Zach's Nip/Tuck Procedure - "Benny Nilsson"

Christian’s coping with money issues ($457,000) and “Past Due” bills the only way he knows how – ladies. After hooking up with an IRS agent and finding that his bill won’t go away that easily, Christian has to find an alternative means of raising capital. Sean’s opposed to the idea of taking out risky equity on the business, but Christian reassures him that it’ll be okay – Sean offers an out-of-pocket loan. Nurse Linda comes in with shocking news – Sean’s brother Brendan (long thought dead) has turned up in his office.

Brendan isn’t exactly pleasant looking; he’s got all kinds of meth sores on his face, but he’s got Sean’s voice down pat. Turns out Brendan has been busy with handicrafts like underwater basket weaving (not joking); he wants to go straight and clean himself up, but he needs Sean’s help. Of course Sean wants to give him a help, despite Christian providing the voice of reason. Sean fixes up Brendan and feels good about himself.

Patient of the week Benny Nilsson is here because he wants to look more like his Swedish international banker father. (We did this plotline back in Season One with the Down syndrome boy who wanted to look like the rest of his family, remember?) The day of the Nilsson surgery, Sean announces he wants to bring Brendan home; Christian objects but eventually gives in. Papa Nilsson fears he pushed Benny to the surgery, but Christian reassures him. Knowing Nip/Tuck, this is going to go wrong really fast.

Christian keeps chiding Sean for trying to develop a “Wally and The Beaver” relationship with Brendan, but Sean insists it’s all going to be fine. When Christian’s watch goes missing, Sean refuses to believe that Brendan took it, but Christian vows to kick Brendan out in a week if he doesn’t get a job. The Nilsson surgery went off without a hitch, but something still feels wrong.

Christian finds another meth-head in the apartment, a friend of Brendan’s who’s looking for a bit of nasal repair. But Christian won’t fall for it, saying that his job is to keep Sean in check from being too sympathetic. Brendan tells Christian that he’s not leaving, so Christian throws him out. To Christian’s disapproval, Sean goes through with the new-nose procedure. After taking Benny surfing, Christian finds the kid sobbing hysterically in the restroom; the truth is that Benny’s stepfather has been using him as “entertainment” for his “rich and bored” business friends. Considering Christian’s troubled past with his own depraved stepfather, it’s no surprise that he feels a sense of kinship with Benny. Theme alert: “Real family doesn’t own you. They don’t abuse you... they take care of you.”

“Harvey No-Face” is caught with cocaine, which he claims Brendan provided; Brendan denies it, but Sean can’t believe him (really, who can?). Step-Papa Nilsson congratulates Christian on a job well done, but Christian snaps and roughs him up, extorting him for $400,000. Solid business proposal.

Brendan gives Sean a little statuette he carved – cupped hands. He’s checking out, he says, but Sean’s a total sap and invites him back in. But Christian’s on the phone, pressing charges against Brendan for the stolen goods – which Christian admits he intentionally placed out in the open. Finally Sean starts to come to his senses, and Christian keeps pushing Brendan on what he’s hiding. Brendan gets indignant and tries to storm out, but Sean stops him and looks at what he’s packed. The two tousle like fourth graders, but to everyone’s surprise the bag is devoid of any valuables. “You guys deserve each other,” Brendan says as he leaves in a huff. I think that’s actually the message of this entire series.

Christian offers to give Benny his old face back, but Benny declines. Christian does, however, give Benny the $400,000 he extorted from Step-Papa. He tries to tell Benny that his papa doesn’t love him, but Benny’s not convinced. Back at the homestead, Christian gets contemplative and recalls pawning some of his stuff – Brendan, it turns out, was innocent! But Christian’s not ready to confess just yet, Sean wonders aloud who his real family is, and we learn that Christian also forged Sean’s signature on a loan against the business. Greedy little stinker.

Verdict? Not as entertaining as last week’s episode, mostly because this week took a hard line on Christian’s depravity being a dangerous negative rather than a jesting quirk. I’m interested in Sean’s brother Brendan, mostly because I know we’ll never see him again. Will Christian’s fiscal trickery catch up with him? Do bad people ever get punished on this show? More importantly, is morality an irrelevant concept in the world of Nip/Tuck? Most importantly of all, when the deuce will we find out what happened to Matt??

