Episode: “Abby Mays”
Reviewer: Tim Stevens
This Week’s Theme: Having Sex With Bad People is Not a Good Idea
Who Was Nice Enough to Demonstrate it For Us: Matt, Julia, Quentin, Christian
Apparently Matt and his new lady, Arielle, have been busy since we last saw them, the beginning of this episode implies to us. It seems that a few of the McNamara/Troy’s former clients have been the victims of racist vandalism. Sean denies any knowledge of who or why this is happening, but it is pretty clear that he thinks his son and the Aryan vixen are the source of this wave of hate.
Sean, after quickly assuring the officer of his lack of knowledge, awkwardly attempts to segue to Kimber’s “disappearance”, Christian will have none of it. After the officer leaves, Christian claims that he never should have considered marriage in the first place and that with all his stats, he should just dedicate himself to playing the field, because he is a “goddamn superhero”. (The fact that Christian called himself a superhero and I resisted the temptation to bring up Dr. Doom should earn me some points with you. I’m just saying.)
Christian then takes the first client of the day and proceeds to prove that he is anything but “moving on”. Poor Abby is a decent looking woman who is a bit overweight (“flabby” as she calls herself) and would like to, in her words, “be able to be loved by someone like you.” Christian, armed with only her lipstick, does his damnedest to convince her that she will require extensive surgery AND there really is nothing that he can do with her (in my opinion, average looking) face. For some reason, she remains undeterred, however, and wishes to go forward with the procedures.
Quentin and Sean, meanwhile, are not treating each much better or much more adult as they squabble over taking care of a soldier who’s face has been scarred by shrapnel and needs it fixed before he can go out and recruit others to go off to war and risk similar injuries. Sean eventually dismisses Quentin as little more than an “associate” in the firm and takes over the examination.
In the operating room, the anger just keeps coming as brutality proves to be the word of the day. Christian performs lipo with an astounding lack of concern for any injuries he may be causing. Liz calls him on it and is summarily thrown out of the room for her impudence. Good times.
The O.R. is the sign of another blow up as Quentin and Sean fight round two, declaring their hatred for one another. While it kills me to do it, I have to give this round to Quentin, purely by the fact that he may be doing the getdown with Sean’s ex-wife. That’s hard to top.
Quentin decides to celebrate this victory by inspecting the soldier’s scars and getting REALLY creepy about it. The soldier, for his part, spews some hate speech but seems a bit interested despite that.
Christian, not quite done with Abby, drops in to visit her at the spa. Much like the feat Quentin pulled off a few episodes back, Christian is miraculously dressed the match the décor. I am beginning to think that maybe the spa has the ability to do it. It is like a sentient being who just has to match the clothes of the individuals who stride through its halls.
In any case, he briefly chats with Julia, telling her to, essentially, take her pity elsewhere and then finds Abby. You have to give it to Christian, he does have a strong sense of the theatrical when he needs to. This time that mean entering Abby’s room like Bela Lugosi in Dracula. Ten minutes later, he departs with a date with the newly slimmed thigh possessing Abby (truth be told, I could not tell the difference, but, what do I know?).
Back at the firm, Sean, still stewing from his second round loss, no doubt, manages to catch the soldier and Quentin canoodling in a little act I like to call anal sex. Then, as Sean always does when he is faced with information he does not like, he runs to Julia. What was sure to be an uncomfortable situation in the first place gets worse when he realizes that Matt is having sex with Arielle (a woman of “pure evil”) while Julia blithely lets it go on. Then, as Sean is also almost always guaranteed to do, he overreacts and his good points that needed to be said are lost in his hysterics. Julia tosses him out. I’d like to say this is progress, but we all know it is not. In the next week or two we will be back to the “Julia and Sean are okay with each other until one of them does something stupid” show.
Sean, bounces back quick, however, and decides to take his anger out on the person he really wants to: Quentin. Sean reveals what he saw and gives the soldier an ultimatum: say Quentin sexually assaulted you and effectively end Quentin’s livelihood and life or admit it was consensual and be tossed out of the Army.
Quentin then pulls a Sean and runs to Julia. She asks him about what Sean said and he plays it off like Sean is a crazy jealous man. Now, Sean is a lot of things, but an out and out fabricator of stories? Not usually. Julia still is not convinced since the two have not yet slept with one another, so she proposes a hot tub soak. In what world is this a solution to thinking your boyfriend might be cheating on you with another man? The world of Nip/Tuck, apparently. If only all relationship problems could be solved in this way.
Back in Christian’s world of misery, Abby has shown up at his apartment and has found a paper bag waiting for her. Then there is nudity and thrusting and crying and…well, let’s just say it was pretty uncomfortable and soul deadening to witness, never mind participate in.
Quentin puffed up after bedding (or hot tubbing…presumably) Julia decides to fight back against Sean’s threats. First, Q turns in the soldier to his commanding officer for his homo or bisexuality and gives the soldier a punch in the throat for good measure. Then, it is off to get the Duo to buy him out of his contract. They do so gleefully, of course, and quickly find out that they have really only made matters worse as he is going over to Julia’s spa to be the surgeon in residency there. You have to give it to Quentin. I may not like the guy, but is a smooooooooooooooooooooooooth operator, no doubt of that.
Christian returns to his office after Quentin’s shenanigans to find a letter from Kimber on his desk. While he reads it, it is confirmed to the audience that Kimber never left, she was snagged by the Carver. He, however, remains unaware of this and believes every word of what the letter says. As if things were not lousy enough already, Abby shows up to admit that she enjoyed the “paper bag incident” (as it shall now and forever be called) and is his again whenever he wants. She is a masochist and he, obviously, is a sadist so they are made for one another. As she leaves and we see Christian’s face, it is clear that however much she might have liked it, he did not. He’s no sadist, he’s just very broken.
