“Escobar Gallardo”
(Episode #13 – Season Finale!)
“All we have is each other now, Sean”
(Christian)
And that bond of friendship they shared
since college had been severely put to the test since the last episode. However, tonight was enough to put the sanest
man over the edge – and Sean almost did just that! Christian and Seans lives have been filled
with a lot of drama since they fed Silvio’s body to the alligators in the
pilot. But for all the sleeping around,
marital strife and assorted kooky patients, nothing can take away from the fact
that these two never gave up on each other – an admirable trait that would
prove to be the glue that held them together in this nailbiting season finale.
As the opening scene unfolds, I was
immediately transported back to my early MTV days as Thomas Dolby’s “She
Blinded Me With Science” blares from the speakers in the OR as Sean removes yet
another quartet of heroine filled breast implants from another unfortunate
Columbian ‘mule’ And, like a boil that
won’t go away, there’s Escobar and his one man posse, Pepe, waiting with an
empty bag to take the implants away.
Escobar has found a nemesis in Liz who can’t keep herself from throwing
him dirty looks. As the last implant is
removed, Sean asks Escobar how much more they have to do before they’re
relieved from their obligation to him.
Escobar evades the issue and tells him and Christian to be ready to
operate the following night, for he has yet another ‘mule’ arriving on the red
eye. Escobar then questions Sean about
Christian’s absence.
We then see Christian waiting in
Merrill’s overly-luxurious mansion as Kimber strolls in, playing lady of the
manor and looking less tanned, and sarcastically offers
him a drink. She’s dressed like a well
kept woman of a rich plastic surgeon, complete with a ton of ‘bling-bling’
around her neck and a diamond engagement ring that would make J.Lo
jealous. Kimber proudly announces that
she and Merrill are marrying in December and is even more proud of the fact
that she was able to talk her henpecked groom-to-be out of having her sign a
pre-nup. Guess money can replace love in
her world. Seems that drugs take the place of love to, as
Kimber now carries around her personal vial of blow and coke spoon. Christian tells her about his impending
fatherhood, but all Kimber can do is feel sorry for the baby and the
mother-to-be. She doesn’t believe that
he’s changed and accuses him of being a serial heartbreaker. Kimber takes off when Merrill joins them and
finds out exactly why Christian is there to see him. Seems Merrill has gone over the line with his
recent ad which features a picture of Kimber, who happens to be the handiwork
of Christian. Merrill won’t back off from
his ferocious ad campaign as he plans to run Sean and Christian out of town,
and hopes that it’ll also help to make Christian nothing but a distant memory
for Kimber.
After the intro, we find Julia helping
to prepare Gina for her upcoming delivery by showing her a tape of Matt’s birth
(Wow, Sophia…Gina? Julia’s really
racking up new girlfriends quickly!).
Gina wonders about Christian’s presence in the delivery room with Sean
and Julia. Julia explained that,
although Sean was her birthing couch, he wanted to deliver his own son so
Christian wound up coaching Julia through the delivery. Julia also told Gina how close the three of
them were in college as well. As Gina
watches the video, she sees Christian hold baby Matt before noticing the look
on Julia’s face. Hmmmm, has Gina figured
something out???
The next scene was absolutely hilarious
and one I would’ve never expected. Just
when you thought they exhausted every possible surigical procedure, I’m thrown
for a loop. Christian poses the “tell me
what you don’t like about yourself” question to a Mr. Peters, stodgy old English
gentleman who requests hairplugs for ‘Sir Winston’ – his
The docs obviously refer Mr. Peters to
Merrill as we next see Sir Winston prepped for surgery in Merrill’s OR. No sooner than Merrill removes the first
hairpatch from Sir Winston’s bottom, the dog flatlines. The attending nurse bolts when Merrill
suggests mouth to mouth, leaving him to do it.
The look of disgust and frustration on Merrill’s face was both hilarious
and tragic and Sir Winston dies on the operating table.
Later that evening, Gina fixes
Christian a fancy dish, which turns out to be a bribe. She’s sick and tired of back aches, bloating
and constipation (is she a lady or what?) and wants Christian to have sex with
her to induce her labor. In a scene in
which I don’t know whether to applaud or strangle the lighting crew for keeping
Christian’s….uh….privates undetected, a totally naked Christian and a nightgown
clad Gina stumble through a variety of positions in which her enlarged tummy
isn’t in the way. They finally settle on
‘spooning’ in which I was like….duh!
Wasn’t it a little obvious that that should’ve been the obvious choice? Gina lovingly reaches back to stroke
Christian’s face – telling him that he’s gonna be a good daddy.
Sean arrives home to a dark house
(well, the house is always kinda dark) and finds Julia sitting at the kitchen
table. She wants to know where Sean was
and what he’s been up to, but Sean can’t say, although he assures her that he’s
not having another affair. Julia then
informs him of their financial situation – Matt’s bounced check, her credit
card being declined – and Sean assures her that things will get better. However, Julia has made her mind up. She takes her wedding ring off, hands it to
Sean and says they’re over. Sean
heartwrenchingly begs her not to give up on him, but Julia doesn’t have anything
left.
Next night, Christian and Sean are
scrubbing up to operate on another ‘mule’ when Christian reveals that he had an
‘epiphany’ about fatherhood. Although he
knows that he and Gina would never work as a couple, he’s actually excited at
the thought of being a father – something that he’d never imagined he’d
be. In the midst of Christian’s euphoric
state, Sean somberly announces that he and Julia are getting a divorce and that
he’s moved into a hotel. He marvels at
the ironic turn their lives have taken – Christian’s just starting a family
while Sean is losing his.
As usual, Escobar and Pepe have firmly
implanted themselves in the OR and, after the implants are removed, Escobar
orders the docs to remove one of the ‘mules’ kidneys. I guess drug traffiking isn’t enough that
Escobar is now looking to corner the market on black market organ
harvesting. Sean is absolutely appalled
and, feeling the balls he grew in last week’s ep, he emphatically refuses to
remove the kidney – even after Escobar shoves a gun in his face. But Escobar knows that Sean’s the talented
one and needs him and, therefore, can’t kill him, so what does the scumbag
do? He shoots Liz in the leg then
threatens to splatter her brains unless the kidney is removed. Again, without a choice, they do it.
The docs are then accompanying Liz,
who’s recovering on crutches, to the airport where she’s off for a little
R&R to recouperate. She’s hesitant
to leave the boys behind without a proper anesthesiologist, but, knowing
Escobar’s disrespect for women, Sean doesn’t want Liz around. This scene showed how far Christian and Liz
closed the gap on their animosity towards each other. I loved his line to her (“don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re a better man than I am”)
was classic and I was misty when he hugged and kissed her.
After bidding farewell, the docs walk
away and I couldn’t help but shudder at the look of desperation and
determination on Sean’s face. Christian
breaks down and wants them to call the cops, but Sean knows that it won’t end
there. They’ll always have to look over
their shoulders – that is…unless Escobar is dead. Christian warns Sean not ot
do anything stupid, but, you can tell that Sean’s mind is made up.
Christian goes to visit Julia to try to
tell her how much Sean needs her right now.
Julia wants to know why Sean can’t tell her what’s going on and
Christian explains that he’s just trying to protect them. Julia tells Christian about Escobar’s visit
to which Christian confesses how they’re indebted to him to do ‘surgeries’. He mentions ‘unfinished business’
between them from long ago, but that if she has ever loved Sean, to be there
for him now. He takes her hand and
notices that her wedding ring is gone and asks what happened to it.
Switch to Sean in a pawn shop hocking
Julia’s wedding band for a gun. He then,
again, magically slips into Escobar’s home (doesn’t this guy have any security
other than Pepe?) and surprises Escobar while he’s working out and listening to
the best of 80’s rock (Gary Neuman’s “Cars” and Blondie’s “Rapture). Escobar reads the look on Sean’s face and
knows why he’s here. He plays with fire
and asks Sean to spot him while bench pressing, all the while taunting Sean
about how some people get sick after their ‘first time’ and he doesn’t mean sex. Escobar knows that Sean didn’t come there to
talk, but to kill him. I guess Sean’s
gun sticking out of his pants gave it away a bit too. Escobar plays along and offers himself up to
be a human target as Sean points the gun at him, but he can’t pull the
trigger. He’s lost everything, but he
won’t lose his soul by becoming someone like Escobar. He drops the gun and, surprisingly, Escobar
doesn’t retaliate, again knowing that he needs Sean alive for his talent. Instead, Escobar makes Sean an offer he can’t
refuse. Seems that his
FBI record has kept him a prisoner in the States. He can’t even go home to see his family. Yeah, I really feel sorry for the guy! Anyway, Escobar requests the same thing that
Silvio Perez wanted – a new face – so he can travel undetected. In exchange, he’ll give Sean and Christian
their freedom.
Meanwhile, Christian’s on his cell
phone trying to get a hold of Sean when Gina announces that her water
broke. As Cat Steven’s breaks into ‘Wild
World’, we see Julia showing up at Sean’s hotel room, wanting her ring
back. When Sean says he doesn’t have it,
she says she doesn’t care. She wants him
to come home. The two end in a hug of
reconciliaiton that’ll probably last until……..sometime next season!
At the hospital, Gina is giving birth
with the most horridly contorted face and hideous grunts I’ve ever heard, while
Christian awaits between her legs to catch his kid, ala what Sean did with
Matt. When the baby comes out, all we
see is the look of shock on Christian’s face, followed by the look of concern
on Gina’s. Is there something wrong with
the baby? Is it missing fingers or
toes? Nope, nothing
wrong. The baby is happy,
healthy, chubby and, well, black! And,
unless Christian has African American blood running through his veins, Gina has
some ‘splaining to do! I just knew
the baby wasn’t his!
Christian’s admiring his ‘son’ through
the glass in the paternity ward when Sean and Julia join him to congratulate
him. The looks on their faces when
Christian points out the baby is precious.
Christian explained how SA patients sometimes have ‘blackout sex’, and,
well, it’s a pretty appropo term for the moment. Gina obviously had sex with a black man and,
well…..didn’t remember it, so she figured the baby was Christian’s. Okay, I see a plot for next season
already. Perhaps Christian hunts down
the father to make him take responsibility??
But, that may be hard for him to do because for the last 7 months,
Christian has treated the baby in Gina’s womb as if it were his own and he’s
not gonna let something like DNA prevent him from thinking that he’s the baby’s
‘real’ father. Did you notice the look
on Julia’s face when he said that? Was
she probably thinking the same thing about Sean, should Christian turn out to
be Matt’s father? Christian is then a
bit despaired over not being the real father, because he wanted so much to be a
part of a family, until Julia and Sean insure him that he’ll always be a part
of theirs.
Julia then visits the genetics
lab. Seems she never got the results a
few episodes ago. They’ve been waiting
there for 3 months ( time snafu here – Julia went for
the test in the same episode that Gina told Christian that she was
pregnant. So…..7 month’s have passed,
not 3). Julia takes the envelope, sits
down, opens the test results and reads them.
All were left with is a look on her face that can really swing either
way. Of course we couldn’t find out if
Christian was really Matt’s father or not!
What would we have left to look forward to next season! And….unless Julia puts those test results
through a shredder, someone is bound to find them next season! LOL!!
We then see Julia, Sean, Christian,
Matt & Annie (hey…..what happened to Matt’s storyline with Cara? Did it end up on the cutting room floor? We can’t be left hanging on this till next
season without them giving us something juicy about it first!!!) sitting around the
table enjoying dinner, talking and laughing while Julia seems to be looking at
Matt between Christian and Sean. You
wonder what she’s thinking.
Next, Christian and Sean are in the
break room reading about Merrill being sued for $10 million by the dog
owner. Merrill’s suddenly sullied
reputation has caused the docs’ appointment book to miraculously fill up –
thus, their practice isn’t in ruins after all.
But…they have one last mission to accomplish.
They go into consult with Escobar to
give him a computer generated look at what his new face would look like. Although Escobar doesn’t like it (he thinks
his own face is better looking) he agrees if only for the price of his
freedom. We then see Escobar on the
operating table as the docs sedate him.
Fast forward to 4 months later we find
the new Escobar, who is now going by Armand Ortiz, walking through the airport
when, suddenly, a slew of men start coming up behind him. Turns out they’re FBI agents who address him
as Mr. Braco. When Escobar (Armand)
explains that his name is Armand Ortiz, one of the agents tells him that he
should’ve changed his face along with his name.
He then holds up a list of the FBI’s ‘most wanted’ which shows Escobar’s
picture at the top and a man named Jorge Braco, who’s wanted for robbery and
killing a federal agent, – who’s face that Escobar now has! Escobar/Armand/Jorge is then handcuffed and
arrested, Shock
of shocks! What a wickedly doublecross
that was!
And…..with a sniff of disappointment,
season one ends with Christian and Sean looking smugly into the camera asking…..”tell me what
you don’t like about yourself”
“Antonia Ramos”
(Episode #12)
“And know this. If you don’t do what I’ve politely asked you
to do, I’m gonna take this hand back to
Then
you and your family will learn what it means to be hungry” (Escobar to
Sean)
Well, this is it! The setup to next week’s
season finale. And what a way to
set up the end than by resurrecting the living, breathing human plague that
turned the good doctors’ lives upside down in the pilot episode – the ultra
slimy, ultra rich and ultra tattooed Escobar Gallardo. This guy takes over where Al Pacino left off
in Scarface! I had a feeling that this
guy wasn’t going to just disappear once Sean and Christian made a late night
stop to alligator alley in the pilot.
Escobar is back – and he’s here to collect!
We open to find Christian in a consult
with a very large breasted Spanish woman named Maria. Conducting the consult in Spanish (I would’ve
loved to see Sean do it and see how far he came along with his Spanish tapes!),
the woman, and future model, tells Christian that she wants her double implants
(two in each breast) removed because agencies don’t want models with ‘Volkswagons on their chests”. Christian schedules the surgery for the
following week.
During the surgery, Sean and Christian
are removing the implants and, when Christian pulls out the last one, he
notices that the filling looks nothing like saline. And, like your in-laws showing up for a
surprise, month-long visit, in walks Escobar Gallardo and his PB (personal bodyguard )Pepe, into
the sterile environment of the operating room.
Escobar corrects Christian – telling him that the implants are filled
with heroine – a quarter mill per!
Escobar tells Pepe to ‘fetch the tits’ before leaving to wait in Sean’s
office for them – as the sight of blood disturbs him. How sarcastic was that?
Sitting in Sean’s chair, with Sean and
Christian sitting across from him, Escobar gives a brief explanation of
his ingenious drug smuggling operation – he hires pretty girls from Columbia as
his ‘mules’, promises them a career in modeling in America at a bogus agency
he’s set up in Ft. Lauderdale, in exchange for them having heroine filled
breast implants inserted into their chests so they can make it past airport
security and into the States. But
Escobar’s has some other unfinished business with the doc’s – he wants payback
for the the $300G’s that Silvio Perez stole from him in the pilot and gave to
the doctors to pay for his face rearrangement.
Since the doc’s did such a good job on Maria, Escobar kindly gives the
docs one week to come up with the money.
When Christian threatens to call the police, Escobar reminds them of a
certain trip they took to the
At the gym, Julia enters her Pilates class late.
She plops down behind her friend (and I use that term VERY loosely)
Suzanne, who’s surprised that Julia gave up her personal training session with
Jude to join the ladies. Suzanne also
makes a snide comment to Julia about her recent marital woes she found out
about when little Annie mentioned to Suzanne’s daughter, Tori, that ‘mommy and
daddy aren’t talking to each other’.
Okay, this woman is a bitch, plain and simple. However, she’ll get worse, if that’s
possible. While this is going on, Sophia
Lopez enters the class late as well and heads over to Julia and introduces
herself and how she’s a patient of Sean’s and had recognized her from her
picture on Sean’s desk. All the women in
the class begin to eye Sophia because she’s ‘different’ as Julia tries to make
polite conversation. Sophia invites
Julia for a smoothie after class, but Julia has to pick up Annie from school
then go to class herself. When the class
ends, Suzanne and another member give Julia a ‘how dare you even talk to
someone like that’ look that made Suzanne go from bitch to Super Bitch.
At his apartment, Christian is trying
to assemble a baby contraption while Gina lounges on his $1,100 sheets,
scarfing down a bowl of ice cream. She’s
going through a baby catalog and tosses it to Christian after she earmarked all
the things the baby will need. Christian
balks at the $4G Burberry pram and chooses a less expensive one. Gina bites out that he’s got the money for
it, for which Christian bites back “no I don’t!” We’ll find out why in a moment. Christian apologizes for his outburst, saying
he had a rough day. Gina offers to ease
his suffering a bit *wink* *wink*, but, alas, Christian turns her down. She thinks herself pathetic for coming onto
him, blaming it on the hormones, and immediately whips out a cigarette from her
purse. Chrisitan rips it out of her
fingers, disbelieving that she’s still smoking while pregnant. Gina says she needs something to satisfy her
‘oral fixation’ so its either ciggy’s or some
guy. What a slut! Christian tells her he’ll buy her a bag of
lollipops and she agrees to quit – on the condition that he buys the Burberry
Pram. Correction – she’s a golddigging
slut!
