Nip/Tuck/Thoughts: The Bald and the Beautiful

Figures

A week after I praised this show for (mostly) going back to its serious drama roots, the show reverts back to the more shallow and lackadaisical approach to storytelling that has become the norm over the last few seasons.

Look, I’m not a viewer that needs to have EVERYTHING spelled out for me. For example, as jarring as it was to learn that all of a sudden Christian and Kimber were married in last week’s season premiere, I can accept that they had reconciled and were in a relationship, so I didn’t need to actually see the nuptials.

But the latest episode, “Willow Banks”, appeared to have absolutely nothing to do with last week’s installment. Christian went from being high on life (redecorating his office and trying to cheer up his friend by buying that award) to down in the dumps and had decided to let himself go. (Hopefully they didn’t toss out Kelly Carlson’s fat suit from last season.)

It’s fine if the show wants to jump around a bit (after all, there are only SO many episodes left until the show is over), but when I sit down to watch “Nip/Tuck” I shouldn’t be asking myself, “Wait a minute, did I miss an episode?”

Anyway, as Christian was on his inexplicable path to (yet again) sabotage his relationship with Kimber (why did he decide to let himself go now?) he met the episode’s titular patient. Willow (Mini Anden) was a beautiful model who wanted to make herself uglier because she was tired of people never seeing the real her.

Sorry, but I almost hurt myself rolling my eyes. I wasn’t even that annoyed by her annoying request (like Christian was). I was rolling my eyes at the fact that anyone who’s ever watched the show (and most people who haven’t) could see EXACTLY where this was going.

First, Christian would hook up with the patient (they bonded in their uglification over some Kentucky Fried Chicken), the patient would be revealed to be a nutjob (she shaved her head and crashed her car into a wall at 110 miles per hour) only to decide that she wanted to be beautiful after all. Yawn.

And it’s a damn shame too because Julian McMahon (with his gray stubble that Christian would’ve almost certainly dyed) had fun being a slow and Anden delivered a very effective performance.

At least the writers were a little more subtle in showing us how Sean’s patient mirrored his life. Sean was treating a man who’d gone into a coma at age 18 and woken up 22 years later. He looked 40, but felt 18 so he wanted to look like a teen again.

Sure, the scenes with Sean taking the guy clubbing were amusing, but I was more interested in the idea of Sean himself waking up in his 40’s and realizing that it was time to start living his own life. The fact that coma guy ended up slipping back into a long slumber was probably an even bigger wake-up call.

I’m considerably less interested in the Sean-Kimber Affair(: the Sequel), which is a shame because, again, the actors are doing a good job. (In this case Dylan Walsh and, especially, Kelly Carlson are making me care based solely on the strength of their performances.)

But honestly, Sean sleeping with Kimber? Well, Christian slept with Julia, so I guess they’re even in terms of sleeping with each other’s wives. Still, the bottom line is that this move had little impact because almost every character on this show has slept with each other. (Anyone waiting on a Kimber-Liz hookup?)

So what’d you think of this episode? Where the heck are Matt and Julia? (I’ve actually been pretty ok with not having them around.) Finally, feel free to tell me if I’m way off base and that this was an excellent episode.