Zach's Nip/Tuck Procedure - "Lola Wlodkowski"

Cute couple of the week Tracy and Skip wants to be just like Barbie and Ken so that they can dedicate themselves to a life of commitment without the burden of “ownership and exclusivity” that comes with a sexual relationship – so nipple removal is the odd surgery on the docket. After all, Barbie and Ken stayed married for 50 years. I mean, I guess this makes sense – for Nip/Tuck, that is.

Creepy delivery girl gives a box to Sean, but it turns out that she’s a run-of-the-mill strippergram sent by Christian to help Sean get his head in the game. Of course, his 2:00 appointment arrives in the middle of the lap dance, and things go downhill. Nurse Linda gets in her frown-of-the-week., and Christian confesses that she wasn’t a stripper – “she’s a hooker.” Sean bemoans his relationship woes, but Christian’s his classic nonchalant self, even when Kimber asks if she’s gained weight.

Liz brings her chubby friend Lola Wlodkowski to the office; turns out she and Lola met up at a nudist colony, and Liz got concerned about Lola’s moles. Christian turns it into a discussion about additional liposuction, Liz gets offended, but Lola declines the offer, instead inviting Christian to the nudist colony. Ten to one he hops into bed with her.

Via a cute montage set to the tango music I love on this show, Sean starts to learn from his patient that life isn’t all about sex, while Lola keeps trying to seduce Christian, who admits that he’s only interested in shallow and superficial girls. Cut to a shot of Christian having sex with Lola; apparently he’s never heard of medical ethics or conflicts of interest. The surgery goes through, and Christian realizes that his superficiality didn’t get to Lola. Liz lets him know that Kimber is expecting a “monogamous Ken and Barbie sunset.”

After Christian confesses the Lola affair to Kimber, she says she’s going to let herself go; Christian has a vision of what fat Kimber would be like, and he’s certainly not pleased. While operating on Surgical Patient Tracy, Sean has a less than ideal black-and-white vision of a TV Land version of what a sexless life would be like – sleeping in separate beds like Lucy and Desi, and all that. Christian tells Lola that, despite their indiscretion, he’s happy being shallow, but Lola admits that sometimes she’s not always happy being herself. She asks what kind of surgeries she’d need.

Sean and Tracy have a heart-to-heart in which Sean accuses Tracy of denying intimacy in order to make life easy. Tracy lunges in for a kiss. Here’s a thought – a Nip/Tuck drinking game: take a shot every time one of the doctors does something unethical. And Liz accuses Christian of breaking Lola’s will and walks out of the surgical suite just as several fat men walk into the office – totally starkers – to rescue Lola from losing her identity.

Lola’s biopsy comes back positive for skin cancer, but Christian tells her that she can come back – “I did.” Lola plasters a smile on and jokes about losing weight from the chemo, but Christian gets serious and tells her not to have self-esteem problems. Meanwhile, Kimber’s busy being bulimic, which Christian finds “pathetic.” Indignant, Christian tells her he won’t stand for it, but Kimber confesses she hates herself almost as much as Christian hates her, which “feels right.” The most dysfunctional couple on television, it turns out, hate themselves and each other; is it too much to hope for a happy ending for these two?

Sean makes nice with his previous 2:00, but Skip drops by to say that he’s actually happy with the whole Sean/Tracy affair – since it helped him admit that he’s gay. He introduces his boyfriend G.I. Joe (I’m not joking, folks). Sean brings a date (the strippergram) back to his place, only to find Kimber and Tracy strutting around in their knickers; to no surprise, Christian is responsible for all of this – “two Barbies are better than one.” Another normal day in the life of Nip/Tuck.

Verdict? A pretty solid episode this week, thanks in part to some strong characterization between Sean and Christian. What I love about these two is they’re not as different as they pretend they are, and it’s episodes like this that really bring that out. Juggling quirky humor with personal drama successfully, this episode was a nice change of pace from the Matt drama the past few weeks, although I confess that handling cliffhangers like the one from “Alexis Stone II” aren’t Nip/Tuck’s strong suit (nary a mention of Matt this week). As we wind down the series, it’s feeling like Nip/Tuck is going to finish strong.