Next day, Christian opens up a
briefcase that has a wad of cash in it.
I love Sean’s comment when he saw all the money (“what did you do? Sell a shirt?”). However, Christian sold off his beloved
Boatox to – of all people – Merrill Bobolit for $144G’s (great, now Bobolit
knows that they have money woes. Of
course he’s gonna use that against them) and also hocked his Rolex for
$25G’s. Sean cleaned out his emergency
and personal fund of $25G’s, but they’re still short. Christian suggests that Sean take some
undesirable clients to get the extra cash needed to pay Escobar. We next see Sean in consult with a man with a
serpents tongue that needs fixing. Sean asks for payment upfront – in cash.
Christian and Sean meet with Escobar
and his PB Pepe in a diner. The waitress
brings Escobar’s dinner and Pepe immediately tastes it first before giving it
to Escobar. Hey, when you’re a ruthless
drug lord, you have no idea who may be out to poison you! Escobar asks them if they came up with the
money and Christian slides Pepe the briefcase as Sean mentions that they’re
‘short’. Escobar tells them not to worry
– as he has another ‘mule’ coming in tonight and suggests that the docs can work
off the extra money by performing the implant removal. In his nominee for a Big Ones Award, Sean
vehemently tells Escobar that he’s not going to work on his slaves
anymore. Escobar replies by grabbing
Sean’s right hand and putting a knife to his wrist, saying that if he doesn’t
do what he wants, he’ll cut off his hand and bring it back to
Later on, Christian is modeling a
‘snuggly’ in a baby store with Gina (I just don’t see Christian and fatherhood
in the same sentence yet). The salesman,
Brad, comes over and tells Gina that her precious Burberry pram is 16 weeks
backordered. Gina replies with a sea of
expletives – which makes Christian so proud that she’s the mother of his
child. Brad creepily begins to flirt
with Gina, feeling her tummy as the baby kicks.
He then tells Gina he’ll put her at the top of the list so she can
receive the pram in time for the baby’s delivery. Gina is overly gracious and leaves with Brad
to fill out an order form as Christian’s cell phone rings. Its Pepe telling him
and Sean to be at their office by 8 tonight as he’s bringing the ‘mule’ by. Christian gets off the phone and finds Gina
giving Brad her address. He then asks
her why Brad gets to know where she lives but he doesn’t. Gina gives him a rude reply before leaving to
head to Basking Robbins. Brad hands
Christian the $4G bill and he’s about to pay before he asks Brad for the order
form so he can get Gina’s address.
At the McNamara’s, Suzanne is visiting
with Julia and asks her to sign the petition to have the ‘tranny’ (her loving
term for transexual, I guess) removed from pilates
class. Suzanne says that she doesn’t
want a man violating the sanctity of the all woman pilates
class. Julia assures Suzanne that Sophia
is ‘all woman’ now, but Suzanne won’t hear it –
putting the pressure on Julia by telling her that all the other ‘mommies’ in
the class signed it. However, Julia
doesn’t cave (was very proud of her) and asked Suzanne to hold off on the
petition to give her an opportunity to try to talk to Sophia instead.
Christian’s pushing a stroller along
the docks while on the phone with Sean, telling him to be at the office at 8
tonight. Sean doesn’t want to give into
Escobar’s demands, but Christian reminded him of a certain shot of Botox he
took to the groin the last time he tried to call Escobar’s bluff. Christian finishes up the call with Sean and
arrives at Gina’s residence – which is a house boat. Gina’s none too pleased to see him and
Christian is appalled that she intends to raise a baby on a boat. When he suggests that she move to a trailer
park because its filled with desperate men who’d love
to have sex with her, Gina responds by throwing the stroller, which isn’t a
Burberry like she wanted, into the water.
What restraint Christian showed by not throwing her into the water!
Julia’s making dinner and Matt’s
sitting at the center island when Sean heads out for the surgery. Julia balks that he could’ve told her that he
had a late surgery before she made so much food for dinner. Sean shoots back that if he doesn’t go to
work, there won’t be any food to put on the table and leaves. Julia throws the pan in the sink and
announces that they’re having McDonalds for dinner. Matt doesn’t want his mother to think that
Sean’s late night surgery is an excuse for an affair and assures her of
it. Julia’s appalled that Sean told Matt
about the affair, and yells at Matt to stop defending his father – that its inappropriate for him to get involved in their
lives. She then asks Matt if he knows
whats going on with Sean, to which Matt says no and sarcastically tells his
mother that its just as well, since he’s not supposed
to be involved anyway.
Sean and Christian are scrubbing up and
are surprised to see Liz enter. Sean
tries to lie, saying they’re there to do a secret celebrity surgery, but Liz is
onto them. She knows about them removing
more heroine filled implants and offers her assistance so that the girls are
anesthitised properly, as the welfare of these girls are
Liz’s only concern. Suddenly,
Pepe shows up saying that there’s a problem, not to mention a change of
venue. He tells the docs to pack their
stuff up and waves a gun to make his point.
The docs and Liz arrive at a hotel
where they find Escobar snorting some coke while listening to the best of the
80’s (Cory Hart’s ‘Sunglasses At Night’). He takes them into a room where the young
woman is shivering under a blanket.
Pepe tells them that her name is Antonia Ramos and the docs see that her
implants are leaking. They see that an
infection has set in from the obviously unsterile operation, but Escobar is
more concerned about any of his precious heroine leaking into her body. Liz anesthetises her while the docs remove
the implants. Escobar tells Pepe to take
the implants, however Pepe is worred that he’ll get infected if he touches them
(uh, ever hear of rubber gloves).
Escobar make Pepe cart them away and they both leave, leaving Antonia
with the docs as a ‘tip’.
The following day, Julia meets with
Sophia over a smoothie at the gym.
Sophia thinks that Julia wanted to talk to her about her troubled
marriage with Sean, explaining how she found out about it from Liz. Sophia sings Sean’s praises to Julia, asking
her to give him another chance and how much he loves her. Julia can’t believe that Sean said all those
things about her and tells Sophia that she thinks Sean’s the one who wants out. Sophia said that men are flawed creatures
(she ought to know – she used to be one!) and tries to offer some ‘girlfriend’
support to help Julia over her crisis.
Their chick talk is disrupted by a couple of amused gym employees who
are making fun of Sophia, however, Julia puts them in her place (more kudos to
her). Julia then tells Sophia the real
reason for wanting to talk to her – that the other women in the pilates class don’t want her there. But Julia quickly adds that she does.
Julia, you keep this up and you’ll turn me into a full time follower!
(LOL)
Sean and Liz are checking up on
Antonia, who’s recovering well from the augmentation that Sean gave her. She wants to know when she’ll be well enough
to travel to the modeling agency in
Julia and Sophia proudly walk into pilates class and plop down right next to Suzanne. Suzanne asks to speak to Julia in private to
which Julia replies that whatever she has to say, she can say in front of her friend.
Not to be outdone, Suzanne rolls up her mat and leaves the class,
while the rest of the spineless ‘mommies’ follow her, including the instructor
who can’t teach a class with less than three people (yeah, right…good excuse!)
Christian’s back at the baby store
buying some heavy duty fencing to wrap around the deck on Gina’s boat. Brad tells him what a lucky guy he is,
because pregnant women are sexually insatiable.
Christian finds out that Brad delivered some stuff to Gina and wound up
sleeping with her as well. Brad thought
that Christian would be cool with it since Gina said that her relationship was
platonic. Christian still doesn’t like
the idea of another mans wanker poking at his kid, in utero, and shoves Brad
down on a couch full of stuffed toys (okay, the squeaky toy he fell on ruined
the toughness of the moment) and tells Brad to stay away from his kid.
The camera
then swings to Matt (do we see any irony there??) sitting at the kitchen table. Julia sits down and apoligizing for snapping
at him the other day. Matt then tells
her that he thinks something’s going on with Sean because the check Sean gave
him to buy school supplies bounced. Just
then, Matt looks up to see Annie walk into the kitchen – with her hand firmly
clasped in Escobar’s. Escobar tells
Annie to go her her mother as Matt tells him to get out (now’s not the time to
be playing man of the house Matt).
Escobar tells them not to worry – looking around and exclaiming what a
lovely house they have. He grabs a
kitchen knife on the chopping block, cuts off a piece of cucumber and eats it,
telling them that he just wanted to meet Sean’s beautiful family and leaves.
Christian pays Sean a visit to Gina
just as she’s about to put another cigarette into her mouth. Not only does he scold her for the smoking,
but for screwing around with other guys while his baby is growing inside of
her. Gina begins to cry – saying how she
just wanted to feel beautiful and wanted and how she’s scared that she won’t be
able to handle a child. Christian tells
her to pack her things and move in with him for the remainder of her pregnancy.
Okay, onto Big Ones Award #2 for
Sean. He storms over to Escobar’s house
(now, one would think that a ruthless drug lord would have a massive gate as
well as security people, but I guess that Escobar is safe with just Pepe
watching his back). Sean enters the
house and finds Escobar giving it to his girlfriend from behind. Sean wrestles Escobar to the ground and
threatens to kill him if he ever went near his family again. Pepe finally arrives (poor bodyguarding on
his part) and points a gun at Sean’s head.
He sits Sean down as Escobar gets up (taking over Christian’s
gratuitious butt shots) – telling Sean that he wants him and Christian to
perform more implant removals for him and his visiting Sean’s family was his
way of saying “I know where you live”, in case Sean tries to resist. Escobar further gets his point across by
repositioning his girlfriend on her hands and knees and tells Sean that “this
could be your wife” and picks up where he left off.
At Christian’s apartment, Gina’s
getting ready for bed on the couch, when Christian tells her that she can sleep
with him, if only to ease her aching back.
They both get into bed (was anyone else surprised that
Christian was wearing jammies? He
seems like the au naturale type to me!).
Gina suddenly feels the baby kick and places Christian’s hand on her
tummy. The look on his face when he
feels a kick is priceless – however, I’m still not used to seeing Christian in
this light. Gina then finally tells
Christian her last name – Russo.
The next day, Sean is staring out the
window at the office with a look of hoplessness and despair on his face, as
Christian gets him for a consult. As
they segue into their “tell us what you don’t like about yourself” intro, the
camera pans to yet another large breasted Columbian girl who replies “my
breasts” as the camera further moves to show Escobar protectively sitting in a
chair behind the girl.
“Montana/Sassy/Justice”
(Episode #11)
“Father, surgeon,
husband. Problem is, all of mine are named Sean. And no operation in the world is gonna make
them get along” (Sean to Liz)
After
the emotion and shock of last week’s highly discussed ‘suicide’ episode, I was
ready for more of an edgy, twisted plot - the Nip/Tuck I’ve come to know and
love and anticipate every week like. One
chock full of snappy dialogue, witty remarks, screwed up patients, spurned
lovers, clever insults, marital discord, secrets between friends and one big who done it? at the end. As to the ‘who’,
I’m referring to Christian or Sean – with the ‘it’ being fathering Matt.
Now, I know what a good majority of the viewers have concluded, based
upon what happened last night. But,
c’mon folks – this is a sharply written show that’s gonna throw everything but
the kitchen sink at us every week – except
predictability. I’m sorry but to have
Matt turn out to be Christian’s son would be just that. Now, I could be wrong, but allow me to give
you my theory, which I will conclude at the end of my review.
We
open to find Christian and Sean in a consult with a woman, Montana Kane, who
wants to get rid of her cankles – her loving terms for the combination calves
and ankles. She wants more shape and
definition to her legs as well as rid them of some ugly vericose veins. In the middle of the consult, Liz interrupts
them saying that a woman is waiting to see that“arrogant, oversexed anti-Christ”.
Through process of elimination, Christian knows that he’s the cad in
question and excuses himself. When he
leaves, Sean continues the consult and discovers that
Christian
walks into his office to find his Sex-A-Holics Anonymous conquest, Gina,
waiting for him. Christian thinks she’s
there to finally press charges for roughing her up in the parking lot when he
thought she was vandalizing his car, but alas, she’s there for a much worse
reason – to inform Christian that his demon seed took root and she’s expecting
his spawn. Christian’s shocked because,
well, in his world – condoms don’t break or slip. Then again, he didn’t have time to teabag his
testicles that night either (LOL). Gina
assures him that the baby is his and wants him to make a decision – to either
be a part of this baby’s life – physically and financially – or get an
abortion, something that Gina’s already been through twice and doesn’t want to
have to do again. Seems Gina has more
problems than just not being able to keep her legs together – she’s also
bulimic (which screws up her cycle) and constantly in denial, which kept
her from coming to Christian about this sooner.
She gives him a deadline of one week to decide.
After
the intro, while scrubbing up to operate on Montana, Christian agonizes to Sean
over what to do as Sean seems to ignore his plight by reitering the proper use
of a condom (too late for that now, Sean!)
Christian makes a snide comment regarding Sean’s current discord with
his wife and immediately retracts it. He
then asks Sean how he’s doing with the Megan situation, to which Sean says that
he’s having difficulting grieving because Julia knows who he’s grieving
over. When Sean mentions how depressed
he was at Annie’s 8th birthday party, Christian asks him why he
wasn’t invited – after all, Annie is his goddaughter (now, since Matt was the
firstborn, I would’ve thought that Sean would’ve had Christian as his
godfather. Who knows – maybe he’s both!)
Sean tells him that it was Julia who didn’t want Christian there – for unspecified
reasons.
They
then commence surgery on Montana’s ‘cankles’, to the appropo tune of Rod
Stewarts ‘Hot Legs’ I was perfectly
unsqueamish during the surgery – that was – until they began to pull her veins
out like spaghetti. YUK!!!
The
next day, Christian shows up at Julia’s with a belated birthday gift for Annie
– a bird. Knowing how Julia flipped her
lid over the gerbil, Christian joking tells her that if the bird acts up,
instead of flushing it, she can cook it and serve it over rice! Annie bonds with the bird, who lovingly pecks
at her hand, so its only appropriate that she names it
‘Pecker’! (was
that a hoot or what?). Julia tells Annie
to take Pecker to meet Frisky (with a straight face mind you) so she can talk
to Christian alone. We find out that the
reason Julia didn’t want him at Annie’s party is because she thinks that
Christian knew about Sean’s affair with Megan and didn’t tell her about
it. When Christian tells her that he
couldn’t betray his best friend, she retorts “why, you betrayed him with me”.
Ah…….now we’re getting a little more past history with these two, albiet
one you have to read between the lines. Its obvious that Christian ‘birddogged’ Sean – meaning, he
must’ve slept with Julia AFTER she broke up with him to date Sean. Julia then tells him that she needs space and
suggests that Christian should concentrate on a family of his own so that he
doesn’t have to rely upon theirs. Was it
me, or was that just a little harsh?
At
school, Matt’s at his locker when a fully recovered, and newly pretty, Cara
Fitzgerald shows up to thank him for keeping a bedside vigil while she was
comatose. Cara brings up the prayer group, to which Matt may have to fess up to
lying about belonging to, before Cara apologizes for her short term memory loss
not enabling her to remember who’s who.
She asks Matt if he’ll be at next weeks meeting to which he has no
choice to to accept.
That
night, Sean and Julia are platonically sitting up in bed reading, when Seans
turns his light out to go to sleep.
Julia quickly follows suit and they both lay facing away from each
other. Sean questions whether she wants
this marriage to work and if she still loves him – both of which she doesn’t
know. Julia wonders if her and Sean
marrying so soon was a mistake for – alas, we find out that they had to get married because she was
pregnant with Matt. Hmmm…..more and more
answers about the past popping up here.
Sean says that he’s glad they did marry and tries to initiate sex. Man, I’m even surprised they’re still sharing
the same bed, but I guess they’re sleeping together so the kids don’t suspect
anything. Julia turns him down on the
grounds that she’s concerned that he might have picked something up from Megan
and wants him to get a clean bill of heath first, which Sean agrees to do.
The
next day, Sean checks up on
The
next day, Sean and Grace meet with
Over
at school, Matt
arrives at the prayer group and is surprised to find Henry there praying with
Cara. When Cara gets up to get them
something to drink, Matt questions Henry’s presence – which is to find out if
Cara remembered anything about the day she was hit. However, he’s also looking for some solace
(not to mention that he’s obviously smitten with Cara!) Seems he’s having a faith crisis – his Jewish
beliefs has him in guilt over getting away with what he and Matt did to Cara,
so, instead, he decided to join the prayer group to adopt a new faith and set
of beliefs that absolve him for getting away with what they did. When Cara returns, she starts the prayer meeting by saying how we are are all saved through the grace
of God. When Henry asks if criminals are
saved, she says yes, to which Henry answers by removing his yarmulke – a sign
of his turning his back on Judiahism.
That
night, Christian shows up at one of Gina’s
Over
at the McNamara’s, Sean and Julia are getting ready for bed when Sean tells her
that all his tests came back clean – with the exception of a slightly high,
stress related blood pressure. Again, he
tries to initiate sex, and, again, Julia can’t go through with it. Sean becomes angry, thinking that Julia only
asked him to get tested so she’d have an excuse for him not to touch her. Now that she has no more excuses, Sean wants
her to be open and truthful about how she really feels, to which Julia says
that she doesn’t know if she can forgive him for his affair. Sean tells her to take whatever time she
needs, but to stop coming up with excuses to avoid him. If their marriage is going to heal, it has to
be based on “no more lies”. Julia agrees and, when Sean walks away, she
looks up at a portrait of Matt on his dresser.
