Hello ladies and gentlemen. My name is Tim Sheridan. I’m taking over for your usual columnist this week, because he is far too lazy to do this himself. The other Tim is a good friend of mine, so he asked me to do this. After much bickering and monies exchanged, I agreed.
I don’t really know how he does things around these parts, so if my review/recap is different than what you are expecting, I’m sorry.
Frankly, I love this show. Nip/Tuck came into our lives a little over two years ago, and to me, signaled the next wave of the television drama. And it has delivered. That’s not to say that every episode is a masterwork, not at all. But it’s better than most shows out there.
Creator Ryan Murphy was once quoted as saying that this show is the love story of two heterosexual men. (Honestly, that’s the gist of Tim Stevens and me, as well, but that’s beside the point) And the show is at it’s best when we are seeing Dr Troy and Dr McNamara play off one another. Sure, we can have their own stories, but the show is truly excellent when we see these two bounce off each other and back together.
So onto the episode at hand. Sean has left the practice (oh come now, you know he’ll be back), and that means Quentin has taken his place. Quentin scares me a little. And no, I don’t think that he is the carver. That’s just lazy writing, and we should expect more…but I’ll get to that another time. But what freaks me out is the décor that Quentin is changing. Very weird. Anyways, the requisite patient is Ben White, who wants to have his leg amputated. Now, he doesn’t NEED to have it amputated. He WANTS to have it amputated. Seems he feels more “complete” without it. Christian says “no” and for the next 45 minutes we see him going though some sort of moral dilemma that he does so well, until, of course, you know that he does the surgery. But only after Mr. White shoots his own leg, thus negating the aforementioned moral dilemma. Come to think of it, wouldn’t it have been easier for White to just come into the office with the leg already shot off? But that’s not for me to decide is it?
Meanwhile, Sean has his own life going ahead, and this theme of being “complete” really plays into his story. He is not complete at all. In fact, he’s pretty empty. He’s got no wife, no children (we never see Annie anyways), and no real job. So this episode opens on him being interviewed by a surgeon at the FBI, played by the always delightful Bob Gunton, (who, alas, did not break into the songs of Juan Peron). Sean will be working for the witness protection program, performing surgeries on people who don’t want to get shot by gangsters, or anything bad like that. His first project is a mother and son. The mother is played by a virtually unrecognizable Anne Heche. She’s fine. No one will be clamoring for her return to the screen or maybe a Six Days, Seven Nights 2 anytime soon. But her son is the conflict here. He doesn’t want to look different. He’s happy with who he is, but he knows that he has to……..or he will die. (pretty much) So Sean has a heart to heart with him, and of course, convinces him to go through with it. There was some bizarre dialogue about fish and some analogy made, and I’m pretty sure Ryan Murphy was at home going “what?” just as the rest of America was.
Our third, and most useless story involves Julia, Gina, and Liz opening their recovery clinic. Now, disregarding the fact that this place opened like a week after they bought it, this story is just not working for me. These three women, while all great actresses, are playing supporting characters on the show. Their purpose all along was to support the two leads. And now that they are on their own, doing their own thing, it’s very difficult to care. Once again, I mean to take nothing away from the writing or the talent involved, because they are doing the best they can. But the show is not about these people. It’s one thing for Julia to do something, have it lead back to her relationship with Sean, and see how that plays out. But this is just out there, and it reaks of the producers being forced to do something, anything with these people. But this week’s story with them involved them selling bottled semen to Joan Rivers (who is just a delight). That’s all I’m going to say about this story, because even for a show like Nip/Tuck, that like to push barriers, this was just crude, and bizarre. But it is somewhat redeemed by the (not so subtle theme when Julia basically tells Sean that she feels “complete” without him.
Well that was it. That was the episode. I find it remarkable the way they balanced these three tales, and despite my misgiving about certain things, the way it’s done is quite remarkable. As I said before, the show is best when it’s about Sean and Christian, and going along with that, the best scene this week was just a phone call between the two of them. They are both so lost, but they find their way back to each other. Pardon my cheesiness, but I want to see the two of them together and happy.
Oh, and did you think I was going to forget about that ending? We had one of the most touching scenes in recent memory when Christian proposed to Kimber. They only work because of the laws of TV (if a couple has chemistry in the first episode, they will be together in the last), but for whatever reason, we root for them. And it was just a nice (if a bit out of character) moment.
Well, thanks for letting me review your show. If you liked what I had to say, great. If not, I’m sorry. If you wanna tell me about it, or just talk about any show at all (I watch just about everything), e-mail me at XOdusTWS@cox.net.
Thanks all.
Best,
Tim Sheridan
