It’s the show that keeps on topping itself, so here’s how the show will outcrazy itself this week. Drug addictions, bankruptcy, on-and-off engagements, and mime robbery – it’s the stuff of any other show’s season-long story arc, but on Nip/Tuck it all happens in a single episode.
Patient of the week is a foreign plastic-surgery-addicted cougar who Doctor Mario Lopez hits on. Briggitte wants some special leech treatment post-op, which fills our “wacky quota” for the week. And we’re not even two minutes in. Christian’s freaked out, but evidently he hasn’t been watching the show; this is the least weird thing the show’s done since the transgendered mentor Matt wooed back in Season Two.
What Christian’s really irked about is that Mario Lopez is dating Kimber. What bugs Mario Lopez is that Kimber’s still hooked on Christian. Christian sets some diabolical plan of seduction in motion, and now he and Kimber are back on. Teddy and Sean are back on, too – in fact, they just got back from their two-day elopement. Christian thinks they’re going “down with the ship,” but Liz and Linda are happy for them.
Kimber’s upset that Mario Lopez is too perfect, so she doesn’t open up to him long enough to give him time to be not-perfect. But she sees right through Christian’s jealousy. Meanwhile, Sean’s daughter Annie’s in town, and she’s got her iPod on full blast while she rocks the Avril Lavigne look. Annie’s upset about the divorce and also about Teddy, but there’s no excuse for her fashion disaster and her total lack of manners.
Teddy recognizes Briggitte from her last-season secret identity as Dixie the Vegas surgeon. So she gasses the patient as quickly as she can and covers with Sean, but if anyone looks shifty on this show it’s Rose McGowan.
We find out that Annie wears her ugly black hat because she’s a nervous hair-puller and her scalp is a mess. Meanwhile Sean experiments with leeches for no apparent reason and gets philosophical by telling Christian that he belongs with Kimber, his soulmate. They meet Patient No. 2, a transvestite named Steve who wants to look more like his alter ego Modesty. No procedures for this guy: he wants an actual mask he can wear.
Christian gets an idea; he tells Mario Lopez to dress like a woman in order to better seduce Kimber. This is going to get ugly fast.
Matt tries to amuse Annie with the art of mime, but the coffeeshop he robbed two weeks ago was more entertained than Little Miss Pin-Popper and her “box of brattiness.” But Annie’s stomach starts hurting real bad, something that’s been going on all episode. Turns out that not only does she pull her hair out – she eats it, too. Harry Potter’s going to have to come in and get the bezoar out of her stomach. Fortunately, Sean remembers that he’s a surgeon, and he goes in himself to get the disgusting little hairball. I told you this show was messed up.
Sean starts guilt-tripping and kicking himself, something he does every week. But Christian’s clearly having a ball setting Mario Lopez up for a big transvestite moment of awkwardness. But transvestites are people, too; Christian bonds over sports with the sales(wo)man. Mario Lopez comes out in fishnets and a bustier, making a really ugly girl. Christian giggles.
So I finally figured out that this episode is all about being who you are and not wearing a mask. Pretending to be someone else can be disastrous. Teddy/Dixie throws out all of her Vegas gear and agrees to just be herself; Matt’s mime act is starting to get a little old and criminal; and Steve/Modesty is contracting for that mask, which Teddy steals in order to kill Briggitte while going incognito. She gets away with it, because the coroners chalk it up to “the things people do to be beautiful.”
Christian’s plan backfires: Kimber’s totally turned on by Mario Lopez as a lady, and their relationship is even stronger. Mario’s ready to be a full-out crossdresser just because Kimber’s into it, and he finds out that Christian never really crossdressed but doesn’t tell that he knows.
Sean doubles his life insurance policy, which puts a smile on Teddy’s greedy little face. This is going to backfire horribly. Annie and Connor get money in the will, but Matt doesn’t (because of his spendthrift history with “Scientology, his porn star wife, and methamphetamines”). Teddy’s peeved because she’s not a beneficiary, either. So she suggests that Annie and Connor – the “rugrats” – stay with them, which means she’s probably got kid-killing on the brain.
Verdict? Last week I decried the show for not being as “fun” as it had been in years previous, but the show’s back to not taking itself seriously. We also finally get a sense of the season’s trajectory with Teddy stepping out as our new antagonist; I probably should have seen this coming, but I guess I was too dazzled by Rose McGowan’s poutiness to suspect anything villainous from her vixen-like visage. Mixing off-beat oddities with soap opera drama, Nip/Tuck is slipping back into the scalpel once more.
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