Nip/Tuck Continues to Impress

Nip/Tuck Continues to Impress by Roxanne McDonald

“Cindy Plumb,” the first of the new Nip/Tuck season, comes through for fans as the poignant and suggestive masterpiece it has been promising to be in ads and previews and alluded to in interviews on the red carpet and behind the scenes.

Opening with a classic tune-to-do-plastic-surgery-by (“Boogie Oogie Oogie”), the episode features our heart (and other parts) throbs doing their 5,000th surgery. Sean presents Christian with a gold-dipped instrument (a thermometer? A scalpel?) and the two hit the bar for celebratory drinks, which would be better, as far as Christian is concerned, as a celebration with a “nice slice of hair pie.” Sean suggests Christian just needs to get close to someone again, as two babes, a smoky older woman and a sultry younger one approach and offer to buy the men drinks. Sean goes home to his wife and the two, mother and daughter go home to Christian’s lair.

In spectacular parallel scenes, Sean primps for Julia and Christian preps for the women (accessing his drawer of condoms). The women do Christian as Julia does Sean; and as Julia is showing pregnancy pain, Christian is shown as a man sandwich, with his own pain – a staring up at the ceiling look of dread or angst, loneliness in the midst of bodies.

Mr. Landau (Larry Hagman) is in their office with his new twenty-something bride, asking for new size appropriate prosthetic testes. His shrunk by radiation treatments, he wants kiwi-sized now. Info is dropped about who he is, a medical investment broker, foreshadowing the possibilities for McNamara/Troy.

Across town, Julia is going for another sonogram. She learns the baby is a boy, but also is told the baby has developed ectrodactylia, also grossly known as lobster claw syndrome.

Christian goes another round with the mother/daughter team, wherein the mother teaches her how to perform fellatio and the daughter, Riley, throws a snit that he won’t kiss her (once she confides happily that she and Mom have been doing this sort of thing since first practicing with step-dad). Mom starts the whores are the ones who don’t kiss lecture, and Christian tells them to get out. The mother exchanges snipes with Christian, the supreme verbal sniper, who suggests that should she hold the keys to her daughter’s puss long enough, Riley will turn out as bitter as she when she’s 40. This incites the classic bedroom psychoanalysis, whereby the woman tells Christian he is so afraid of connecting that he is going to die alone.

After a visit to

Sean’s home, where he fondly watches the family dynamics, Christian shows up in the office of therapist Dr. Faith Wolper (Brooke Shields). She asks challenging questions; he responds with come-ons, suggesting he can, for example, show her how he does his thing. After a history recall, identifying the fact that he has done 1,000s of women, most recently in celebration, the question of the absence of intimacy in his life is answered by Wolper, who suggests his intimacy is with his partner and best friend, Sean.

Cherry Plumb, a husky-voiced phone sex operator (Kathleen Turner) wants a voice lift. Sean offers to make a referral, as they don’t like to cut into the larynx, but Cherry wants them – the best in the biz.

Christian has to do some unconscious overcompensating, so he blows off his partner in favor of redecorating his pad in “butch” motifs … as Sean cuts into Cherry’s throat to the tune, “I Believe in Miracles,” (the music, as usual, a cheeky commentary on one topic or theme in the show).

Meanwhile, Julia is drearily meeting with a woman with ectrodactylia, informally interviewing her over lunch, to decide whether or not to keep her baby.

Making up for Sean having to go solo on the last operation, Christian takes over the implants for Mr. Lauder, as the man’s sexy young wife insists on watching her old man’s op. Christian rejects the idea first, attempts to get physically closer to the hot young woman, and informed she is faithful and no longer questioning the May-December nature of their marriage, is given a proposition in turn: she wants to buy McNamara/Troy. The next hot scene has the curtain to the OR slid open, the wife posed all sexy like a stripping booth performer, and Christian performing the operation by displaying the bloody rejects and shiny new eggs and his expert moves. Though Liz has objected, citing insurance and other details, Christian has held up the prosthetic gonads and asked, “Know what’s great about having a pair of these, Liz? You’re not afraid to work without a net.”

At home with the McNamaras,

Julia is weepy and mildly defiant, and Sean is pissed. She has just now told him about the baby’s condition. Once he processes his sudden shift from joy that it’s a boy to pain from the news of its lobster-claw condition, he comes around, as does Julia, to the comforting promise to stay in this together.

Christian’s understanding of his true connection to Sean has made him go the opposite direction. He has butched up his place with animal rugs, dark and black colors, and a big ol’ phallus statue, and invites Sean over for a discussion: sell the biz.

The creator, Ryan Murphy, has promised that this season will be lighter. And it is delightfully tongue-in-cheek in places. The scene in Christian’s new pad is one such scene. Christian suggests selling the business and Sean asks, “Are you drunk?”

But once Sean has gone home to a wife who would love to be a full-time mom, and after Christian succeeds in getting his shrink where he wants or needs her – bent over her big desk – the partners appear in a huge assembly hall conference room, sitting way across from Mr. and Mrs. Landau and signing the papers to turn over McNamara/Troy.

At a trendy bar with lighted walls of orange and red bottles alternated with TV screens showing shimmering pool water, Christian sits solo. A woman approaches to offer him company and he turns her away. Sean at home goes off to his weight room, flips open his cell phone and dials, and the voice of Cindy Plum comes, asking how she can help tonight.

Hmmm. Will we see a role reversal of sorts? Will we get more all-star casting? And most importantly, will we get to see Christian’s naked backside more? Ryan Murphy will surprise and delight us, will continue to lure us in and keep us riveted to this unique, dynamic, exceptionally well-written and -developed, well-set, well-cast, and exceptionally well-acted show.

No Comments »

No comments yet.

Leave a comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.