Okay….we all know now where this is going!!!
The
next day, Grace is fuming to Sean over why she wasn’t in on the initial consult
with
Both
go into see
At
school, Henry is in the cafeteria trying very hard to get used to being a
gentile by forcing himself to eat a ham sandwich and drink milk. I guess he thinks that a steady diet of pork
and dairy will take the Jew right out of him!
Matt joins him and can’t believe what Henry is doing to himself. Henry admits that he just wants to find a new
faith and live happily ever after – with Cara, whom he wants to ask to the
prom. Matt doesn’t think that’s a good
idea because, should Henry and Cara get too cozy, Henry may be tempted to slip
up and confess what happened. Cara then
joins them, but forgot to get something to drink. Henry is more than happy to oblige his new
beloved. While he’s gone, Cara asks Matt
for a favor – to take her to the prom.
Matt’s a bit stunned and isn’t sure how to answer. Cara thinks he may have already asked someone
else, feels like a total loser geek and takes off
crying, just as Henry comes back. Henry
demands to know what Matt said to upset her, but Matt won’t say. When Henry gets up to go after Cara, Matt
stops him and tells him that Cara asked him to the prom. Oh, that Matt just gets all the girls,
doesn’t he?
Julia
then makes a surprise visit to Christian who’s in the middle of watching a
naughty movie. She’s there to return
Pecker because it didn’t get along with Frisky.
Christian invites her in to where Julia begins to question what Megan
was like. Although Christian didn’t want
Julia doing this to herself, he kept it very brief – saying that she was dying
and needed Sean. Julia excuses herself
to go to the bathroom and takes Christian’s hairbrush out of the drawer, puts
it in a baggie then into her purse. The
next day, Julia goes to a genetics testing center with Christian’s brush and
Matt’s razor to do a paternity test.
The
following day, Sean is preparing to give ‘Sassy’ her breast reduction, as Liz
walks in. He confides in Liz if they’re
doing the right thing by giving into the demand’s of a
person’s alter ego. Liz sees nothing
wrong with, especially since their in the business of selling fantasy, and
justifies by saying that we’re all sometimes seen as having different
identities, just not as extreme as Montana.
I like the fact that Sean confides in Liz and also…..she’s beginning to look
and act a lot softer than she did in earlier episodes. She looks great with the makeup (thanks to
Sophia) and is beginning to give her advice in a more professional way instead
of the harsh approach she used to take.
They
then go into the OR and Liz discovers that
Gina
shows up at Christian’s, who thinks she’s there to collect the money for the
abortion. However, she tells him that
she never went through with it – that she wanted him to think she did to
experience some of the anguish she’s going through (okay, I don’t like
her. I really don’t. Everything about her is ‘payback’). She agrees to have the baby, saying that
unconditional love from a child is much more fullfilling than from a one night
stand.
At
school, Matt goes up to Henry, who suddenly has his yarmaluke back on. Henry’s ignoring
Matt – probably pissed because the girl he was swooning after wanted Matt
instead. Matt assures Henry that he’s
not going to the prom with Cara and that Henry’s free to ask her. However, Henry says he won’t because she’s
not Jewish. Matt tells him to make up
his mind about what he wants and who he wants to be, to which Henry says that
he doesn’t know who he is anymore. All
that he knows is that he’s plagued with the secret they’re keeping and knows
that there’s no other way to get absolvement from it other than to
confess. He threatens Matt that he’s
gonna tell Cara the truth.
Sean
goes in to check up on
Julia
anxiously shows up at Christians – needing to talk to him about something
important. Okay, its
pretty much a given that the viewers are thinking that she’s there to tell him
that he’s Matt’s daddy. However, I think otherwise. I’ll get to that in a bit. Before she can get a chance to say anything,
she sees Gina there, who introduces herself as the mother of Christian’s
child. Julia’s obviously shocked and
quickly switches gears about what she was going to tell Christian. Seems Gina’s presence and maternal state
ruined whatever it was that Julia wanted to tell him. Before she leaves, Christian asks her if
he’ll be a good father, to which she responds, “I hope so.”
Okay…first
off….here is what I think. The ‘who is Matt’s real daddy?’ question has
been dangling around since Episode #2 (Mandi/Randi) when Sean showed Grace a
picture of his children and she questioned where Matt got his dark features. Even though Sean gave a perfectly legitamite
reason (Julia’s ‘black Irish’ side of the family), that one scene I think
caused viewers on all sorts of Nip/Tuck message boards and sites to wonder if
that was the real truth. So…..with that
in mind, as I stated in the beginning of my review, it would be just to
predictable for Matt to turn out to be Christian’s. However, the writers cleverly crafted the
script to make us think that that’s the reason why Julia went over to see
Christian – to tell him. So, I’m firmly
standing by my deduction that Julia got the test results back, which confirmed
that Christian was not Matt’s father,
but…..in the effort not to live with any more lies, I think maybe that Julia
went over there to confess her long repressed feelings for Christian. However, upon finding a pregnant Gina there,
Julia realized that Christian finally has what she asked him to look for – a
family of his own, therefore…..he doesn’t need her anymore.
Also,
if Christian turns out to be Matt’s father, and Sean finds out, it would
absolutely shatter their friendship – which is the strongest relationship on
the show – and possibly ruin their partnership.
My guess is that Matt is Sean’s, but Julia hides the test results which
I think Sean may stumble upon, triggering his asking Julia her reason for doing
it which will, in turn, bring up her sleeping with Christian right before she
married Sean. That will cause enough
tension between Sean and Christian, but not enough to destroy their friendship
and partnership. If the writers do
intend to have Matt be Christian’s, it could be very bad. It would shatter Sean, who’s been working so
hard to bond with Matt, and it would throw Matt into a tizzy, possibly rebeling
against his mother for keeping this from him.
Matt will probably fall into more trouble because of it.
Either
way, I can’t wait to find out!
“Adelle
Coffin”
(Episode #10)
“I don’t fear death, Sean. I fear the prolongment of it.” (Megan
O’Hara)
Um….okay….how
can I put this kindly? I didn’t like
this episode. Maybe
because of the subject matter. Not
just Megan’s suicide (even though I personally believe its
a sin – no matter what the reason), but the entire Sean/Megan affair absolutely
disgusted me. Again, personally,
infidelity is an even bigger ‘no-no’ no matter how neglected or worthless your
spouse makes you feel. Either patch
things up in counseling or get a divorce.
End of story!
Okay,
stepping off my soapbox now (LOL). Now,
I know every episode can’t be chock full of edgy weirdness, dark comedy, sex,
graphically depicted operations and Christian’s bare bum (damn!). But tonight’s episode (aside from the
resurgence of Mrs. Grubman and her fiance, Merrill’s barbs and Sean’s talking
head) I was
less than thrilled. Even Sean’s
confession at the end lacked the ‘shock and awe’ that usually comes from
confessions of adultry. Maybe because he confessed ‘matter of factly’ or maybe because
Julia’s guilty of adultry herself (in her mind) that I didn’t feel for her. These two have a serious problem and their
looking elsewhere to fix it instead of in their own backyard. I much more wanted to have had Matt confess
about knocking Cara into next week, but alas – he was missing from the
episode. Probably out looking for his
sister, I suppose. Anyway……..let me try
my best to review this without cracking a yawn.
We
start off with Christian reattaching the severed fingers of a plumber who lost
them when a garbage disposal suffered a power surge, with Liz and Nurse Linda
assisting. We also find out that Liz has
been making some personal changes (probably spurred from Sophia Lopez) and has
recently dropped 15 big ones on the Atkins diet and had laser surgery to
correct her vision. And her new set of
peepers quickly pick up on the fact that Christian has reattached the plumbers index finger where the middle finger should be….. and vice versa. Liz,
not too confident in Christian’s ability to quick fix the situation without over-anesthetising
the plumber, calls Sean to the rescue to correct the digit switch.
Later,
Christian is glumly sitting in the break room (why are the rooms so dark in
this show?). We find out that a month
has passed since the priest/Kimber incidents.
Sean enters and Christian agonizes over his failure to succeed at
anything (work, relationships, etc) and admitted to riding on Sean’s talent all
these years. He’s worried about their
upcoming recertification test and fears that, since he’s questioning his skills,
he may fail and won’t be able to practice anymore.
After
the intro, we find Sean accompanying Megan to a post-treatment appointment with
her current oncologist. He doesn’t have
good news for her, even though Sean is insistant on trying whatever
possible. Megan knows that any treatment
would only be to prolong the agony of her condition and not cure it. Sean won’t hear it and suggests that she find
another doctor – and asks her to dinner that evening to celebrate that
decision. I know Sean feels torn about
cutting ties with his mistress while she’s dying, but he’s still playing with
fire by continuing to see her on anything but a professional level – especially
after he promised Matt that he wouldn’t see her anymore.
At
the office, Christian is doing a consult with his lifetime pro bono patient, Mrs.
Grubman and her wealthy southern fiance, Sumner Charles. Looking for the sexual fountain of youth,
Sumner wants his scrotum lifted (man, how far could it be hanging?) and Mrs.
Grubman wants “a vaginal rejuvenation”.
(okay, now that we’ve exhausted all the penis
storylines, we’re moving onto vaginal ones – geez!). I’m
sorry, but just the thought of venturing south of her border makes me shudder,
so Christian should be thrilled that Mrs. Grubman requests Sean to do the
surgery instead of him. However, he
finds out why – because Mrs. Grubman still doesn’t know that it was Sean, not
Christian, who did her tummy tuck and left cautery tip inside (by the way…wonder
if she ever had it removed?) She’s still
not done with her demands as she emphatically informs Christian that Sumner’s lift, as well as her…tightening…will be no charge. When Christian tries to remind her that their
agreement for free surgeries only extended to her, she threatens to reopen the
lawsuit. Christian has no choice but to
agree.
Sean
and Christian arrive at the test site and run into good ol’ Merrill
Bobolit. Its
obvious that Sean is still in the dark about Merrill cahooting with Christian
in his last two appearances as well as disgusted by Merrill’s classless
billboards all over
Later
that night, Sean’s having dinner with Megan.
Sean’s still gung-ho about proceeding with her treatment and informs her
about a doctor-friend of his who can help, but Megan looks uninterested. When the waiter comes to their table to take
their dishes away, he notices that Megan hasn’t touched anything. The waiter holds her plate in front of her,
asking if she wants it ‘to go’ and Megan responds by vomiting in it.
While
waiting for their valet parked car outside the restaurant, Sean comforts Megan,
who tries to make Sean understand that her situation is not getting better and
there’s nothing that can be done. All
she wants is a painless death and hints to Sean that she plans to accelerate it.
The
next day, Sean and Christian are preparing to operate on Mrs. Grubman and her
fiance. Christian’s barking to Sean over
Grubman’s insinuations that he’s a bad surgeon because she still thinks that
he’s the one who left the instrument in her gut. He steadfastly tells Sean that he’s not gonna
BS anymore – he’s gonna work hard and apply himself and stop getting by just on
‘slick’ – or Sean’s coattails. But…he’s
still worried about being able to work on that small head with his big hands
and asks Sean to switch heads – which Sean refuses. Instead, he tells Christian to practice,
but….on what? We can see that Sean’s
mind is a bit elsewhere – like on Megan’s intent to commit suicide. He asks Christian his opinion on suicide, to
which Christian said that he wouldn’t judge the person if they were in physical
or spiritual pain.
After
surgery, Christian goes into the breakroom to find Liz – who asks his
forgiveness for calling Sean in for the finger reattachment. Liz is reading the paper and begins going
down the police blotter, telling Christian about an 80 year old ‘Jane Doe’ they
found dead of natural causes. Since the
deceased turns out to be the same exact size as Christian’s head (I’ve never
seen the height and weight of a dead person written up in a police blotter), he
gets an absolutely wicked idea.
The
next day, Christian shows up at the morgue, pretending to be from the coroners office.
However, the sassy guard, who seemed to have eyes for Christian,
thinks Christian is nothing more than a “male
model necropheliac” and doesn’t buy it.
Christian then confessed his plight and offers the guard new pecs in
exchange for being able to practice on the corpse. The guard wants a chin job instead and gives
Christian one hour to practice.
Sean
is with Megan at the motel by the beach as she packs her things. He desperately tries to talk her out of
suicide, but her mind is made up. After
unleasing some pentup tears, Megan begins to pull several pill bottles out of
her bag.
Back
at the test site the next day, Christian is still having problems with his
‘head’, despite practicing on the corpse.
He gets so frustrated that he causes the head to fall onto the floor. Meanwhile, as Sean works on his ‘head’, it
comes to life (portrayed by Nan Martin who is best known as Mrs. Lauder on the
Drew Carey Show). Sean knows that he’s
imaging this and that ‘Adelle’ is really his subconscious plaguing him. She wittingly taunts Sean about helping his
mistress die. She then tells Sean about
her own suicide, but that she made the mistake of washing down her pills with
martini mix, which caused her to vomit them up and ruin her throat. She advises Sean that, if he’s gonna assist
Megan, to give her a glass of milk to coat her stomach so the pills stay down
and then complete the act by giving her a plastic bag to put over her head to
further speed things up once the pills kick in.
The
next day, we see Megan in her hotel room writing ‘goodbye’ letters to all her
loved ones (to the tune of Elton John’s ‘Rocket Man’) before she begins to line
up the pills. Sean sits by her side as
she washes down several of each type of pill with a glass of milk. Once she’s done, she puts a plastic bag over
her head and lays down. Sean takes her hand and stays with her until
her breathing stops.
Okay…..I
really didn’t need to see all the mechanics of this suicide. It was really disturbing to watch, not to
mention could give viewers some ideas of their own. I know the show has the disclaimer at the
beginning, but man we live in a day and age where rock stars are taken to court
by parents of kids who killed themselves because they heard hidden messages in
song lyrics.
Alright…enough soapboxing (again!). That night, Julia’s in super domestic goddess
mode as she brushes off Sean’s black suit and even offers to pick up his shirt
from the dry cleaners! Hey…she even goes
as far to ‘clear her schedule’ so she can attend Megan’s funeral with Sean so she
can support him, knowing how affected he was by his patient. Sorry, even when Julia’s doing good, I can’t help but get a jibe or two in. I’m patiently waiting for the day where she
can win me over genuinely.
Next
day we’re back at the test site and Christian is proud of himself when the teacher
praises him for a good job on his ‘head’.
Meanwhile, ‘Adelle’ is still taunting Sean as she continues to work on
her head. She congratulates Sean for
being able to help kill his mistress in order to keep his affair with her from
Julia and what a hoot it is that Julia’s accompanying him to his mistress’
funeral. Sean can’t take it anymore and
walks out of the test. Christian goes
after him and Sean finally cracks – telling him about Megan’s suicide and his
affair with her. He tells Christian “you’re not the failure, I am” because he betrayed his
family and let Megan die. He takes off,
unable to finish out the test.
At
Megan’s funeral on the beach, her ex-husband, Jim, gives a tearful eulogy. His comments about marriage being for better or for worse really sounded
out and I think will come into play in the future. Afterwards, all the attendants are given
small jars containing Megan’s ashes so they can toss into the ocean – which was
her wish. With the effectiveness of slow
motion, Megan’s ashes are tossed one jar at a time into ocean by the
attendants. However, when its Sean’s turn, he can’t do it. From the rocks, Julia notices Sean’s
hesitation and sees more than just a doctor-patient relationship.
When
they get home that evening, Julia comes out and asks Sean if he had an affair
with Megan, to which he says yes.
Now….as much as I loathed him cheating on his wife (no matter how much
of a whiner she can be) I applaud him for coming clean. He didn’t have to tell her. With Megan dead, she’d never have any way of
finding out. In a move that puzzled me,
Julia goes over and sits closely in front of Sean, but when he reaches for her
she asks him not to touch her. Sweetie,
if you couldn’t stand the thought of your cheating hubby touching you, you
shouldn’t stayed on the other side of the room.
Anyhoo,
Julia asks all the questions that a wife who’s husband cheated on her would ask
– “when did this happen?” “did you love her?”, “what could she give you that I couldn’t?” Sean was honest about everything – even
confessing his love for Megan, which was the only time I felt the knife in
Julia’s heart – but Sean did tell Julia that he loved her more than ever. While Sean’s honesty won me over a bit, he
derailed for a moment by justifying his affair with Megan because he thought
Julia was sleeping with Jude. Sorry,
you don’t fall into adultry to get back at your spouse for the same thing. God, these two are so screwed up! Julia adamantly denied sleeping with Jude,
even though she was sorely tempted, because she realized she wanted Sean
more. I’m sorry – I think she left out
the part about Jude absolutely turning her off because he was a male
prostitute. I think if he wasn’t, Julia
would’ve slept with him. I bet the farm
on it!
Sean
told Julia that Megan saw the good in him – the potential, whereas he felt
Julia only saw regret. He told her that
he doesn’t want to lose her too,to which Julia tells
him “we lost each other a long time ago”. In a moment that I think will cause Julia to
war over forgiving him or not, Sean collapses in tears on Julia’s lap, crying ‘I’m sorry” over and over.