Zach's Nip/Tuck Procedure - "Alexis Stone, Parts I & II"

It’s a special double-dose of your “Nip/Tuck” procedure here at The Top Pop Stop, with a two-part episode that

Suicidal Sean gets the tables turned on him when Julia’s mother Erica Naughton (Vanessa Redgrave, who it turns out didn’t die back in Season Three) asks him to “Tell me what you don’t like about yourself.” But Sean insists he wasn’t trying to kill himself – he was just going for a swim. After Erica rattles off a litany of troubles plaguing Sean (just from this season alone), he admits he’s a little bummed but says he’s changed his mind. Erica, though, won’t authorize his release from the psych ward.

Mario Lopez (if his character has a name, I refuse to learn it) tells Christian he wants to ask Kimber to marry him. Christian says he doesn’t care, but when he fires Mario Lopez we know he’s still peeved. Christian bails Sean out, telling the doctors that Sean has aspirations to swim the English Channel, and he invites his buddy out for drinks, promising to kill Sean if he ever tries to commit suicide again. At the bar, Christian meets Alexis, bartender and patient-of-the-fortnight, confiding all the gritty details about Kimber. Alexis wants to help, so she hops into bed with Christian – he never could say no to that brand of therapy. Oddly enough, Alexis kicks Christian out when they’re all done.

Erica reveals that she wants custody over the kids, but Julia tries to placate her by saying that she recognizes Sean isn’t a good environment for the little ones. Meanwhile Erica visits Matt in prison, telling him that he needs to find a protector in the joint. Matt reveals that he doesn’t want his parents seeing him like this, but Erica tells him to stand up, be a man, and help her get custody. At the office, Liz tries to make nice with Christian, who initially doesn’t want any part of it but who eventually discloses everything about Alexis. But Liz declares she doesn’t want to hear any of that as Sean storms in, miffed about the custody proceedings. Sean continues by insisting that Christian re-hire Mario Lopez; he gives it a shot, but Mario Lopez reveals that he and Kimber are officially engaged.

Christian gets another surprise when Alexis shows up at the office and asks for a sex change operation – she wants to be a man. Alexis drops a bigger bomb – she used to be a man, had the snip-snip surgery to become a woman, and now wants to go back. She/He says that sometimes you don’t decide to change – sometimes it just comes out and surprises you. Christian asks him/her to leave.

Julia says she’s planning on moving to LA, but Erica doesn’t believe the two of them are in touch with reality. She introduces her new foreign beau Renaldo, who’s about half her age; the two have always wanted children, so why not take Sean and Julia’s? Speaking of kids that ought to be taken away from unfit parents, Kimber drops her brood off with Christian for a night off with Mario Lopez, who has agreed to do Alexis’s surgery. Christian suggests he wants Kimber back – again – but she’s not buying it. And Julia visits her mother to try to bribe her with Sean’s surgical skills – “my lost youth for your lost children,” Erica mutters with disdain. Julia shouts that Erica is trying to steal her daughter’s life.

Christian visits Alexis to try to dissuade her from the surgery by explaining the messy and difficult procedure of reversing a sex change. He also states that Mario Lopez isn’t the guy for the job; Alexis agrees. Meanwhile, Sean meets with Renaldo and asks what his angle is; Renaldo insists his motives are pure and that he just wants to be a father and make the kids happy. Sean decks him, and one of Renaldo’s amigos catches it all on tape for further use in court. And Erica reveals that Matt is testifying against his parents; Julia slaps her mother.

Kimber’s been fantasizing about Christian while she’s with Mario Lopez, who promises that they’re “going to be so happy together.” He wants to take Kimber and Jenna out on a picnic, but she’s turned off by the idea and gets upset that he doesn’t know her schedule well enough. She wants space, she says, and Mario Lopez freaks out because he thinks she’s getting cold feet. Back at the recovery suite, Alexis gets all dolled up in a suit to show Christian what a pretty boy she makes, but Christian’s not interested in switching teams – especially when Kimber shows up and asks to get the Mario Lopez tattoo removed from her shoulder.

