Nip/Tuck/Thoughts: Sins of the Father

In the latest episode of “Nip/Tuck”, one character told one of our two leads to stop being a “chump.”

Now, if there were any way to bet on this, I would guess Sean would be the recipient of this bit of advice – and I would be wrong.

We had been lead to believe that “Virginia Hayes” was our Patient of the Week – a struggling actress and self-proclaimed “6” (maybe “7”) who wanted breast implants – but it turned out the real Virginia was the frustrated victim of identity theft. She lashed out at Christian for acting like a chump and falling under identity thief Marcy’s spell.

Now this episode went out of its way to point out the similarities between “Virginia”/Marcy and Kimber (hey, at least they gave Liz something to do for the first time this week), but I thought it was a bit of a reach. I applaud the writers’ effort to continue to have Christian deal with Kimber’s death (it would’ve been easier and not unprecedented to move on to the next thing), but I think this storyline was actually interesting on its own. They didn’t NEED to stretch to connect it to the doctors’ lives.

Sure, “Virginia”/Marcy was a criminal and there’s a good chance she was conning Christian to the very end, but I still felt bad for her when the real Virginia smothered her to death. (I think a big part of the reason I felt sad was because the actress kind of looked like Brittany Murphy.)

In case I was worried about my world turning upside down, there was no reason to worry – Sean went ahead and acted like a total chump in this episode as well.

The episode opened with Sean and Christian meeting with 15-year-old Aurelia Gallardo, the daughter of McNamara/Troy nemesis Escobar Gallardo (Robert Lasardo, pictured, left, who really is terrific in this role). Aurelia, a deeply troubled young woman thanks to her father’s dark legacy, wanted to know the truth about Sean and Christian’s dealings with Escobar and Silvio Perez, who had molested Aurelia when she was young (she didn’t remember this).

Sean toyed with the idea of coming clean to Aurelia about how Silvio’s brother had killed him out of shame and how Sean and Christian had disposed of Silvio’s body in the Florida swamp. Christian, not surprisingly, was against the idea, and so was Liz (hi again!) who wanted to put this part of their past behind them.

This led to a scary and effective fantasy sequence with Escobar popping up in Sean’s head again and telling him to shoot the crocodile that had invaded his apartment. You didn’t have to go to college (like Sean) to get the metaphor - the crocodile represented Christian and the dead body inside represented Sean.

Of course, Sean met with Aurelia and spilled his guts (the creepy music during the playground scene was effective), which led the Feds to McNamara/Troy. Now, obviously, I’m a bit hard on Sean from time to time, but he’s absolutely right to be frustrated and irate with Christian for bringing this (and other) trouble to their feet. I can totally understand why his mind would keep suggesting to him (in the form of Escobar) to cut ties with Christian.

The thing I can’t get over is, whenever he goes on his “Christian ruined my life” binges, Sean never shows any accountability for his role in all this. Christian didn’t trick him or force him to do something he didn’t want – Sean ALLOWED Christian to trick him and do things he was against. Still, I was very excited to see Sean revisit these thoughts and the possibility that he might actually turn on Christian is infinitely more exciting then having Sean walk away (to Africa).

I also like the way the show is going back to the beginning. Not only did they bring Escobar and McNamara/Troy’s original sin back, but by the end of this episode, Sean and Christian were right back where they started – dumping a body (“Virginia”/Marcy’s) to avoid trouble.

So what’d you think of this episode? Are you dismayed or ok with the relative lack of Matt and Julia in the final season? Do you think we’ve seen the last of the Gallardos? Finally, how would YOU rate Fake Virginia?