Well,
final thoughts, Sean and Julia are still dealing with ‘half measures’ regarding
their marriage. They need to do
something final instead of hanging around, putting up a false front. Either go to counseling and fix the marriage
or separate.
In
a way, I see a lot of irony in Megan’s cancer in Sean and Julia’s
marriage. Megan didn’t want to prolong
her agony, which is symbolic of the underlying problems in Sean and Julia’s
marriage. Instead of drawing it out,
Megan chose to do something about it – quickly – instead of dying a slow,
painful death. I believe that’s what
Sean and Julia have to do – do something quickly, either counseling or divorce,
else their marriage will slowly deteriorate like a cancer patient waiting to
naturally die.
Now that all this heartwrenching emotion is
out of the way (for now!) I’m looking forward to getting back to some
‘juice’. According to next week’s
episode information on the FX site, Cara goes back to school a beauty (man, I
called that one) and asks Matt to the prom and sex addict Gina is pregnant with
Christian’s baby. Yep, after this
episode, I’m ready for the wackiness to resume!
“Sophia Lopez, II”
(Episode #9)
“You,
above all, should know that a façade does not determine a person”
(Sophia Lopez to Liz)
In
the previews, this episode was touted as the one that would change their lives
forever. Well…..maybe not, forever, but this episode was
certainly chock full of confessions, revenge and
downright stupidity. The writing was
superb, the one-liners hilarious and my respect and admiration for Julia
(which, up till now was non-existant) has been upped. I’ve also discovered that Liz isn’t as hard
and bitter as she usually comes off as and Nurse Linda has a refreshingly dry
sense of humor.
First
off, I’d like to point out that, for the first time this season, an episode
didn’t have its signature “tell me what
you don’t like about yourself” line.
It was also devoid of its standard, graphic operation scene, gratuitous
butt shots (although Christian in his CK skivvies made up for it!) and a sex
scene or two. And I loved it even more! You take out all the stuff that stirs the
senses and, instead, you’re given a character driven episode that blows the
mind.
We
start out with Christian doing the day-spa thing (as all rich, high
maintenance, plastic surgeon’s do). As
he contemplates an offer for special body treatments from a lovely spa employee,
Kimber suddenly shows up at his side like a vulture swooping down on her prey
and basically gets the point across that she’s Christian’s girlfriend. All thoughts of getting it on with the spa
employee go out the window as Christian finds out that Kimber has arranged for
them to get massages together. She then tells him of another surprise as she
undoes her terry cloth spa robe to reveal, although we do not see, Christian’s
initials waxed into her…..um…..lower region.
However, Kimber’s not exactly a rocket scientist, nor can spell for that
matter, as she had the initials KT
instead of CT etched into her
pubis. Their show and tell is
interrupted by Merrill Bobolit, who, judging from the patch of hair across the
top of his back, needs to get a refund on his recent back-wax. He introduces himself to Kimber before she
takes off to try to change the K to a
C.
As if they were frathouse buddies instead of competing surgeons,
Christian complains to Merrill how Kimber’s dull bulb in her head is beginning
to overshadow her bedroom skills. He
thinks she’s too fragile to break up with her, however
she’s also too dumb to catch on that he’s not interested anymore and leave on
her own. Since dumb sexpots are
Merrill’s idea of a dream woman (“Kimber
should be the mother of my children. Our
DNA would guarantee a blonde Jew!), he makes Christian an offer – give him
Kimber in exchange for his quarter million, Malibu blue Lamborghini. In Christian’s world, handing over his dumb
girlfriend to his nemesis in exchange for a hot car is a bargain indeed!
After
the intro, we find Sophia Lopez back, getting a pre-op exam with Sean and Liz
for the final phase of her sex reassignment surgery. Yup – he (she) is going to have the family
jewels removed for good (you know, between Matt’s self circumcision, Mr.
Brancato’s penis widening and now Sophia’s penis removal, I think every single
penis storyline has been exhausted!) Liz
questions Sophia’s decision to remove his (her) “kibbles and bits” ,
but Sophia doesn’t want to be content with a trade-off, and needs this
operation to feel complete and hopefully find someone to accept him (her). This causes Liz to open up about her recent
rejection at singles bars in her attempt to find someone. The two seem to bond and decide to have a
‘girl’s’ night to lift their spirits, play with makeup and maybe have a pillow
fight or two while singing along to N’Sync!
Later
in the office recovery room, Matt asks a still comatose Cara Fitzgerald to help
him decide between calculus or French homework (why does he need to know French
in
That
night, Christian and Merrill put Phase I of “Operation Dump Kimber” into motion
as they arrive at Christian’s place with pizza and beer to watch a pay per-view
fight. Kimber, who’s there and dressed
to kill in a hot red number, is a little miffed by Christian’s change of plans,
since she had a night of clubbing in mind for the two of them. Christian plays up the cold, non-chalant,
could care-less boyfriend in order to set Merrill up to pick up his slack. Christian leaves the room to get changed,
leaving Merrill alone with Kimber.
Merrill lays it on thick as he indulges her complaints over Christian’s
inconsideration, saying if he had a girlfriend such as she waiting home for him
in a sexy red dress, the last thing he’d want to do is watch a boxing match
with the guys and that he thinks she’s a ‘15’ instead of an ‘8’. Kimber is aghast to think that Christian
still thinks she’s an ‘8’ (didn’t’ he say she was an ‘11’ in ‘Megan O’Hara’?). Merrill then hands Kimber his business card,
to which Kimber thinks that she needs more work, but Merrill only offered
himself as a shoulder to cry on, should she need it. Christian comes back into the room and Kimber
decides to go for a walk for some air (in that dress and those shoes??). After she leaves, Merrill proudly announces
that Phase I is complete!
That
same night, Liz is at Sophia’s place having lipstick and blush applied to
her. Liz isn’t used to seeing herself
made up (she thinks it makes her look straight) and Sophia softens it a bit for
her. Both begin to commiserate about
their lack of companionship, which causes Sophia to wonder if estrogen shots,
breast implants and castration will really make her more attractive to men. The two really seem to connect with their
shared dilemma, so much so that they come together in a kiss.
The
following day, Jude is ‘personal training’ Julia at the gym (forget working out
– give that scarecrow a milkshake or two!
She’s waaaay too thin). He asks
Julia if she trusts him, then tells her to lay on her back while he stretches
her leg over her head in a position that looks very sexual (he stole that move
from the Kirsten Dunst cheerleader movie ‘Bring It On’) As Jude continues to stretch Julia
into a pretzel, she looks up to see her friend, crazy….I mean, creative Suzanne, standing above them
(guess Suzanne is back to speaking to her after the Frisky-flushing incident). Seems that Suzanne and Jude know each other
through a friend of hers and when she and Julia are alone, she tells Julia just
how she knows him. Seems that Jude uses his personal training
career to build his female client base for his true source of income – he’s a male prostitute. God, I just knew that helping
The
following day, Sophia’s getting prepped for surgery as he (she) and Liz giggle
like two naughty teenagers over their interlude the previous night. Meanwhile, Christian and Sean are scrubbing
up as Christian asks why a man would want to get rid of their penis – “the hub of all power”. Suddenly, they see Sophia hop off the
operating table. Seems he (she) is
suddenly having second thoughts and confesses that he (she) was intimate with
someone the previous night and is now confused on what he (she) should be. Sean knew that Sophia had a girls night with Liz the previous night and, when they put
two and two together that Liz was the person Sophia was intimate with, the
biggest laugh of the night comes from Nurse Linda who, confused by the soap
opera mentality of the office, announces that she’s leaving to go play
golf!
With
his afternoon suddenly free, Sean calls Megan so they can meet for a little
‘afternoon delight’. What looks to be a
motel room, the two of them shyly undress away from the other’s gaze, then slide under the covers.
They begin to kiss before Sean’s cell phone begins to ring. Megan thinks he should get it, but Sean
doesn’t want anything to interfere with their time together. I knew before the camera even panned into the
caller ID of Sean’s cell phone that it would be from Matt.
Later
that night, Christian is having dinner with Kimber when his cell phone
rings. He gets up to leave, telling
Kimber that he had a planned surgery that he forgot about and promptly
leaves. Miffed, Kimber pulls out
Merrill’s business card and, before you know it, he swoops in to save the day,
joining Kimber for dinner as she continues to complain about Christian (“he
didn’t even leave me cab fare!”).
Merrill assures her that no doctor, especially a single one, schedules
surgery after 6pm on Fridays and that the cellphone-call-during-a-date is a
ploy that he, himself, has used many times to get out of a situation, that
is…until discovering the art of Kaballah helped him to turn from his evil,
playboy ways. Meanwhile, Christian is
salivating over the
Sean
rushes home, glad that Julia isn’t there, and goes into his bedroom to
change. He turns to find Matt in the
doorway, who asks where he’s been and that he tried calling him. Sean lies, saying that was in surgery. Matt sits on the bed and begins to question
his father about religion and God. Seems
Matt is taking what his friend Henry said last week to heart about God knowing
what they did to Cara, even if no one else does. He tells his father that you can lie to your
family and friends, but not to God, so the best thing to do is confess. Now….I’m braced like
a blithering idiot on the edge of the couch, waiting for Matt to confess,
however, Sean thinks that Matt is referring to walking in on he and Megan in
his office and thinks his son is suspecting an affair. Before Matt can get his confession out, Sean
fesses up about his affair with Megan to a very surprised Matt. The poor kid can’t believe that his father
could cheat on his mother, but Sean assures him that its
over – that his family is more important.
He hugs Matt, telling him to keep this secret to themselves
and that it’ll all just go away. Since
the camera didn’t capture Matt’s reaction to that, I’m wondering if Matt will
do the same regarding the situation with Cara.
That
night, Liz pays a surprise visit on Sophia and finds him (her) with a couple of
transgender friends, who promptly leave.
Liz sits Sophia down and tells him (her) that what happened between them
the other night, although it was beautiful, it was out of need, not out of
passion. It still doesn’t change the
fact of who Sophia really is and what he (she) wants to be, and urges him (her)
to continue with the surgery. I don’t
get it – Liz likes women. Sophia is
going to become a woman. Why isn’t this a lovematch waiting to happen??
The
following morning, Kimber awakens in Merrill’s bed to find him staring at her
like the cat that just drank an entire bowl of cream. Kimber’s horrified over having slept with
Merrill, however Merrill tells her that they only ‘slept’ together, or, rather,
she snored! Kimber tells Merrill that,
although he’s a nice guy, she doesn’t find him physically attractive – that
he’s a ‘4’. Realizing she hurt his
feelings, she quickly apologizes, saying they can’t be together because she
loves Christian and Christian loves her.
Merrill decides to end the façade and tell Kimber of his and Christian’s
wager.
That
afternoon, Jude is over Julia’s studying where she decides to question him
about what he really does for a
living. Although Jude emphatically
states that he’s just a personal trainer, Julia tells him what Suzanne
said. Jude denies it, before Julia
breaks him down. Then Jude does a
breakdown himself, dropping his feigned British accent. Turns out he’s really from
After
Christian and Sean operate on Sophia, Sean finds out that Megan, whose phone
calls he’s been ditching since he confessed his affair to Matt, is waiting for
him in his office. He goes to see her
where Megan tells him that the implant surgery weakened her immune system,
causing her cancer to return and is now in her lymph nodes, which pretty much
means its only a matter of time. Megan
tells Sean that she knows he can’t be with her the way she wants to, because
he’s married with children, but Sean goes back on his promise to Matt and tells
Megan that he’ll be there for her.
Kimber
shows up at Christian’s, telling him that Merrill spilled the beans about
trading her for a car, though she tells him that she’s not mad about it. She’s even brought along some toys for a fun
sexy night, seeing how Christian loves to role play. Before we know it, Christian is stripped down
to his designer skivvies, his wrists and ankles cuffed to the bed. Kimber then takes a knife out of her purse
and straddles him. Christian’s not sure
where she’s going with this, until she slices his stomach as she decides to get
revenge on how crappy he’s treated her after she’s bent over backwards to try
to make their relationship work. She
even goes as far as humiliating him the way he did her in the pilot episode by
drawing all over his face with lipstick.
Christian now knows that its was Kimber who
vandalized his car and boat, but is absolutely helpless right now. She then points the knife at his heart,
wondering if he’ll bleed, since she doesn’t think he has a heart, but decides
against killing him since she thinks he’s already dead. She gets off him, puts her coat on, takes the
keys to the Lamborghini as compensation and leaves him strapped there for his
cleaning lady to find.
We
then see Kimber show up at Merrill’s place as she enters without a word and
ascends his stairs. The camera then pans
around to Sean, twisting his wedding ring, Matt holding Cara’s hand then,
finally, lipstick-faced Christian left to ponder the err of his ways, I guess,
until someone finds him.
Now…..my thoughts on this that I didn’t cover
within my review.
“Cara
Fitzgerald”
(Episode #8)
“I’ve lost my faith, Father. I’ve drank, I’ve done drugs,
I’ve fornicated with women and discarded them like trash. I’ve lost my soul.” (Christian
to Father Shannon)
Well,
we finally learned the illicit truth about Christian’s boyhood, thought many of
us had an inkling all along what it was. However, I felt that, even though it was a
stellar episode, I think this revelation should have been saved for the second
to last episode of the season (with the ‘who is Matt’s real father’? questin to
be the cliffhanger). A shocking discovery such as this, especially about a main
character, should’ve been held off, in my opinion. That isn’t to say that I wasn’t thoroughly
impressed with this episode. The
emotional depths of the the characters (especially Christian’s and Matt’s) were
outstanding and the writers did another savvy job of weaving religious beliefs
into the episode as well.
We
open up with Matt and his friend Henry sitting under the school bleachers
smoking pot. Henry, who is Jewish, is
steadfast about observing the Shabbat, a day in which Jews abstain from any and
all physical labor as a remembrance of their freedom from slavery (lighting a
bong is considered laborous, however sucking on one is not, I guess!). Since driving is a no-no on the Shabbat as
well, Henry enlists Matt to be his personal ‘Shabbat goi’ (a Gentile who does the
work for a Jew on the Shabbat) and lets him drive his car. Now…don’t
get me started about Matt getting behind the wheel of a car while stoned! They both fight over the music selection on
the radio and Matt’s so distracted that he doesn’t see a girl in the middle of
the road picking up her books that two skateboarding punks knocked out of her
hands moments earlier. Matt slams on the
brakes at impact, not knowing for sure what he hit. He and Henry get out of the car and look
around, but there’s nothing there so Matt thinks they hit a bird (I’m sorry Matt…I know you’re stoned, but,
unless you hit Rodan, no bird would’ve made the impact a human being did). The boys get back in the car and take
off. The camera then pans to an area of
brush where the girl lay unconscious.
The following
morning, Matt comes down to breakfast to find Julia ( in
a generous, June Cleaver mood) making homemade French toast (guess Rosa the
maid is out of the picture). He sits
down at the table next to…….its a bird…..its a
plane…….its a gerbil……no, its…its…Annie!
Yes, the McNamara’s do have
another child after all! (thought the writers could’ve done better than giving her two
measley words to say). Sean’s reading
the paper and sees the article about a girl from Matt’s school, Cara
Fitzgerald, who was the victim of a hit-and-run driver the day before. Suddenly, Matt’s mind starts to churn,
thinking that maybe he didn’t hit a bird after all.
Later at the
office, Christian and Grace are doing a consult with a woman, Devon Greco,( who’s look and manner of speaking reminded me very much
of Jodi Foster) who wants a nosejob. Her
reason – her nose is the exact replica of her father’s, who molested her when
she was a child. This has a profound affect
on Christian who switches from unethical surgeon who’d do any type of surgery
on anyone, to a very discriminating one.
He begins to question
Later, Sean is
doing a post-op followup on one of Christian’s patients, Mike Shane, a man who
had an unattractive birthmark removed from one of his testicles because his
fiance found it offensive. Mike seems a
bit apprehensive about Sean doing the followup, since Christian is held up in
surgery. When Sean examines the area, he
notices that there is still some light pink coloring remaining, to which Mike
is adamant about having disappear, since his honeymoon is in two weeks and he
doesn’t want his wife-to-be to be grossed out when she gives him head (man,
guys open up to other guys about anything, don’t they?) Mike insists on waiting for Christian, who
arrives later on and applies a bleaching cream to the area and assures Mike
that there will be no sign of a scar by the time of his honeymoon in two weeks.
At school,
Matt and Henry are looking up Cara Fitzgerald in the yearbook, who turns out to be a very plain and somewhat unattractive
girl, who’s only extracurricular activity is that she is the founder of the
Christian Fellowship Prayer Group. Matt
tells Henry that they have to go to the hospital to find out if she knows
anything about the day she got hit.
Back at the
office, Megan O’Hara is considering getting breast implants again with
Sean. Once they get behind closed doors,
they drop the façade and fall into each others arms and passionately kiss. Since Sean absolutely positively pissed me
off in this scene, my anger won’t allow me to elaborate on what a hypocritical,
lying, cheating, conniving bastard he’s acting like. Okay, I know Julia isn’t exactly
Wife-Of-The-Year material, but man the woman just went out of her way to make
you homemade French toast that morning! And
double shame on Megan for even thinking about taking up with a married
man. More on those two
idiots later.