Part Two begins with Matt starring in his own personal episode of “Oz,” when Christian visits and meets Matt’s new cellmate Kessler. Kessler promises that Matt is safe but asks Christian to give Matt breast implants so he can be a real pretty girl. “There’s a precedent for this,” the creepy prisoner declares as this show out-creeps itself. This is all Erica’s doing, we know; if she hadn’t put those crazy ideas into Matt’s head... well, he probably would have gotten into a whole new world of trouble by himself.

Suing for joint custody, Sean and Julia subject themselves to some brutal training-by-lawyer, who grills them to prep them for the court date. But if you ask this reviewer, these two don’t stand a chance, despite the emergency Botox Sean gives Julia to look youthful against Old-Timer Erica. Meanwhile, Christian sells his boat to some Saudis (WTEfron?) in order to come up with a “donation to prison reform” to help Matt out of his sticky situation.

Erica bribes Annie with new clothes and what looks like a new cover-up wig just as Sean and Julia visit and announce their plans to rent a house. Erica doesn’t like it, though, claiming it’s a fairy tale that hasn’t worked before. Upstairs, Renaldo photographs Annie in her new clothes, something that is more than a little creepy. At the jail, Matt gets transferred to a new cell, but Kessler’s still on hand to rough him up some.

Alexis – now Alex – visits Christian again and gripes that (s)he isn’t being taken seriously by people, who recognize she’s post-op but don’t know that she’s post-post-op. Alex wants her breast implants back so she can seduce straight men again (I’d be fibbing if I didn’t see this reversal of fortune coming). Christian starts thinking metaphorically about Matt’s situation, so he visits Matt, who’s been brutalized like nobody’s business in prison. Matt says the only way to help him is by giving him the operation, but Christian doesn’t want to believe it.

While Sean and Julia house-shop, we start to get the feeling that maybe these two might be on the way to a reunion, especially because no one else can stand to be with either one of them. Once they start making out and canoodling, there’s little question. Sean tells Julia they need to play dirty – “just like Erica” – if they want to keep their kids. Sean says he wants to plant cocaine on Renaldo and get him locked up for ten years, but Julia flips her lid and flushes the stuff. Meanwhile, Erica gets passports in the mail for Annie and Conor, but she discovers that Renaldo is hiding something – Annie’s underwear. Told you he was creeptastic. So the circle repeats itself; Annie’s doing the same thing to Erica that Julia did – stealing her youth.

Erica reveals that she’s dropped the custody proceedings and left Renaldo, and Sean and Julia realize that there was something absolutely indecent about Renaldo. In the surgical suite, Alexis tells Christian that implants are nothing but silicone bags that can be put in and taken out at will. Christian daydreams about performing the surgery on Matt but ultimately backs out, slipping Matt something at the prison – a bottle of pills that’ll interfere with Kessler’s libido.

Julia and Erica bond over growing old and not looking like the same person you know you are on the inside – Theme Alert! – but Julia kicks Erica out of the country and tells her that “you’re dead to me.” In prison, Kessler brings Matt a brassiere, but the pills are already starting to take effect. Unfortunately Kessler finds the pills and menaces Matt, but Matt strangles Kessler with the brassiere. When Erica goes to the airport, the security team finds the bag of cocaine in her purse. Turns out Julia didn’t flush it after all! That steely-eyed look on Erica’s face tells us that maybe we haven’t seen the last of her. (Then again, this is “Nip/Tuck,” the show that let The Carver escape to Spain after a season of serial rape and murder, so abandoned plotlines aren’t exactly new.)

Verdict? In two halves, this episode was one of the strangest ones Nip/Tuck’s done in a while – and I mean that in a good way. Part I was quirky and a little whimsical, but Part II was perhaps the darkest episode of 88 so far (there are going to be a total of 100). Having said that, I was glued to this two-parter, glad that I had waited to watch the episodes back-to-back. I miss Rose McGowan’s Teddy, but I’m fascinated by where they’re going with this “Matt in prison” plotline. It was also great to see Vanessa Redgrave step in as Mommie Dearest again; I think a lot of people forget that she’s one of the show’s best antagonists (though last year’s Colleen Rose will always have my heart). Let the saga of deranged nutcases continue, because I’ll be there.

Zach's Nip/Tuck Procedure - "Abigail Reynolds"

With Teddy and Matt all with ambiguous fates from last week, you just know this show’s going to get its crazy on this week.

