Nip/Tuck/Thoughts: Backstabbers

A wildly uneven season of Nip/Tuck came to a wildly uneven close last night.

Like the rest of the Hollywood-centric season, last night's episode had some great, shocking heights (Bradley Cooper as Aidan, the "Plastic Fantastic" opening credits, the hot tub), and some disappointing, predictable lows (the return of almost every single character they'd left behind in Miami).

Let's focus on the season finale, shall we? I'll start with what I liked; namely, the Christian subplot. Darlene, the mother of his illegitimate daughter came back to convince him that he was indeed Emme's father and that they needed to break up Matt and Emme's incestuous relationship. I liked that Darlene — who'd lost her legs to diabetes — found Christian in the first place through his Playgirl spread, meaning that the writers found a way to use a mini-storyline most people had forgotten about and that had seemed like a throwaway at the time.

They failed to do so ("I can't believe I'm saying this, but you can't sleep with your sister again!") partly because Christian isn't really a big authority on what a proper relationship should be. Eventually, Christian and Darlene ended up in bed together for a truly bizarre, but strangely hot sex scene ("Nip/Tuck"s specialty) and a solid morning after scene. The Darlene character could've been a redneck caricature, but she turned out to be a sad, interesting person. I hope we see her at least once again.

Looks like we will since, although they agreed they couldn't sleep together anymore, Matt and Emme didn't exactly break off their relationship emphatically. Like I said last week, this storyline is rated EWWWW, but, after everything Matt has gone through, I can't really begrudge him getting involved in some light incest.

Still, the best thing about last night's show? Jennifer Coolidge's return as Candy Richards (aka Pussy Lips). She'd gotten a horrendous lopsided breast job in Thailand, as well as a bad eye job which made her look like "pop eyes". Candy was a force of nature (her breasts were named Gail and Bozina — what?!) and Sean and Christian fixed her up in time to play a dead ballerina on "Ghost Whisperer." In addition to the funny, Coolidge brought the show's one poignant moment when, after anonymously tipping off the paparazzi that she was ready to leave McNamara/Troy, she stepped outside only to be ignored by everyone there. Someone get this woman her own movie or TV show!

Unfortunately, the rest of the show was pretty much predictable garbage. Things headed south immediately when it was revealed Julia survived her gunshot (boo!) and Eden convinced everyone but Sean that she'd tried to commit suicide. Why was everyone so easily bamboozled? Did they completely forget that Eden's always been kind of a beast?

When Julia woke up and Olivia was ready to go visit her, Eden appeared ready to confess to her mom what she'd done. However, in the next scene, Olivia is acting completely normally. If Olivia is somehow covering up for her daughter, that would be an intriguing turn of events (although, inconsistent since Olivia cares about Julia so much).

However, the absolute worst part came when Julia woke up. I said to myself "please, don't have amnesia, please don't have amnesia." I mean, really writers? How lazy can you be? Not only did you not have the guts to kill off a major character, but you went to the oldest trick in the book. VERY disappointing.

Then again, maybe they DO have the guts to kill off a major character, just not Julia. After curiously not mentioning that a woman had tried to commit suicide on his couch last week, Sean found himself stalked by Colleen in the office and on the "Hearts N' Scalpels" set.

Sharon Gless has done a nice job in her scary/nutty portrayal of Colleen, but, by this point and the way her character kept popping up out of nowhere with her scary music, she had become nothing more than a cheesy horror movie villain. We even had the cheesy horror movie trick of having a dead body (the CAA agent who randomly turned out to be gay) pop out of Sean's closet.

Of course, the major shocker of a cliffhanger was Sean getting stabbed in the back repeatedly by Colleen as he prepared to operate on Annie after her and Christian's car accident. As soon as they mentioned that Colleen had headed for the border, and right after Liz stepped out of the room toward the end, you could see this one coming, but, unfortunately, I think the producers have written themselves into a corner.

If Sean lives, then it's complete BS. I'm no doctor, but I don't like anybody's chances of survival after being stabbed with a big ass knife and gurgling blood. Not only that, but that would be the second phony cliffhanger death of a major character IN A ROW. Then again, if the writers are audacious and kill Sean, then congratulations, you just killed the lead character (and other than Liz, the most likable person) in the cast.

As you can tell, I wasn't a huge fan of the season finale. Like this season, it was far from perfect. I'd definitely rank it below the Season 1 and 2 finales (both terrific), but at least it's better than the Season 3 ender (the Carver fiasco).

So what'd you think of this finale? Is Olivia covering up for Eden? Did you mind not seeing Kimber? Where had Annie been all this time? Will Matt get back together with Emme? Finally, is Sean really dead?

Thanks for reading and hanging with me this season. I'll see you when I see you.