Matt goes to
the hospital alone to find Cara lying comatose, her entire face bandaged. Her mother, Kate comes and and questions Matt
on how he knows Cara. He lies – saying
that he’s a member of her prayer group (did anyone laugh at the audacity of that
statement!). Matt asks what’s being done
for Cara in terms of surgery or medication and Kate, a devout Christian
Scientist (who reminded me of the mother in Carrie!) chastises Matt for not
knowing that one of their belief’s is trusting God to heal over medical
intervention and then asks Matt to pray with her over Cara to heal her and “find the monster responsible for doing
this”. YE-OWCH!
Back at the
office, Sean and Grace are doing a consult with Megan O’Hara, who has once
again decided to go with breast implants.
Without mentioning any names, Megan confesses that she has met someone
whom she is in love with and wants to be whole so she can make love to him with
the lights on. Being very astute, Grace
notices the subtle looks that Megan and Sean are giving each other and quickly
puts two and two together. Later, Grace
confides her assumption that Sean is having an affair with Megan to Christian. ( I’m a bit perplexed by the lack of awkwardness between
these two after the two heated couplings they’ve had) Grace asks Christian to subtly bring it up
the subject of Megan O’Hara to Sean to gage his reaction as well as asking him
about the consult with Devon Greco. Remembering that he passed
And Christian wastes
no time as he tells Sean that Grace thinks he’s having an affair with Megan –
with Grace in the room. Suddenly,
tempers are flared and secrets begin to spill, like Christian finding out that
Sean tried to seduce Grace, Sean finding out about Chrisitian and Grace
sleeping together to Christian’s disdain for Grace’s knock-off designer clothes
and cheap shoes (hey Christian, aren’t gay men only supposed to know that
stuff?) Even though heated words are
exchanged, Christian maintains his faith in Sean that he is not having an
affair with Megan, which pisses Grace off.
Sean then tells Grace to go home for the day and cool off.
With Grace
gone, Sean emphatically states that he would never have an affair, fearing
losing his wife and kids (uh…..so what do you call kissing Megan the other day,
Sean?) Christian tells Sean to go ahead
with Megan’s implants because it would look suspicious if he didn’t. Just then, Nurse Linda comes in to tell Sean
that Matt is here to see him. Matt tells
his concern for Cara because of her religiously fantatical mother and asks him
if he’ll go look at Cara and perform any possible reconstructive work on her,
pro bono, of course.
That night,
Christian’s at home watching the news and sees a story about a Catholic priest
who’s been charged with sexually molesting boys. To Christian’s horror, the priest turns out
to be Mike Shane – or Father Mike Shannan to his parishoners – the man whom he
removed what turns out to be the telltale birthmark that his accusors said he
had on his testicle. With the birthmark
now removed, the charges against Father Mike have been dropped.
The following
day, Sean is doing Megan’s breast implants, being so anal about it that Nurse
Linda reminds him that he’s gone almost two hours over the normal time allotted
for this procedure. With a personal
stake in Megan, Sean wants the operation to be perfect.
Following the
operation, Christian tells Sean the truth about Father Shannon and they go back
and forth on what to do about it.
Christian is adamant about going to the authorities, whereas Sean is
hesitant, fearing that the exposure will hurt their practice. While this is going on, the camera switches
to Matt and Henry who are pondering what to do about the situation with
Cara. Matt thinks they should keep
quiet, especially since Cara is still alive and there were no witnesses,
whereas Henry, reciting the Torah, thinks they should confess. I thought showing the irony between Christian
and Seans’s dilemma and Matt and Henry’s was
clever. The camera then switches back to
Christian and Sean where Christian is still trying to convince Sean to go to
the authorities. In a heated moment that
obviously seemed to come from some past experience, Christian brings up the
fact that this priest raped boys, which seemed to have the convincing affect on
Sean who finally agrees to make an anonymous call to the diocese.
Sean
accompanies Matt to the hospital and meets Cara’s mother, Kate. Kate informs Sean that she had found a
physician and that Cara is being transferred home where she will be cared for
there. Sean is concerned about Cara not
having the medical treatment she so badly needs, not to mention possible
reconstructive surgery on her face. But
Kate turns down Sean’s offer, stating that vanity and physical beauty is only
secondary to the inner light that shines from within (yeah, whatever lady!)and she has been steadfastly praying to God that he’ll heal
Cara. Sean asks Kate for permission to
look at Cara, if only to see if her prayers are working. Sean takes off Cara’s bandages to reveal a
horribly disfigured face (thumbs up to the special effects makeup team again!!)
not to mention swelling that’s putting pressure on her optic nerve that’ll
eventually make her go blind within 48 hours.
Sean begs Kate to let him operate on Cara, but Kate says that it isn’t
necessary – that all she has to do is pray harder. Sean then threatens to take Cara into medical
custody if he has to in order to save her sight.
The next day,
Sean and Christian are operating on Cara (I’m impressed that
Christian goes
to visit
Next we see
Father Shannon greeting a few parishoners outside his church before the camera
pans to Christian watching him from his car.
When Father Shannon goes back inside the church, Christian gets out of
his car and goes in, armed with his medical bag.
Later, Sean
visits Megan in recovery where he assures her that her implant job “was some of his best work”. Okay…these two are really making me sick
now. Thank God the camera switches to
Matt sitting with Cara in her hospital room.
Even though Cara is still comatose, Matt talks to her. He breaks down and apologizes for not
noticing her in school, for feeling so alone and for doing this to her. I tell ya, John Hensley’s acting is impressing me more and more as each week goes by. I know a lot of people are upset with Matt
because he kept quiet about this, but hey….if this happened to you when you
were 16 would you turn yourself into the police and risk going to jail? I think not.
He’s scared and guilty at the same time.
Sean then
receives a call from Christian, who’s sitting in the church, asking if he had
heard back from the diocese. When Sean
said that he hadn’t, Christian tells him that he’s gonna take matters into his
own hands. Christian then enters the
confessional where Father Shannon is receiving confessions. Christian starts off by rattling off all his
sordid sins and how he’s lost his soul and how “the boys you raped will be saying the same thing in 20 years” At first, Father Shannon thinks that
Christian is the father of one of his accusors before Christian blurts out that
he’s his plastic surgeon. Realizing that
he’s been found out, Father Shannon begins to stammer how he’s changed and
hasn’t touched anyone in two years.
Christian keeps taunting him, asking him if he’s ready to confess. Father Shannon tries to bolt and Christian
cuts him off, shoving him against the wall and pulling a surgical knife out of
his bag m(was I the only one who thought that
Christian was going to castrate him?).
Christian threatens Father Shannon to confess to the police but Father
Shannon knows that child molestors get killed in prison. Although he wants to stop, he says that he
can’t – that he feels things when he sees the boys. God, that just made
me sick just hearing it.
We then see
Father Shannon praying before being led off by the police. Sean enters the church and sits next to
Christian, who’s praying, and asked what happened. This is where the enormity of all that had
happened in the past several days comes to a head. Christian finally confesses to Sean that he
allowed his foster father, Mr. Troy, to ‘touch him’ in exchange for money to
keep quiet about it. After admitting
that he ‘sold himself’ to his foster father, Christian breaks down in Sean’s
arms.
Will we find
out more about Christian’s childhood?
Will this change him for future episodes (well, considering how he
trades Kimber for Merrill’s Bobolit’s
“Cliff Montegna”
(Episode #7)
“Everything’s
connected. You should know that,
doctor. Injuries’ intention is not
caused by an external event. They’re
caused by how we react to them”
(Megan O’Hara to
Sean)
For
the first time in 8 weeks, I’m torn. I
liked this episode and loathed it at the same time. One moment I found myself internally cheering
on one character and the next moment I wanted to wrap my hands around their
necks! There was a lot of hypocricy
going on in tonight’s episode along with some irony and one very steamy scene,
which had me cringing and yawning at the same time. The gratitutious ‘scene’, even though it was
pertinent to the storyline, was just too much for me and kinda bored me at the
same time because I’ve come to expect at least one standard gratitutous scene
in each of these episodes. Okay…….lets begin! I have
Loathing Awards galore to hand out!
We
open to find Kimber dressed in a red leather mini and matching bra-like top
approaching Christian’s car, which just pulled up. Is he picking her up for a date? Nah, he’d go to her door for that. At least, that’s what a gentleman would do. However,
Christian’s not playing a gentleman tonight, nor is Kimber playing the date,
for it turns out that they are ‘role playing’ a hooker and ‘john’ in order to
spice up their relationship (I guess sex in bed, sex in the shower, sex on the
floor, sex in the elevator, etc, was becoming boring!). Its clear that
Christian is having a hard time being monogamous with just one woman and,
therefore, has turned Kimber into his private slavewoman to act out every
depraved fantasy that he can’t slake with other women. After ‘picking her up’, Christian and she
have sex in the front seat of his cramped sportscar, which begins to cramp
Kimber who’s head is slamming against the roof of the car. Apparantly this little fantasy is the straw
that finally breaks her back (uh, I would’ve stopped after my he suggested
dripping hot candlewax on her butt!) and gets out of the car, barking to
Christian that he doesn’t appreciate all the effort she’s putting into keeping
him interested. Contrite, Christian goes
after her and Kimber winds up getting back into the car. Okay, the first two Loathing Awards go to Christian for working Kimber so hard so he
won’t stray, and Kimber because she’s coming across as pathetic and desperate.
After
the intro, we
find Christian in his office consulting Cliff Mantegna who, although he works
out six times a week, still has ‘man breasts’, or, as he calls them “hairy
mouthfuls” (uh…I much prefer ‘man breasts’, thank you very much). His reasons for perfecting his pecs is
because he’s a ‘swinger’ and wants to join a new, elite club that caters to models,
actresses – you know, perfect, beautiful people. However, this snobby sex club’s prerequisite
is that you provide a full body shot before being granted membership (hey, no
one wants a man with ‘hairy mouthfuls’ to be a member of their club!). Christian seems awfully intrigued by this club, simply called ‘The Scene’. He sees it as a way for him and Kimber to sex
things up between them in an atmosphere where it’ll be ‘okay’ for him to have
sex with other women. Add another
Loathing Award to Christian’s pile!
After
the intro, we find ourselves in Jude’s ultra-modern, ultra-chrome, ultra-cold
apartment where he and Julia are supposedly ‘studying’ . Okay, Loathing Award #3 – WTF is Julia doing
studying in his apartment? I don’t care
how much she justifies that they’re just friends and classmates, the fact
remains that she is a married woman in a single, good looking man’s
apartment. Why can’t they study at the
university library? Anyhow, we find out
that Jude supports himself and his hip bachelor pad as a personal trainer
(predictable?). He’s making Julia a very
fancy entrée and practically handfeeds it to her. At first, I’m starting to loathe him too for
making a move on a married woman until we find out the real reason he’s
schmoozing her – he confesses to Julia that meeting her and seeing her life has
made him want to become a plastic surgeon and he wants her to ask Sean about
hiring him as an intern. Now I TRULY
loathe him. (Loathe #4) Seems he’s not
after her, but, I’m guessing, using her to get a cushy internship, which is
required for all future plastic surgeons before their residency. Julia deserves an honorary loathe in this
scene because the look on her face before Jude announced what he wanted looked
more like longing anticipation. I think
that Julia expected that Jude was going to confess secret feelings he has for
her and the look of surprise on her face when he didn’t was well deserved. However, I’m not done loathing Julia yet in
this scene. She finds shirtless pictures
of Jude on his coffee table and he catches her going through them. She assumes their for ‘modeling’ purposes,
however, when Jude isn’t looking, Julia sneaks a tasty looking one of him out
of the pile and slips it into her schoolbook.
How old are you woman? I haven’t
done something like that since I was 10 when I tore a picture of David Cassidy
out of Tiger Beat! What was she planning
on doing with that picture? Masturbate
to it? Then again, this is Nip/Tuck,
after all!
We
then cut to Julia who shows up in Sean’s office with a bribe – his favorite reuben sandwich. (did anyone catch the irony here. Jude bribed her with food to get what he
wanted and now Julia’s doing the same with Sean). Sean immediately knows that his wife wants
something in return because in all these years she has never driven 20 minutes
out of her way to bring her husband lunch (okay, mini loathing award to Julia
for that. You mean she couldn’t have
brought her husband lunch once
inbetween shopping and having her vagina waxed all these years?) Julia fesses up that she wants something and
asks Sean about hiring Jude on as an intern.
Sean seems a bit reluctant, for you can tell he’s a bit uneasy about his
wife’s friendship with her young, hot, British classmate, but he then
reconsiders, saying that it might be nice to ‘mentor’ someone.
Later,
Christian enters his apartment only to find a trail of candles leading to his
bed. Upon the bed is Kimber, in a white, leather, mini nurses dress. Her efforts to fulfill his fantasies are now
beginning to make me gag as it turned out to be a for
naught. Christian’s around nurses all
day – the last thing he wants to do when he comes home from ‘being’ a doctor is
come home to ‘play’ doctor. Instead,
Christian unzips the front of her dress and positions her on the bed in a
provacative pose before he whips out his camera to take a picture of her (uh,
she’s a model, Christian. Do you think
she wants to play model? Major hypocricy here). But
Kimber goes along with it, if only to please him, but, little does she know, is
that Christian is taking her picture to submit to the swingers club. He mentions it to Kimber who’s reluctant at
first, thinking that she’s not enough for Christian (news flash – you’re not –
did you see how excited Christian got at the prospect of having sex with other
women?)) but she eventually gives in, making her even more pathetic in my eyes.
Julia
arrives home to hear loud music blasting from Matt’s room. We then cut to Matt’s room where he’s in bed
with Vanessa and Ridley. He’s sitting up
against the headboard, while the girls (naked with their backs to us) are
caressing him. Julia barges in Matt’s
room and the look on Matt’s face is priceless (“what the hell?”) to which Julia appropriately responds, “what the hell?” Both girls cover up and scramble for their
clothes before hightailing their hineys out of
there. Yep, having your mother barge in
on your menage a troi is definitely equivalent to a bucket of cold water.
Okay,
I’m digressing here a bit. Where the
hell is Annie while all this is going on?
The girl is 6, so she’s obviously in kindergarten. Does she go to a babysitter while Julia’s at
school? If so, why didn’t Julia pick her
up and bring her back home. I’m more and
more convinced that the writers made a mistake with her character. She’s now been absent from 5 consecutive
episodes. Now I think it would’ve been
scandalous to have Julia come home with Annie in tow and have Annie walk in on
Matt! Oh boy!!
Alright,
back to poor, frustrated Matt. He’s at
the kitchen table with his parents as he tries to pin his salicious behavior on
the poor example that they’re setting for him.
After all, Sean did give him a condom, but Sean’s stated his reasons
very clearly for that – so that Matt could hide his uncircumcised penis from
Vanessa when the time came for them. It
wasn’t a green light for Matt to be acting out soft core porn in his room. Julia isn’t happy that Sean supplied his son
with a condom without discussing it with her first (uh, lighten up lady! There’s just some
things that are strictly father/son).
Matt gets just a little too sarcastic with his mouth and Julia sends him
to his room (loved Matt’s rebellion of slamming his bedroom door after his
mother emphatically told him not to).
Julia then turns to Sean to question his non-chalance towards his son
being caught in a 3-way. Sean doesn’t
want to disrupt the father/son bonding that he and Matt have been
strengthening. But Julia reminds him
that you can’t be your son’s pal and his father at the same time and picks up
the phone to call Vanessa and Ridley’s parents for a sex intervention. Hasn’t poor Matt suffered enough humiliation
since the pilot?
Next
day, Sean and Christian are having their routine convo while scrubbing up to
operate on Cliff. Sean tells Christian
about Julia walking in on Matt’s little private porn party and asks him if he
knew anything about it. Wisely,
Christian says no (I’m thinking that he’s seeing the lengths that Sean is going
to to create a good father/son relationship with Matt that he doesn’t want to
ruin it by telling him that his son came to him first about the
threesome). Sean also consults Christian
about hiring Jude as an intern (hopefully, to score brownie points with his
wife for not taking Matt’s threeway seriously) and Christian agrees. Sean then twists his neck, trying to get a
kink out, before Christian suggests he visit a chiropractor, meaning Megan
O’Hara. Sean remembers her and the kiss
they shared in the parking lot and Christian gets in a little dig by telling
Sean how comfy they looked with each other.
Later
that afternoon, Jude’s in the waiting room along with a 40-ish woman, Vivian
Sheraldi, who
is a dead ringer for Julia. Jude strikes
up a conversation with Vivian where she says she’s there to get her eyes done
as a post-divorce gift to herself.
Unbeknownst to Jude, Christian is eavesdropping on him and hears him
tell the woman that her eyes don’t need any work, however, if she’s gonna get
them done, that she should also consider balancing her ears out as well
(huh?). Christian smiles as he overhears
this, obviously hearing a lot of himself in Jude. When he sends Vivian to his office, Jude
introduces himself as the new intern.