We start right off with a trippy disorienting surgery on Matt intercut with flashback fill-ins from last week explaining how Sean and the kids survived Teddy’s carbon monoxide attempt but not how Sean or Christian can ethically operate on their own son Matt (those of you who are just tuning in may not know that Sean and Christian have equal claims to Matt’s parentage).

Sean gets disturbing news about Teddy’s fate – police found a human heart with her hair sample nearby. Of course, on this show, such certainty means she’s almost certainly not dead (if only for shock value). Sean cries (almost as much as Jack on “Lost”), but he wouldn’t feel so bad if he knew she were trying to kill him – or if he could read the credits and see that Rose McGowan is still listed as a cast member. So he channels his emotions by watching Road Runner cartoons and by getting a visit from Julia, his ex-wife who we haven’t seen in about a season. Within moments they’re back to bickering.

Christian wants Matt to go to prison because it’ll set him straight. He, too, fights with Julia over whether or not Matt is a good kid – and Matt heard the whole conversation.

Patient of the week is Abigail Sullivan, who wants the remnants of her in utero parasitic twin “Moira” removed. Her crazy mother never had the extra bones and tissue removed from her living daughter, and Abigail’s having problems separating her identity from “Moira.”

Sean and Julia are unpacking Teddy’s life, and they realize that he knows almost nothing about his allegedly deceased bride. They have a lot of talk about truth and healing (theme alert!) before agreeing to turn Matt in to the police. But Christian calls – Matt’s booked from the recovery suite, and no one knows where he is. Christian does the surgery on Abigail, stating somewhat overhandedly, “Now all she needs is the courage to be herself.”

Sean finds Matt at home packing and popping his sutures. Sean bandages up Matt and agrees to let him go – touching emotional moment. Sean cries some more. Police arrest a suspect who had Teddy’s head in a box – Sean vomits. This is the single most bizarre way that Nip/Tuck has ever wrapped up a storyline. Sean confronts the murderer, who reveals both that he’s a sociopath and that Teddy told him about her plan to kill Sean; in a flashback, we actually see Teddy get murdered, so maybe she’s dead after all. But of course Sean doesn’t believe the killer’s story

Matt sneaks in to visit his daughter, but Kimber catches him and asks to run away with him. She promises they can be a family again. Meanwhile, Abigail gets a look at her surgery and recounts a dream she had in which her mother accused her of killing her sister. She requests the “remains” of “Moira,” which Sean unethically relinquishes.

Matt agrees to take Kimber with but later gets cold feet about being Bonnie & Clyde; Kimber talks him into letting them stay. But it turns out Christian followed him, and he encourages Matt to turn himself in. Matt pulls a gun, and Christian backs off. Back in LA, the cops have uncovered Teddy’s shady past as a black widow, killing her doctor-husbands and reaping the benefits of their life insurance policies. Sean tells the police to burn the remains.

Abigail returns to the doctors after her stitches rupture during her big concert, but it wasn’t an accident; she took the little hand that belonged to her “sister” and forcibly reinserted it. Sean agrees to fix the stitching but not to fix the psychotic twin fixation. “Why is it that we see what we want to believe but we don’t want to believe what we see?” he asks philosophically. “Because the truth sucks,” Liz delivers matter-of-factly. In a little motel somewhere, Matt stitches himself up but, wracked by pain, reaches for his handgun, but he calls Sean and asks for help. Sean agrees to fix Matt’s stitching, too, but what he doesn’t say is that he told the cops where Matt was. How many convenience stores did Matt rob to merit a full squad on hand to arrest him?

Rather than scatter Teddy’s ashes at sea, Sean dumps the remains in a garbage can. Julia takes the kids out of the house, and Sean walks into the ocean for either a swim or a suicide attempt.

Verdict? What a depressing episode, all about accepting who you are and facing reality. I like my Nip/Tuck fun and quirky, not angsty and gloomy (I’ll go read “Twilight” if I want that). Please be fun again, Nip/Tuck!

Zach's Nip/Tuck Procedure - "Jenny Juggs"

What kind of crazy stuff can Nip/Tuck throw at us this week? How about mime crime, attempted murder by carbon monoxide, and psychotic feminist strippers? I’ve got my popcorn and my Dr. Pepper (the ideal TV snack), and I’m ready to go.

