just sitting in a cooler bay at the home? And, if so, wouldn’t that have been more of an alarm bell than a missing arm. B.) What happened to the old woman? Did Christian manage to save the surgery or are we looking at another potential lawsuit here?
This one’s a decent episode, but no great shakes. The plastic surgeon/cadaver surgeon comparison is way too far a stretch to be an effective juxtaposition, although it does nicely recall the revelation about Christian’s attitude towards dead animals last week. The Gina subplot is interesting enough, but her “screw you” to the already downtrodden Christian was too over the top. And when was the last time Sean didn’t threaten to walk out? Lots of setup here which should prove interesting in future episodes but the meat of the episode is pretty thin.