For his first day on the job, Christian tosses Jude the keys to his car
to go and get it washed, squashing the young man’s arrogance like a bug
Sean
visits Megan O’Hara at her chiropractic office where she’s working the kinks
out of his neck by starting with his legs and working up. Megan asks Sean if he’s been under stress and
he tells her about the situation with Matt (“my
son’s sex life is like a Penthouse letter”). Megan says the source of his stress is
because he’s not being open and honest about things in his life (I thought she
was a back cracker, not a shrink!) She
then tells Sean to turn over on his back and, poor Sean realizes that Megan
running her hands all over him gave him an erection (hee-hee). He asks for a minute as he gets up, gets his
jacket and shirt and holds them over the front of his trousers. He tells Megan that he thinks he should go,
before Megan brings up how inappropriate it was for her to work on him without
bringing up the subject of their kiss.
She again thanks him for all he’s done and to forget that kiss ever
happened. Sean then asks if he can
continue to see her on a professional level
That
evening, we’re at the McNamara house for the sex intervention. I truly have the deepest respect for the
teenagers, being able to sit through this as calmly as they did. I would’ve died after turning three shades of
purple from humiliation. Anyhow, Julia
serves up hors dourves as she tries to initiate the topic of the night to
Vanessa’s strict, pompous parents and Ridley’s divorced, free-thinking mom (was
she a trip, or what?) Sean and Julia were completely divided in this as Sean
wanted everyone to “be open and honest” (taking Megan’s advice) whereas Julia just
wanted Matt to promise it would never happen again. Its clear that
Vanessa’s parents, her father especially, is uncomfortable hearing about his
daughter’s sex life. When Matt blurts
out that they did nothing wrong but have sex “with a condom that dad gave me”, Vanessa’s parents point the finger
at Sean and Julia, even going so far to calling their home an “opium
den”! Ridley’s mom, Alexi, isn’t
fazed at all by her daughters active sex life, since,
according to an article she read, “12
year olds are giving blowjobs to their secret Santas!”
But,
the difficult part is about to happen.
After Matt lies and said that they only had a threesome once, Ridley
chimes in and says that they’ve done it before.
She turns to Vanessa and apologizes for not being able to keep the truth
hidden. In perhaps the funniest lines of
the night:
Ridley: I’m not like you. I’m not a lezzie.
Vanessa’s
Mom: What’s a lezzie?
Alexi: Your daughter likes vagina
Vanessa
is stunned and humiliated at being ‘outed’, but not as devestated as to why
Ridley outed her – seems that during their threesomes,
Ridley fell in love with Matt and they’ve been seeing each other on the
sly. The look of betrayal on Vanessa’s
face when she looks at Matt and asks him to deny it, which he doesn’t, really
broke my heart, however, she’s getting a taste of her own medicine. Vanessa deceived Matt while having a fling
with Ridley in private. Vanessa breaks
down in tears and her parents, having enough of ‘open and honest’ takes her and
leaves. My Loathing Award goes to Ridley
in this round, if only for her heartless blurting out of Vanessa’s sexuality,
not to mention those looks she kept giving her throughout the night.
The
following day, Julia
is at Jude’s apartment where she’s griping about where she went wrong as a
parent. Ironically, Jude tells her that
she’s uptight (remember that Christian used that term with Sean in Sophia
Lopez?) and that “threesomes, foursomes
even moresomes” are common. He also
tells her that she needs to get out in the real world and brings up the subject
of his half naked pictures, explaining that they were for membership into a
swingers club and invites Julia along.
This is where the coming attraction trailers really manipulate you into
thinking one thing when its really another. In the trailer, it shows Jude asking Julia to
go with him, before cutting to Julia saying
“No……yes!”, when, in actuality she was saying “no, yes” to another
statement. However, Julia never really answer him so we’re left dangling as to whether she has the
guts to go.
That
evening, Christian and Kimber arrive at ‘The Scene’. Now…for those of you who saw the episode, or
even watched the previews, I don’t think I have to go into a detailed
explanation of what was going on. Sex, sex, sex everywhere.
There are rooms for just about every kind of coupling. After a brief tour and assuring Kimber that
she the hottest babe in the room, Christian notices a beautiful brunette giving
him the eye. He and Kimber follow her
into a room which is ‘girl on girl’ and the brunette comes up to Kimber to take
her hand. Reluctantly, Kimber goes with
her, if only to please Christian.
Christian watches Kimber and the brunette writhe around each other until
he begins to look a little bored. He
wanders out of the room and sees a women climbing the
stairs whom Christian thinks is Julia.
With a stricken look on his face, Christian goes after the woman, spins
her around only to find out it was his consult from the day before who was
there with ::gasp:: Jude – who is amused
by Christian’s reaction to thinking that the woman was Julia. He knows something!
Sean
arrives home and happens upon Julia’s medical books on the counter. He starts to flip through one and comes upon
the half naked picture of Jude that she snuck in there. Hearing the door open, Sean stuffs Jude’s picture
in his pocket just as Matt comes in.
Surprisingly, Matt thanks his father for backing him up during the
intervention then asks if Julia’s coming home for dinner. Sean says that she’s studying with Jude
(okay, if she’s studying, why are her books on the counter? We already know that wasn’t her at the Scene
with Jude, so where exactly was Julia that night???) Sean asks if Matt wants to grab a bite out,
but Matt has a date with Ridley. Sean
uses the opportunity to question Matt about hurting Vanessa and dating her best
friend, not liking that fact that his son would hurt someone like that. Although Matt didn’t mean to do it, Sean
tells him…”Vanessa’s gay, its not a choice. But
you dating her friend is”. You could really see Matt pondering that one.
The
next day, Sean shows the picture of Jude to Christian as he thinks something’s
going on between Jude and Julia. Okay,
stop right there. Major Wimp Award goes
to Sean. You found a half naked picture
of your wife’s young, goodlooking classmate in her schoolbook. What do you do? You go to your partner with it!! How about confronting your wife about it,
Sean? Just another
example of the lack of communication between the two of them. Anyway, Christian assures Sean that nothing’s
going on with Jude and Julia and agrees that Jude is bad news, stating how Jude
reminds him of himself when he was his age.
Christian takes the bullett for Sean on this one and agrees to fire
Jude.
Later,
the nurse brings Christian Cliff’s blood test results that
has some grim news. Turns out
that Cliff has Hepititis-C and Christian informs him that he must inform all
future sex partners of his disease.
Cliff is devestated – not so much by his disease, but the fact that he
may not be able to ‘swing’ anymore. Who
wants an infected partner, no matter if you use a condom or not? He asks Christian how he’s supposed to be
able to go back to a lifestyle of monogamy, a question that you can see has
Christian pondering the same thing for himself.
Jude
goes to see Christian in his office where Jude casually brings up what happened
at the ‘scene’. Christian tells him that
this is a professional atmosphere, not a pick up joint (look who’s talking!)
and Jude apologized before Christian fires him, telling him also to back off
from Julia. Jude decides to call
Christian on the carpet about his ‘true’ feelings for Julia. Christian is unfazed as he tells Jude that
he’s going to inform the university that he was fired. Jude fires back by threatening Christian
that, if he does that, he’ll tell Sean about Christian being in love with his
wife. Again, with coolness, Christian
tells him to go ahead – but to make sure his insurance is paid up first! I’m so glad he put that little piss-ant in
his place! Add another Loathesome Award
to Jude’s pile as well!
Sean
makes another visit to Megan. He cast
aside everything they discussed at the end of their last visit and is ‘open and
honest’ with his feelings about her. I
guess Sean thinks that if his wife is having a fling with Jude, then why can’t he have a fling with someone. Anyway, Megan tries to fend him off, saying
that she’s too vulnerable to get involved with someone she can’t have, to which
Sean says. “who say’s you can’t have me?” (Remember that line.) then
leans in to kiss her (I won’t give Sean a loathesome award here, more like a
stupidity one)
We
then close with an angry, pissed off Julia storming
into Christian’s apartment, demanding to know why he fired Jude (can’t Jude
fight his own battles?) Julia accuses
Christian of not liking the fact that he has competiton, to which Christian
tells Julia not to flatter herself (yeah!).
Oh, and I just loved Christian comparing Julia to Demi Moore! Anyway, Julia continues to go off, saying
that Christian is irked because he can never have her, a play on Sean’s line to
Megan. Christian turns the tables on
Julia, backs her up against the wall and tells her that she’s still in love
with him after all these years. As much
as she tries to resist, Julia kisses Christian and, afterwards, tells him that
she was thinking about Jude while she was kissing him. Whether she was or wasn’t, I’m sure it was
just to deflate Christian’s ego a bit.
Final award goes to Julia, for lack of humility.
“Megan
O’Hara”
(Episode #6)
“If I may share a lesson recently
learned? Don’t make the mistake of
healing the internal problem with an external fix” (Megan
O’Hara to Sean)
I
am so addicted to this show, its pathetic! This episode had me practically salivating at
the end was the numerous open doors it left.
Soooo much went on -
Vanessa getting a taste of her own backstabbing medicine, Sean
uncharacteristically being unable to practice what he preaches, Julian
scrambling to make amends for his promiscuous and, last, but not least,
Matt. The kid gets a circumcision and a
hummer from a porn fluffer and suddenly he’s the hottest piece of teenage ass
in
First
off, I want to offer MAJOR kudos to the special effects makeup team and also
the music director. Each song either
seemed to fit appropriately or provided a humorous edge to it. I just love the music selections for this
show!
We
open to find Sean and Christian consulting a woman, Bliss Berger. She recently dropped 143 pounds and needs her
‘wings’ removed – the excess flab meat on her upper arms which looked like the
neck of Foghorn Leghorn (1st nod to the makeup team!). Ms. Berger needs the surgery done ASAP
because she’s finally meeting her hunky, Jewish, doctor, Pilates practicing,
internet boyfriend in three weeks and needs to look exactly like the ten year
old picture she sent to him – pre-weight gain.
Sean uncerimoniously admonishes her for “living a lie”, much to Christian’s bewilderment, however Ms. Berger
wants to make it the truth and her surgery is scheduled.
Sean
and Christian are walking to the parking garage that afternoon when Christian
comments on Sean’s look of fatigue before bringing up the subject of billboard
advertising, for which Sean still thinks is sleazy. They both stop short when they look upon
Christian’s sports car which has the word ‘asshole’ spraypainted across
it. Jilted lover? Jilted one-nighter? Pissed off boyfriend? With Christian’s rep, could be just about
anything!
The
next morning Matt finds his father asleep on the couch and immediately thinks
his parents are fighting again. Sean assures
him that everything is fine – just that he couldn’t sleep. What came next really touched me. Out of
the blue, Matt says “I wanted a brother”,
bringing up the baby that Julia miscarried, to which he asks his father how
he’s feeling over it. Sean tries to
justify that its usually the woman who’s more upset
following a miscarriage, but Matt doesn’t buy it. He sees that his father is depressed. He then asks his father if he picked a name
out, to which Sean says that its bad luck to name a baby before its born (I
thought only old school Italians believed in that?). Matt gets up to make coffee for his father
when Sean suddenly blurts out the name ‘David’. He would’ve named the baby David. Sean then breaks down and cries, giving into
his grief and Matt, still new at this father/son bonding thing, sits beside and
first pats his father on the head like a poodle that just jumped through a hoop
before slowly putting his arms around his father to comfort him (if you turn
the volume way up, you can hear Matt softly whisper ‘daddy’ before he whispers ‘dad’)
We
then cut to Christian sitting in his office with a police officer as they
ponder who could’ve vandalized his car.
Here, three episodes later, Nanette Babcock’s suicide is finally
mentioned so she’s out as a possible suspect.
The officer advises Christian that, in cases like these, the culprit is
usually someone “close to home”,
which leads Christian to believe that it may be Grace.
Christian
confronts Grace in the coffeeroom about vandalizing his car to which she
denies. The subject of their night of
passion arises and Grace tries to act cool by informing Christian that he
didn’t even give her orgasm – that he so disgusted her that she had to get out
of there – fulfilled or not. Christian,
obviously, has been with countless women and knows when he’s satisfied one or
not and calls Grace’s bluff. Her cool
exterior instantly melts as she tells him to lock the door to the coffee room
as they have sex against the wall (to an absolutely appropo song called ‘Make
Me Scream’)
At
school we see Vanessa’s ‘girlfriend’, Ridley (who has a breathless, Demi Moore
voice) at her locker. Vanessa snuggles
up to her from behind before Ridley reads her the riot act on P.D.A (public
displays of affection), accuses Vanessa of being too clingy then brushes her
off. Hurt, Vanessa tries to go after her
before Ridley tells her ‘hands off’ and calls her a ‘dyke’. (Right then and there I’m seriously thinking
that a) Ridley’s ‘bi’ or b) in an
experimental phase.) Matt witnesses this
lover’s spat and goes up to Vanessa to ask if she’s okay. Vanessa confesses that Ridley’s been craving
a big stiff one lately to which Matt sarcastically suggests getting a dildo. However, Ridley’s allergic to latex. Matt’s next to give Vanessa the brush off
(I’m so proud of this kid – just three ep’s ago he was a brokenhearted,
betrayed mess sobbing in his bathroom over finding his girlfriend in a liplock
with another girl and now he’s strutting around with cool aloofness towards
her), before Vanessa propositions Matt to help her and Ridley out with their
‘problem’, well…..rather, Ridley’s problem – that Matt give Ridley a taste of
his newly circumsized ‘trouser snake’ to satisfy her hetero urges and, in
exchange, Vanessa will satisfy Matt. Translation
–
That
night, Julia and Sean are in bed where they come close to having sex. Sean asks Julia if her diaphram is in, which
it isn’t, but Julia assures him that she just finished her period and is safe.
(Okay, timing snafu here. How could
Julie just be finishing her period when, last week, she suffered a
miscarriage?) Not wanting to chance
another pregnancy and possible miscarriage, Sean puts the breaks on their
nookie and considers getting a vasectomy.
Sean then asks Julia if she had any names picked out for the baby, which
she didn’t. When she puts the question
to him, he lies and says ‘no’. I don’t
know why Sean couldn’t admit to her that he did. (I digress for a moment here – with all the
talk about how ‘hot’ Julian McMahon is, how come no one has failed to mention
how buff and pumped Dylan Walsh is. The
man has an incredible physique!)
The
next morning, Matt goes against his mother’s wishes and spends the morning with
Christian on his boat (remember in ‘Sophia Lopez’, Julia warned Christian to
stay away from Matt). Matt tells his
Uncle Chris about his 3-way offer and that he’s considering it, since it’s the
only way he can be with Vanessa. After
Christian gives Matt some sound advice, such as downing vitaman B so he won’t
be one tired puppy, they come upon his beloved Boatox to find out that someone,
again, spraypainted ‘asshole’ over the name.
The
next day, Sean and Christian are scrubbing up to operate on Bliss (these
convo’s between the two of them while scrubbing up is as common as the “tell me
what you don’t like about yourself” question) where Christian agonizes to Sean
over who’s been vandalizing his stuff.
Sean suggests that Christian go through his little black book and start
making some amends. Sean also informs
Christian of his decision to get a vasectomy to cure his depression to which
Christian offers Sean a much saner solution – teabagging his testicles in a
nice warm bath to slow down sperm production!
Hey ladies – if you notice your hubbies spending an awful lot of time in
the tub, be prepared for some lovin’ that night!
After
another gross fat removal surgery (again, compliments to the special effects
makeup team), Christian goes home that evening to begin calling the women he’s
slept with and ditched (did you love how he messed up ‘Penny’ and ‘Jenny’?)
Gina, the girl he met and banged from the
Christian
shows up at Kimber’s photo shoot the following day to find that the girl he had
once called an ‘8’ when she thought she was a ‘10’ is now an ‘11’. Kimber tells Christian that she landed a
magazine cover before introducing him to her manager/fiance Nico, who’s pleased
to meet the man who transformed Kimber’s physical appearance. Nico then told Christian that Kimber may need
a slight ass lift (I’m sorry….but an ‘11’
wouldn’t need anything lifted, as far
as I’m concerned). Christian then tells
Kimber that she could do better, to which Kimber agrees (uh, this man is your fiance honey!) and who better to do it
with than Christian as the two are next seen having slow, sensual, soapy shower
sex (yes, gratuitious Julian McMahon butt shot, ladies!)
The
following day, Sean does a consult with Megan O’Hara, a breast cancer survivor,
and her husband Jim. Megan underwent
chemo and a double mastectomy and now wants to have implants as a ‘gift to her
husband’ for basically sticking by her through her illness (gee, I thought a
loving husband was automatically supposed to do that?) Although Jim comes across as sensitive and
understanding, you can see that he’s an underlying control freak who secretly
blames his wife’s illness for depriving him of all the things he wanted in
life. He does everthing from speaking
for her to deciding the cup size she should get (he emphatically wants a ‘c’). Megan starts to get emotional over the fact
that she can’t have children because of the chemo and Sean notices that Jim
isn’t phased one bit by his wife’s tearful status. Sean asks Jim if he’s ever cried, which he
hasn’t – not even in private, which comes as a surprise to Megan. Sean then sets Jim up for a consult with
Grace and sets Megan up for a second consult to select her implants.