Sean wants Matt to get a real job because he thinks (like all of us do) that mime is ridiculous. But when Matt procures a wad of cash, it seems everything is copasetic. But his life as the supercriminal “The Mime” is starting to get to him, as is the pressure of child support for his child with Kimber.

Money troubles continue on the show (how timely), but Sean and Teddy are moving in together at a new place. Sean’s son Conor is coming to town, too, which means there will either be a happy family reunion or Teddy’s potentially murderous plans are coming to fruition. Poor lonely Christian drowns his sorrows at a strip joint where he meets patient of the week, the juggernaut-chested and more than appropriately named Jenny Juggs, who Christian invites into the surgical suite for a reconstructive procedure. This is his worst pick-up line yet, but I’ll bet that he beds this “tit terrorist” before the hour is up.

Meanwhile, Annie is still being a bitch, this time about being a vegetarian. But everyone has to clean up their act when Conor shows up. He’s awful shy, and Teddy realizes she really has no in with these kids. So let’s start over, she says, and let’s go camping! The last time an evil step-mother went camping was “The Parent Trap,” and we all remember how that ended up.

With his neck in traction, Christian feels he was unlawfully assaulted by Jenny Juggs, and so he’s out to prove that crime doesn’t pay (the theme of the episode). As Linda shows Liz her new iPhone, Jenny shows up at McNamara/Troy fresh out of lockup. Turns out that she has major psychological issues and a complete body-image misfire, so she’s here for a breast reduction, which Christian consents to after being heavily guilt-tripped about “healing” her.

Teddy has her heart set on this camping trip, under the guise of getting closer to Annie. Though Annie’s really gotten despicable this season, we don’t want to see her get whacked by Evil Teddy. But when Sean and Christian go down to the boardwalk to see Matt’s act, they learn that someone dressed like a mime has been robbing people. They leave Teddy alone with Annie, which is a seriously bad move, because Teddy’s threatening the little girl with admission to a camp for mentally disturbed teenage girls.

Matt gets put into a mime line-up, which devolves very quickly into an absurdist pairing of silent acting and accordion music. But the Chinese florist can’t remember who robbed her, so Matt’s off the hook. Sean and Christian aren’t convinced, though, because – let’s be serious – Matt hasn’t exactly been the most clean-cut character on this show (and that’s saying something). Matt pulls the mime-up card and gets cleared of suspicion with his two daddies.

On the camping trip, Teddy jams some pharmaceuticals into the s’mores, and the recipe even wins over Annie Anorexia. Back at home, Christian goes through some post-op counseling with Jenny, who’s still a neurotic mess despite going down to a C-cup. She dumps a bedpan on Christian, who decides to press charges on the psychotic stripper. And lit only by moonlight, Teddy smiles like a real creeper and fantasizes about kid-killing and inheritance-stealing. She takes the batteries out of the carbon monoxide alarm, cranks the heat up, and gets her kill-face on, locking the McNamaras inside the trailer just in time for a commercial break.

Teddy goes and makes nice with a neighboring camper who’s playing some opera. She must watch a lot of CSI, because this is a solid alibi. Back in the trailer, Annie wakes up as Teddy follows Camper Jerry into some creepy woods to watch a meteor shower. Some solid juxtaposition as far as direction goes, as singing, stars, and suffocating McNamaras all collide in an ooky montage. Just as the McNamaras bust out, Teddy gets abducted by Jerry and runs back to the now-empty camping trailer as Jerry lurks out of focus.

With Teddy unaccounted for, the McNamaras are rescued by a passing patrolman, and Matt resumes his life of mime crime. But Matt’s target has a shotgun hidden under the counter, and things don’t look good for Bloody Mime Matt by the end of the episode.

Verdict? Wow. This episode reminded me a lot of the Season Three finale, when we learned the identity of season-long serial killer The Carver in a fantastic montage scored by a non sequitur tango track. Here we’ve got a lot of the season’s storylines building to a head, all with operatic tra-la-la’ing in the background. Things don’t look good for anyone on the show, but the show continues its climb from dredgy drama up into the realm of that perfect comedy/drama blend we’ve come to expect from the most superficial show on the tube.

