Nip/Tuck/Thoughts: The Award Goes To...

As “Nip/Tuck” nears its ultimate end, I suppose the time was right for the show to go back to the beginning.

And I’m not just talking about the show literally going back to its origins and showing us how Sean and Christian first met. I’m talking about an episode that harkened back to the time when people could still make a case that this show was a serious drama by showing restraint (well, what passes for restraint on THIS show anyway) and focusing heavily on the past, present and future of its two main characters.

(Ok, so there was that mile-high sexcapade between Sean and the weirdly aggressive chocolatier, but this is still “Nip/Tuck” and those types of shenanigans simply can’t be avoided – and are expected.)

The episode opened with a bang – as in Sean banging a sledgehammer against a pretty marble wall and destroying an important-looking trophy called the Albert Poland award.

The events leading up to Sean’s destructive redecorating job were revealed afterwards. Apparently, ALL the financial problems from season 6 are gone (I don’t mind, they were a drag anyway) and McNamara/Troy are rolling in cash. Cue the new female designer who Christian is almost-certainly banging. (Obviously, it turned out he was.)

Still, Sean and Christian were mostly glowing after being awarded the prestigious Albert Poland award by the University of Miami.

Before they flew back to accept the prize, they had to deal with patient of the week, Dan Daly. I have to hand it to the show’s writers – they keep digging deeper and deeper and coming up with truly fascinating, scary, freaky, interesting afflictions for their patients.

Dan suffered from a neurological disease (which I have no chance of spelling correctly) that makes him prone to angry outbursts and causes him to mutilate himself. The life expectancy for people with his affliction is 45 (watching this guy, I thought to myself, “That high?!”) and Dan had just turned 46.

Of course, this (and what he saw as a lifetime achievement award) caused Sean to re-evaluate his life, specifically his first meeting with Christian. (“We Belong Together” in the soundtrack was a nice touch.)

This is the part of my recap where I stop and applaud the actors who played the younger versions of Sean and Christian. (ESPECIALLY Andrew J. West as young Christian, who we knew was a douche because he had a popped collar.)

The flashbacks would’ve been amusing on their own, but they actually revealed new information about the characters. Sure, Sean and Christian have referenced their college days repeatedly in the past, and we could all deduce that Sean basically carried Christian through med school, but I was surprised to learn that Christian deliberately sabotaged Sean and kept him from getting into Harvard out of fear of losing him (and his coattails).

The sabotage itself is not surprising, and neither is the fact that Sean ultimately (wimpily?) forgave his friend. I was surprised to realize that Christian’s destructive shenanigans went back THAT far. If you subscribe to the notion that Sean’s life sucks (I personally think he can be a bit of a stick in the mud and I can appreciate that Christian loosens him up), then you could make the case that Christian helped ruin his life. (Though I agree with Christian in that Sean needs to take some responsibility for himself.)

However, I don’t subscribe to the notion that Sean’s life is COMPLETELY horrible. He’s a hot-shot, successful plastic surgeon in L.A. and, for better or worse, (ok, mostly worse) he couldn’t have gotten there without Christian. That symbiotic relationship has been the show’s major theme and, thus far, it’s been impossible for Sean to break.

I mean, even after it was revealed that Christian essentially bought the Albert Poland award, Sean (and I) couldn’t be 100% mad at the guy because he did it for Sean. (He thought the legitimacy of the award might make him feel better about his work.) Although Sean and Christian had a nice, touching scene at the end, it still feels like the two will go their separate ways by the end of the series. I haven’t decided whether that’s what I want to see, but I’m interested to see how the writers handle it either way.

Of course, Christian’s major problem is that his affection for Sean doesn’t extend to anyone else in his life. Apparently, Christian and Kimber are now married, but that didn’t stop Christian from impregnating the decorator. (That vasectomy was WAY overdue.) I thought Kelly Carlson did some strong work towards the end of last season, so I hope she isn’t stuck playing Christian’s fool for very long.

So what’d you think of this episode? How much of Matt and (shudder) Julia are you hoping to see in the final season? Finally, would you like this season to be more serious like this episode or more crazypants, like the last few years?