Back
at home, Matt and Vanessa and checking off their purchases for their little threesome
– candles, condoms (hope they’re not latex) and strawberry flavored lubricant
(did Matt actually have the guts to go and buy this stuff?) Matt questions what Vanessa wants out of this
and all she wants is for Ridley to love her.
She then squashes Matt’s hopes by telling him that this three-way isn’t
some way for the two of them to be together – that he could never have her the
way Ridley can and that she only loves him “as
a friend”. You can see the
disappointment in Matt’s eyes, but he hides it well. He reassures Vanessa that he’s just there as
a piece of man meat to help out a girl in need – nothing more. When Vanessa
tells Matt that she wished he were a girl, I thought the look on his face was
absolutely adorable as he drawled out, “mmmm…..yeah”.
Christian’s
walking to his car while talking to Kimber on his cell who wants to make him
dinner that night. Chrisitan sees Gina
by his car and accosts her, only to find out that she felt bad about dissing
him the other night on the phone and was there to leave an
Sean
has another consult with Megan so she can decide between the ‘c’ cups that her
husband wants and the ‘b’ cups that she wants.
Sean examines the result of her mastectomy (another stellar job by the
makeup dept!) and decides she’s a good candidate. There seems to be some connection forming
between the two of them as they open up to each other. Megan sees that Sean knows a lot about loss
to which Sean brings up Julia’s miscarriage and his decision to have a vasectomy. In an act of what I thought was personal
defiance, Megan goes with the ‘b’ cup.
Later,
Nico, Kimber’s fiance, arrives at the office with a baseball bat looking for
Christian. He casually finds his way
about and begins to trash Christian’s office – glass desk and all (all to the theme
from ‘Love Story’ – hee,hee!! I loved the sense of humor in the music selection
here) Sean
walks in on him and the cops are called.
As Nico is dragged away in handcuffs, Christian walks in and Nico trash
talks him. Sean questions Christian
about Nico to where Christian confesses to sleeping with the guy’s fiance (Kimber)
the night before (note the disgusted look on Grace’s face!) Sean blows up at Christian, telling him that
he has to stop this behavior before someone gets hurt. Christian lashes back “what are you gonna do, dad….dock my pay?” I found that line verrrrrry interesting,
especially the ‘dad’ reference. I’m wondering if Sean chewing him out was a
remembrance to Christian of how his father berated him – maybe???
Christian
takes Sean’s advice and tells Kimber that night at dinner that he can no longer
see her. Disgusted, she leaves, telling
him that he missed out on a good thing.
At
the house, Matt Vanessa and Ridley (who are in their ‘male fantasy’ cheerleader
outfits) sit on the edge of Matt’s bed, taking perfectly timed sips from their
cups as they awkwardly wait to launch their threesome. Ridley decides to take the lead as she stands
up and ditches her top and bra. Both
Vanessa and Matt stare at her in awe as Ridley crooks her finger to Vanessa and
peels her top off before asking Matt to help take her bra off. Once both girls are topless, they begin to
softly kiss (even though the writers are pushing the envelope with same sex
kissing, they are keeping in mind that these kids are minors). Matt, feeling like the awkward third wheel,
tries to weasel his way in by kissing Vanessa’s shoulder from behind before
Vanessa turns around and tells him that he has to be invited first. I wanted to smack the heartless little
wench! She already invited him – thus the
threesome! Wait…the tables are gonna
turn!!! Suddenly, Ridley breaks their kiss and tells
Matt to strip.
At
the office, Sean is again consulting with Megan O’Hara who informs him that
she’s cancelling her breast augmentation and also that she left her
husband. She says that she doesn’t need
implants to feel alive again, and that she had Sean to thank for it for the way
he treated her the other day. She also
gives him some sound advice….”don’t try
to heal an internal problem with an external fix”, which, I’m sure, she’s referring to Sean’s decision to get a
vasectomy. She leaves, but not before
inviting Sean to join her for coffee.
Remember the doctor/patient relationship no-no, Sean turns her down, but
agrees to walk her to her car.
Back
at the threesome, Vanessa and Ridley are lying in Matt’s bed lightly
kissing. I then began to chuckle when I
saw Matt’s hand slowly enter the scene to tap Ridley on the shoulder as if to
say “uh, my turn”. Ridley turns to Matt
and begins making out with him – I mean….really
making out with him. I guess the writers
saved the heavy duty kissing for the boy/girl. All this is going on to the tune of ‘Nothing
Natural’ by Jill Sobule, a singer with a sweet, songbird voice who clearly
invoked the erotic innocence of the teenage threesome. (I advise going to the music section of www.niptuckfans.com to hear a clip!)
In
a show of what I thought was a little stab at vengence, Matt doesn’t break his
liplock as he glares up at Vanessa who now looks like the odd man (woman) out. They continue to kiss as Ridley breaks away
to stare at Matt – the look on her face saying that she was really turned on by
the kiss. Without hesitation, she goes
back to sucking his face before Vanessa jealously interrupts them. Ridley
brushes her off, wanting to kiss Matt instead and, now destined as the third
wheel, Vanessa gets out of bed as Matt glares up at her again as she sits to
watch them makeout. Methinks Vanessa’s
little plan has backfired for I personally don’t think that Ridley is truly a lesbian
– just maybe, doing a little teenage experiementing before Matt’s WOW kiss
brought her back to Hetero-ville! We’ll
soon see in upcoming episodes, won’t we??
Sean
is walking Megan to her car where he thanks her for her compliments of him for
it made him feel like a ‘healer’ again.
Before she leaves, Sean leans into to kiss her (big mistake in my
book). Good timing too, for Christian
witnesses his hypocritical partner engaging in some non-professional activity
with a client. Undaunted, Christian then
shows up at Kimbers with a bouquet of flowers, saying that he couldn’t give a
hoot about the doctor/patient thingy and wants a relationship with her.
We
then cut to the predictable ending of the episode. I called this one as soon as Bliss showed a picture
of her gorgeous Isaac. Again, to the
theme from ‘Love Story’, we see Bliss anxiously walking through an outdoor café
to finally meet Isaac. She hears her
name called out and turns in horror to see a very rotund, humpty-dumpty looking
fella with tight curly hair and big, thick, black glasses. He announces himself as Isaac and shrugs his
shoulders as if to apologize for the deception.
The contorted look on Bliss’ face is priceless.
Okay….several
things I’ve noted here that I haven’t noted within the review. First off… did Julia wind up flushing Annie down
the toilet too? She’s been missing since
Episode 2. I’m thinking that maybe the
writers made a mistake of writing in so young of a daughter. I think that maybe a preteen daughter (12)
would’ve been a better choice, since, as she ages,
it’ll make for some good body conscious plotlines in future episodes.
Also….what
happened to Rosa, the maid? Haven’t seen
her since the pilot, but maybe the writers thought it a little too much for a
stay at home wife and mother with a teenage son and 6 year old daughter to need
a maid to cook and clean.
And the previews for next week. Okay….I’m not into this ‘swingers’ thing, for
I’m not sure how it advances the storyline.
I’m hoping its just not for gratituous
purposes. And…for the
biggie. Judging from the
previews, I believe that Julia will be the one who walks in on the
threesome. I just don’t’ know at what
stage! (LOL)
“Kurt Dempsey”
(Episode #5)
“Haven’t you loved someone so much that you’d
do anything not to lose them?” (Kurt Dempsey
to Dr. Sean McNamara)
Ah,
the things we do for love!
Or….the
lengths we go just to get laid!
This
episode really showed just how far apart on the hemisphere Sean and Christian
are. Sean played the doting,
understanding, caring, considerate husband while Christian went all out proving
that he’s the biggest male ho in south
We
open with Sean and Christian consulting an engaged couple where the man, Kurt
Dempsey, wants
to surgically change the shape of his eyes to make them appear Asian. His fiance, Leigh, is Japanese and his future
mother-in-law will want nothing to do with her if she doesn’t marry a Japanese
man. Christian seems shocked at the
depths Kurt is willing to go to be with the one he loves. I guess because the word ‘love’ isn’t in
Christian’s vocabulary. However, Sean
can identify with Kurt because of his situation with Julia.
Speaking
of Julia, we then cut to her looking frantic and pale and she checks the
results of an at-home pregnancy test to find out that its positive. Ooops!
After
the intro, we find ourselves in a typical, south
The
next day at school, Julia gets surprising results on a recent test, but can’t
seem to rejoice because of her ‘condition’.
After class, Jude catches up with her and invites her to lunch and to
study. Uh…..I know they’re classmates,
but this guy is getting just a little too close for comfort, if you ask
me. Julia tells him he’s wasting his
time, since she probably won’t be in school that much longer.
That
day, Sean and Christian are about to remove a patient’s entirely tattooed back,
which was devoted to the woman he loved – who wound up leaving him for another
man! Again, Christian is aghast at the
lengths people go to show their love for each other to where Sean recalls how
he would’ve gotten Julia’s name tattooed on him if she wanted. This is the first show of contrast between
Chrisitan and Sean – Christian’s disdain for such drastic avowels of love and
Sean’s willingness for them without batting an eye.
Grace
interrupts them before they begin to say that a couple has been waiting over an
hour for a consultation. Trying to make
his professional relationship with Grace work,
Christian reluctantly goes. The couple
is a husband and wife, David and Ellie Collins.
Ellie’s nose was broken in a car accident. She needs her nose reset and, while at it,
made a tad bit cuter. David clearly
dotes on her and obviously adores her – no matter what her nose looks like.
Once again, you can see Christian inwardly wincing over the lovey dovey
display. Christian is then irked when
Grace interrupts his consult by questioning Ellie about other side
effects. Later, Christian berates Grace
for it, before he’s distracted by a shapely water girl, much to Grace’s
bemusement.
Sean
goes home that evening to find Julia making dinner. Okay, I understand that Julia just found out
she was pregnant and isn’t in a good mood right now. But damn! She was abolutely, positively nasty to Sean,
as if he knocked her up on purpose just so she couldn’t fulfull her dream. Sean senses something’s wrong, but, instead
of questioning it, he begins to offer setting the table, complimenting Julia on
her high test grade, remembering how smart she was in college, etc. He’s flattering her left, right and sideways,
yet all Julia can do is huff, roll her eyes and glare at him. I wanted to put her head through the sliding
glass door! I know her pregnancy is
affecting her mood, but I still hated it.
She then goes off on a tantrum on how ‘she’s still the acorn while Sean
became the tree’. When Sean offers his
support on her continuing education, Julia blurts out that she’s pregnant.
The
next day, Sean and Christian are scrubbing up to operate on Kurt Dempsey when
Sean informs Chrisitan of Julia’s pregnancy.
Christian musters out a congratulations, then
reconsiders when he sees Sean’s uncertainty.
Sean wants Christian to talk him out of pushing Julia to terminate the
pregnancy. Seems Christian did that when
Julia found herself pregnant with Matt, but can’t seem to talk Sean out of it
now. (Hmmm, I wonder why? Could the reason Christian talked Sean into
Julia keeping Matt was because Matt is really his son?? Again, the foreshadowing to this seems to
build!)
Afterwards,
Grace walks in on Christian and the water girl having sex on his desk. Christian doesn’t even break his
thrust….er….his stride upon the interruption as Grace calmly closes the
door. Later in the coffee room, the two
run into each other and don’t even seem to be embarrassed. After some clever verbal sparring (which, to
me, is foreplay for these two!), Grace offers her professional opinion to
Christian that he has a problem and suggests Sex-A-Holic’s Anonymous meetings,
to which Christian thinks is absurd.
Later
that night, Sean tells Julia that he thinks they should have the baby. Julia’s been thinking about it too, but is a
little aprehensive because she doesn’t know if she wants to go through the
exhaustive process of raising a child all over again this late in life. Sean comes at her with a shocker, saying that
he’ll put his career on the back burner, take time off, hire a replacment,
whatever it takes and help raise the child.
Julia instantly goes from glowering and selfish to an overjoyed
appreciative wife as she showers Sean with kisses of gratitude.
Same
night, Christian’s at a bar (what else?) where he’s approached by a late 40-ish
woman, Shelly Edwards, who happens to know him.
Seems Christian did some work on her face several years ago, to which
Shelly paid him with currency other than cash!
She’s a bit offended that Christian didn’t recognize her and asks if he
could ‘freshen her up’ using the same arrangement. Christian turns her down for the obvious
reason that he thinks she’s too old. I almost
felt for the poor woman until she offers her 17 year old daughter as well for a
mother/daughter ‘two-fer’. Now, I don’t
know what the age of consent is in
The
next day, Sean informs Christian that he and Julia have decided to have the
baby and that he’ll be taking paternity leave to help raise their child. For the fourth time this episode, Christian
seems perplexed by shows of love, loyalty and sacrifice – something that he’s
way too vain and selfish for. Or….maybe
Christian’s just jealous because Sean has what he doesn’t have the guts to
have?
Later
on, Christian prepares to operate on Ellie Collins’ nose, but problems and unexpectant bleeding lead
Christian to believe that her nose was not broken in a car accident, as Ellie
stated. He later confronts Grace,
blaming her for not being able to spot that Ellie was lying about how her nose
was broken during her psychological consultation.
Meanwhile,
Sean accompanies Julia to her first ultrasound where its
discovered that her uterus is weak.
Sean’s all for doing whatever has to be done to ensure the baby’s
safety, whereas Julia is starting up with the eye rolling and sarcastic looks
over Sean’s enthusiasm. Is this the same
woman who was kissing his face after he agreed to put the raising this child
ahead of his career? Mood swing
alert! And when the doctor tells her
that she’ll need to be on bedrest for the duration of her pregnancy, Julia
looks as if she’s seeing her dream of finally going to med school going out the
window.
At
home, Sean leaves for the day but not before seeing to Julia’s comfort. He arms her with catalogs,
take out menus and a Gameboy to keep her occupied. The poor guy is making every attempt to be
doting, caring and considerate and Julia seems to find it annoying, which made
me find her annoying! Later, Matt brings her some soup and begins
to question her on why she wants to have another baby she doesn’t want –
meaning, that if she wasn’t pregnant with him way back when, she’d probably
gone on to med school and been a doctor by now.
But, when Matt questions her…”do
you even want to have another kid?
Or…..are you just glad to have another reason not to go after what you
really want?” I could see an invisible hand slap Julia in the
forehead. Damn, such wisdom for a
teenage boy, eh?
Back
in recovery, Christian and Grace question Ellie on how her nose really got broken. All the signs point to physical abuse and
they both approach her husband, David, when he visits her. There, the grisley truth comes out. Seems that Ellie has been
continually unhappy with her looks and has had extensive facial work done in
the past. She wanted one last job
done on her nose, but didn’t think another surgeon would touch her because of
her past operations, so…..::squeamish alert::: she begged her husband to break
her nose with a hammer, which they show in flashbacks, although not the actual
impact (thank God!). He did it because
he loved her so much and couldn’t stand seeing her go through the pain of
hating herself.
We
then find Julia defying doctor’s orders as she’s at school taking her
midterm. Afterwards, Jude catches up
with her outside (I don’t like the way this guy is chasing after a married
woman) and asks her where she’s been.
Suddenly, Julia feels a pain down below and asks Jude to take her to the
hospital.
That
night, Christian runs into Grace at a bar where she’s waiting for someone. Again, their intentional verbal sparring to
show how much one despises the other is a form of foreplay that only thickens
the sexual tension between them. This is
the kind of woman that Christian needs – someone who puts him in his place and
doesn’t pout after him wondering when he’ll call again. The two discuss the deep kind of love that
David and Ellie Collins have for each other before complaining how exhaustive
it is – looking for that person. Doesn’t
take too long because the two wind up in bed!
Maybe I’m the only one who thinks that Grace is the one for Christian because of her ability to handle him and she
proves it well in this scene. Still
basking in the glow of her satisfied state, she calmly gets up, gets dressed
and leaves. Christian looks thoroughly
bewildered since he usually has to throw them out. Hey, at least he saved on the cab fare!
Back
at the McNamara’s, Sean and Julia arrive home from the hospital after Julia
miscarried. Sean’s true feelings about
Julia come to light after he comes down on her for defying the doctors orders by going to school to take her test. Its clear to him
that he’s the only one who wanted this child and that Julia wasn’t willing to
make the sacrifice that he was willing to make.
Sean’s cell phone rings and it’s from Leigh, who’s calling from her
engagement party (I thought Kurt’s new eyes looked kinda cute. They looked so droopy before.) Leigh said that her mother wasn’t fooled into
thinking that Kurt was Japanese, but knew that if he was willing to sacrifice
changing his face then he must really love Leigh. The irony of what Kurt was willing to go
through for Leigh was a mirror image of what Julia wasn’t willing to go through for Sean.
“Sophia Lopez”
(Episode #4)
“Real fathers want their sons to be more than
they are. Not carbon copies!” (Julia to Christian)
Okay,
I’m starting here and going backwards.
This is my first official taste of Nip/Tuck. All I can say is…..why the hell didn’t I
watch this show from the very beginning?
Lord knows that the previews were all but burned into my brain on
Saturday and Sunday mornings as I watched ‘90210’ repeats on FX.
Anyhoo, better late than never. I may go back and review the first three ep’s
after I catch them on the
repeats if time allows, but right now, I shall concentrate on this
one.