Zach's Nip/Tuck Procedure: "Briggitte Reinholt"

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.

Zach's Nip/Tuck Procedure - "Enigma"

With Christian and Liz divorcing, Matt robbing people while dressed like a mime, and Sean OD’ing on sleeping pills, “Nip/Tuck” continues its six-season crazy streak.

Fortunately Christian ad-libs a stomach pumping and saves Sean, but Teddy gets defensive because she prescribed the pills her fiancé OD’d on. But, in true “Nip/Tuck” fashion, Sean has recovered after the commercial break and is ready to work on the patient-of-the-week, a tattooed and decoratively-scarred angry young man named Enigma.

Liz continues to take revenge on Christian for divorcing her and breaking her heart, and she’s got her sights on Christian’s plush yacht with a court order to back her up. Enraged, Christian pushes Liz off the boat, brilliantly comedic but darkly foreshadowing how far off the deep end this whole thing is going to go.

Kimber’s electrolysis business is thriving, but the Asian women who share the salon are calling her “Orange Face” and berating her aggressive style. Christian comes by just to berate her but he also suggests that he’d like to get into the porn business in order to fix his fiscal woes. But Kimber isn’t biting. But a decision to join on a sex toy business venture leads to an almost-reunion between the two. Like everything with these two, the off-again might just be back on.

Sean’s insomnia persists, and it’s causing a bit of tension with Teddy, who wants to postpone their engagement until he can be more honest with her about his problems. This drives Sean, our favorite whiner, back to his sleeping pills and bemoans the end of his relationship with Teddy. Christian threatens him with rehab and a revoked license.

Sean meets insomniac lonelyheart and silverware kleptomaniac Vivian at a roadside diner and starts up a pity-party romance. Speaking of sideways glances, Kimber has an eye for new doctor Mike (Mario Lopez), but Christian’s persistent in trying to rekindle something. But Sean finds out that Vivian is an oxycontin addict and is also aroused by human suffering, which is just uncomfortable for everyone, even the viewer.

But Sean blackmails Vivian by threatening to expose her scams in exchange for half the oxycontin pills she rips the hospital off for. Everything, it seems, is going just fine: Enigma’s all patched up, and Sean’s going to fix Vivian’s self-inflicted wounds. And Sean fires Teddy because he’s done with her, and we get hints of that fury like which hell hath none, especially when she starts eyeing $5 million medical life insurance policies and tells Liz how in love with Sean she is.

Liz chastises Kimber for being a sucker for Christian’s wine-and-dine practices, while Kimber says that Liz’s wedding to Christian was a joke. But Liz says that Christian’s darkness always wins out, no matter what. Kimber is uncomfortable, but then again she always falls for Christian every time. But she’s changing her tune – she takes up with Mike and makes him a partner in her new business venture, breaking Christian’s heart.

Sean realizes that Vivian is mentally deranged, and he recognizes their lack of sleep is making them do crazy things, especially when she asks him to stab himself and go to a doctor for oxycontin. But Vivian takes matters into her own hands and stabs Sean herself, and while he’s at the doctor she takes up with the janitor. This is finally enough crazy for Sean, who leaves her at the hospital.

But the episode doesn’t end happily ever after. Turns out Enigma’s cosmetic makeover was only superficial; Christian sees on the news that Enigma killed his parents and then himself. The darkness didn’t go away. Liz has an epiphany and drops her lawsuit against Christian but says they can’t be “just friends.”

Enigma is, of course, a metaphor for what can happen when you let darkness overtake you. Sean, Christian, and Liz are all starting to notice that their actions are detrimental to themselves and each other, so hopefully they’ll start to turn themselves around. Teddy’s going to end up doing something crazy, certainly; the series needs a new villain, and after Sharon Gless’s psycho turn last season this has a lot to live up to.

Verdict? Watching the lives of Sean and Christian spiral out of control has been the focus of the entire show, but the sixth season doesn’t have as much of the entertainment factor as previous shows. With the rumors that this is the last season, it seems like things are going to end poorly for all concerned. The show’s as entertaining as always, but it’s starting to feel a bit depressing. Of course, we’re only two episodes in, so let’s see how this plays itself out.