First
of all, the writer/creator of this show, Ryan Murphy, has done an outstanding
job. I am a HUGE fan of clever writing,
and witty dialogue as well as the writer being able to superbly tie in
sub-plots to the main one. To me, the
central theme of this episode is not being satisfied with who you already are
that you have to take sometimes drastic measures to change it. I know, I know….as a show that centers around plastic surgery, that’s usually the central them of every episode. However, this went beyond liposuction or butt
implants. This was a quest to find true happiness with yourself, whether
you decide to go back to med school, change your gender or purchase an
obscenely expensive sports car to ‘show the world what you’ve become’. Julia suffers from the first while Christian
suffers from the latter.
After
taking said obscenely expensive, school-bus yellow sports car for a test spin,
Christian tries barter a better deal in exchange for
doing some work on the salesman’s girlfriend.
When the salesman says that his girlfriend already had her ‘D-cups’ put
in, he points to a billboard of the doctor who did the work. Much to Christian’s horror, the doctor turns
out to be the ultra-nerdy, fuzzy headed geek, Merrill Bobolit, who finished last
in med school with him and Sean.
During
a consult with a patient named
The
following morning, Julia thwarts Sean’s attempt at some early morning nookie
because she doesn’t want to be late for her first day back to school. Undaunted, Sean follows her into the shower
where he shock’s Julia by attempting anal sex.
Her response to him when he tries to enter her in forbidden territory
(“Are you lost?”) was hilarious.
Frustrated over it blowing up in his face, Sean leaves the shower.
Julia
arrives at school where a handsome, 26 year old student spots her. He immediately lightens the mood by griping
how it sucks for him to be the oldest student in the room. Julia accepts the compliment before she spots
a friend from college. However, Julia mistakens her for a student, when she’s really the
teacher. A
doctor, to be exact. A married doctor with a child in college. You can see the look of low self esteem on
Julia’s face when she finds this out.
Back
at the office, Sean finds himself in yet another awkward position when his
consult turns out to be a ‘transgender individual’, Sophia Lopez. She…he….oh, whatever, is there to have a
trachael shave corrected, which was botched by her (his) former surgeon when,
I’m assuming, his (her)
Sean
and Christian receive a goody basket of erotic videos and a 25th
anniversary party invitation from Wallace Forsythe for a job well done on
Sean
does just that that same night by serving Thai take out by candlelight just as
Julia walk in…….with Jude – the 26 year old hunk from school – who came home
with her to study.
Okay……stop
right there. This is where I could just
smack Julia. She just came home to find
her husband trying to romance her with a candlelit dinner, yet she tells him
that she and Jude have to study. How
could Julia be so callous towards Sean?
How would she like it if he brought some 20-something sweet thing
home for a consultation – without Julia home??
And what does Sean do? He lets
Julia and Jude study and eat the Thai while he takes
off to the bedroom with the basket of erotic videos.
The
next day, Sean prepares to operate on Sophia but discovers that Sophia snuck
something into the sterile environment of the operating room. Turns out, the smuggled object is a picture
of her (his) son, Raymond. Guess Sophia
went to great lengths back in the day to hide the fact that she (he) really
wanted to be a woman by getting married and having a child.
That
night, Christian brings Matt along as his ‘wingman’ to Forsythe’s porn party
(absolute heaven for a 16 year old boy, but a stupid, stupid decision on
Christian’s part, as we later find out.)
While
there, Christian spots his nemesis, Merrill Bobolit, who’s also there to bid on
the contract. After some witty verbal
sparring, Merrill says that his increased business means taking on a possible
partner. After a ‘lets do lunch
sometimes’, he casually drops his card in Christian’s jacket pocket.
Meanwhile,
Matt spots a young girl in an erotic version of a schoolgirl outfit, sucking on
a lollipop. After she mentions that
she’s trying ot make it as an actress, Matt, a quick
thinker for a 16 year old kid, lies and says he’s an agent. The sexual tension begins to fly when the
girl tells Matt she’s a fluffer……a starter-job for all would-be erotic film
actresses – where her sole responsibility is to orally stimulate the male
actors inbetween shots to keep them erect.
Okay,
a normal 16 year old kid probably would’ve creamed his pants alone just hearing
that, but Matt, Chrisian’s protégé for the night, calmly replies by
saying…”cool”. Her continual sucking of
the lollipop, capped off with her swallowing the entire thing, is indication
that she has that in mind for Matt and takes him by the hand and leads him
away.
One
week later, an irate patient storms out after witnessing two of Cheyenne’s
erotic film pals fawning over her in the recovery room (okay, did you notice
that Cheyenne was on her back and um….spread eagle? I thought she had a bruise removed from her
butt?) Anyhow, Sean, along with Grace
for support, approach Christian about the lewd
scene. Its
clear that Sean doesn’t want that kind of environment whereas Christian is only
concerned about the dollars that these girls will bring in. Grace also puts her two cents in, to where
Christian tells her off. When Sean
storms out, Christian considers Merrill’s offer and places a call to him.
Meanwhile,
Sean gets a frantic call from Sopia.
She’s at the hospital where a transgender friend of hers has been
admitted for bleeding and then….left waiting because no doctor wants to touch
her (him). Sean rushes to the hospital
to help out and winds up taking over.
Sean finds out from Sophia that the same doctor who botched her (his)
surgery also botched her (his) friends.
Sean demands to know the name of the doctor so they can press charges
and is horrified to find out that its Dr. Marcus
Grayson, a teacher of his from med school.
Matt
goes to meet the fluffer he met at the party.
Thinking that she wanted to see him because she thought he was an agent,
Matt fesses up that he lied. However,
fluffer asked him there for a different reason.
Seems some guy she was ‘fluffing’ on the set gave her an s.t.d. Which means….she passed it onto Matt.
Christian
meets with Merrill the next day at his swanky home. Merrill offers him a lucrative deal which
includes working on movie stars and royalty, with 50/50 decision making and
wants an answer asap!
That
night, Matt is reading up on s.t.d’s from his mother’s medical book, which she
immediately swoops down upon and takes from him (doesn’t she knock?) Julia questions why Matt was reading that and
we next see Matt getting a blood test from Christian. Matt begs Christian not to tell his father
whereas Julia berates Christian for bringing a 16 year old boy to a porn
party. Julia sends Matt from the room so
she could lace into Christian, good and proper.
Christian is thoroughly trounced when Julia sneers that he could never
be capable of being a real father because “real father want their sons to be
better than them…not carbon copies.”
Ouch!
Sean
visits Dr. Grayson in his underground business called The Aphrodite Institute,
a one room operating room that’s about as sanitary as a porto
potty. Sean winces at the unsterile
environment and over the fact that Dr. Grayson relies on the bottle. He gently, but firmly, tells him what has
happened with Sophia and her friend and stresses that its time for him to stop
practicing medicine.
Christian
shows up at Matt’s school with the hideously yellow sports car. After informing that that his tests came back
clean, he tosses Matt the car keys so they can go and tell Julia the good news
together. Matt tosses them back, then
proceeds to give Christian another verbal setdown (“I don’t want to meet girls because of the
car I drive. Or pick them up in strip
clubs or porn parties. I’m not you,
man.”) Not as harsh as Julia’s, but,
for some reason, it has more impact coming from Matt.
Sean
is doing a post-op followup with Sophia where he proceeds to tell Sophia of his
visit to Dr. Grayson. Not only did Sean
convince Dr. Grayson to retire, but it seems as if this entire experience has
loosened him up and he agrees to operate on Sophia, free of charge, so she (he)
can become the person she (he) needs to become.
A
humbled Christian turns down the contract from Wallace Forsythe and returns the
car. When the salesman tells him that “the car shows the world what he’s become” , Christian
replies “that’s why I’m returning it”. Very powerful way of
showing how much Julia and Matt’s words got to him. Merrill finds out that Christian turned away
the contract because Forsythe winds up offering it to him. Merrill calls Christian to tell him that his
door is always open and his line, “I’m up
to my ass in tit jobs” had me rolling.
That
night, Sean and Julia are in bed reading.
Sean’s reading up on transgender surgical procedures when, surprise,
surprise, Julia whips out one of the erotic videos she found. Apparantly, she wants to watch it, but Sean
turns the tables on her by turning her down.
Hmmm, was that payback for the other morning??
We
then close with a shot of a transgender individual walking down a dark hall and
entering a room where we see….yep! Dr.
Grayson. Guess he didn’t take Sean’s
advice after all and has continued to practice under a new name. Leaves the door open for some possibilities
down the road, especially in the upcoming episode where Sophia returns for her
surgery.
“Nanette
Babcock”
(Episode
#3)
“You rejecting me and ruining my dream is
personal. Not making me the best I can
be is personal. I get rejected all the
time. But when I offer to pay, and still
get rejected, that……is…..personal!”
(Nanette Babcock to Dr. Grace Santiago)
This
was a highly emotional and heartwrenching episode that dealt with the the need
to look better in order to impress other
people. It was evident with Matt, Mrs.
Grubman and Nanette Babcock, the main character. It also further advanced the slow, but
growing, father/son relationship between Sean and Matt and really brought out
the depths of Matt’s character to a point that it reminded you what it was like
to go through teenage angst.
We
open up with Christian consulting Mr. Diamond, a Michael Jackson look-a-like
who wants more surgery – well, because he just found out that Michael had
more! Christian declines his request
right before Liz interrupts him to say that Sean will be late due to a ‘family
emergency’. Before Christian can head
off to the consult, he is further interrupted by an insistant Mrs. Grubman whom
we met in the pilot episode. Seems the
rich old bag doesn’t find the sheets on the bed in the recovery room to her
liking and wants them changed so she doesn’t have to recover from her upcoming
tummy tuck on “sandpaper”
We
then turn to the source of the ‘family emergency’ at the McNamara house. I’m bummed that the writers didn’t include
the one scene that we all were probably anticipating – who was going to be the
one who found an unconscious Matt after his attempted self-circumcision? For now, I’m gonna assume it was Sean as he
now sits in the bathroom wanting to inspect what Matt had done. Even though its his father, Matt’s
embarrassed and Sean tries to ease his embarassment by telling him how many
times he’s changed his diapers when he was a baby (uh….Sean? I think his ‘wee-wee’ has changed a lot since
then!). Without a choice, Matt removes
the icepack from his groin and stands there while Sean inspects the chop
job. Not only did Matt take a good chunk of foreskin
out, but he also severed his urethra.
Much to Matt’s delight, Sean agrees to give him a proper circumcision
that afternoon, provided that, from now on, Matt be
more open and honest with him about everything from wanting a nipple ring to
finding and stimulating the clitoris (I thought the look on Matt’s face was
priceless when he heard that!).
We
then meet Nanette, an obese young woman who wants a massive overhaul so she
could attend her high school reunion the following month as a different
person. As Nanette reads off a list of
surgical procedures she wants to undergo, their consult is interrupted by Dr.
Grace Santiago, the newly hired psychologist.
Obviously, Christian is perplexed , since he
had no knowledge of Sean firing Dr. Pendleton.
We can tell right off the bat that she and Christian are not going to
get on very well, as she insists on sitting in on the consult with Nanette. Grace asks to see Nanette’s file and notices
that the young woman is on Lithium, a anti-depressant
drug, and is immediately concerned about her emotional well-being as well as
the possiblity that she has unrealistic expectations, even as Christian happily
agrees to give a weeping, grateful Nanette whatever surgery she wants.
Back
at the McNamara’s, Julia questions Matt about going through with the
circumcision, before Sean jumped in to remind Matt to shave around the operable
area before leaving. Matt’s response (“the humiliation just keeps coming”)
was hysterical. The doorbell rings and
Sean finds a detective on her doorstep holding up a badge. His mind immediately flashes back to him and
Christian dumping Silvio’s body to the alligators, when the detective informs
him that the plumber filed a complaint against Julia for killing Frisky, the
gerbil. Seems animal cruelty is a
misdemeanor in the state of
While
scrubbing up for Matt’s circumcision, Sean tells Christian how concerned he is
about Julia’s confession to gerbil homocide.
Christian is obviously peeved about something and he finally confronts
Sean as to why he wasn’t consulted before firing Dr. Pendleton. Sean justfies hiring Grace by saying that 75%
of their patients are women and they may be more comfortable consulting with a
woman. Christian decides to throw Sean a
bone this time, before he accuses Sean of only wanting to get in Grace’s pants.
In
the operating room, Matt is surprised to see that his ‘Uncle Christian’ is
there for his operation. Christian tells
Matt that he’s the most important patient he’s ever had. (Hmmm,
more foreshadowing here about the paternity thingy.) Before Matt goes under (uh…why couldn’t they
just numb him from the waist down instead of putting him out?) he adorably
admits that he’s afraid. Sean and
Christian look at each other as if to decide who’s gonna answer the poor kid,
before Sean looked down at him and tells him that he’s gonna be fine. However, as Sean takes the scalpel to make
the first cut on his son’s manhood, his hand starts to shake. Christian offers to do it for Sean, if Sean
will go and do Mrs. Grubman’s tummy tuck.
Sean hands the scalpel to Christian (however the camera cuts off before we
see if Christian had a case of the shakes.
If he did, what a tell tale sign that
would be, eh?”) as Sean goes off to do Mrs. Grubman’s
tummy tuck, which, so far, is the grossest of the operations I’ve seen on the
show.
Afterwards,
Sean and Grace advise Christian not to go through with any surgery on Nanette
Babcock. Grace discovered that Nanette
has been off her Lithium and, therefore, isn’t emotionally stable. Sean agrees with Grace’s prognosis, which
causes Christian to call Sean into his office so he can express his anger of
him siding with Grace (or…Salsa Spice as Christian wittingly refers to her as!)
over him and still accuses him of being attracted to Grace. Sean reminds Christian about the reason for
hiring a psychologist in the first place and that he is not after Grace in a romantic way.
Meanwhile,
Vanessa is visiting Matt after his operation.
He tells her that she was worth going through the pain and, once his
stitiches come out in a week, they can attempt to do the nasty again. Just as Vanessa leans into kiss him, Sean
barges in Matt’s room (not even a warning knock) to ask Matt if he’s urinated
yet. God, can this kid suffer anymore
frigging embarrassment? Vanessa leaves
and Matt and Sean are in the bathroom.
Sean wants to be there when Matt pees to make sure there’s no blood from
possible hemmoraging. He also tells Matt
that it’ll feel as if he pissing fire and that its
okay to scream or hold his hand for support.
Sean then tries to make guy talk with Matt (“that Vanessa’s a little hardbody!”) We find out that Vanessa asked
Matt to the prom and Matt confesses that he doesn’t know how to dance (I found
it amusing that Sean thought Matt’s “I
can’t dance” was a euphanism for not being able to pee!). Sean seems pleased that Matt opened up to him
about something and gives him some fatherly advice. Suddenly, Matt’s in pain as he begins to pee
and immediately clamps onto his father’s hand for support. That part gave me the chuckles and the warm
fuzzies at the same time.
We
then find Nanette sweating on a treadmill when Christian calls her to inform
her that he will not perform surgery on her.
Nanette is furious, to the point of abusive, and accuses Christian of
ruining her life before she wishes cancer upon him and throwing her phone
across the room.
Later,
that night, Christian goes to the parking garage to find his car was severely
vandalized. The next day, a repairman
meets him there and, while there, Christian receives a call from Sean who
noticed that Christian scheduled Mrs. Grubman for a neck lift. Christian denies scheduling and calls Mrs.
Grubman, who’s in an airport on her way to
Later,
Sean and Christian try to figure out what to do before their professional lives
are ruined as Liz goes over Mrs. Grubman’s surgery in her head and the scalpel
count. Sean laces into Liz for being
inept before Liz questions Sean if he did a post-op procedure to account for
everything. When Sean realizes that he failed
to do so, Liz goes off on him, calling him
inept because he was concerned about Matt’s circumcision and threatens to
quit again before Christian calms her down. Sean and Christian then agree to
set things straight – Christian with Mrs. Grubman and Sean with Nanette.
Grace
then visits Nanette at home and is shocked to find a wall covered with magazine
cutouts of beautiful women and perfect body parts. Nanette clearly despises what Grace
represents – a beautiful perfect woman who gets all the guys (“You, with your perfect face, your tight ass
and tits that don’t hang down to the elastic waist that you don’t need!”) Grace is feeling endangered because
Nanette clutches a paring knife from when she was preparing her lunch and
thinks that Nanette might harm her as she laces into her about being rejected
and ruining her dream of going to her class reunion where she planned on
possibly hooking up with an old classmate.
Thankfully, Nanette asks Grace to leave after her tirade.
Christian
drives out to
Sean
calls Nanette in for another consulting session. We see Nanette putting on lipstick as she
listens to Sean’s message on the answering machine. Before grabbing her purse to leave, she takes
a gun and puts it inside. At the
consult, Sean suggests that Nanette go under the care of a psychologist to help deal with a problem that seems
to go deeper than her weight. Nanette
slowly reaches inside her purse and, instead of pulling out a gun, she pulls out a pen and asks for the psychologist’s
number.
That
evening, Christian returns with Mrs. Grubman to her fancy-schmancy home after
escorting her to a charity event. She
climbs the stairs in order to get comfy and Christian follows her like a man
going to his execution. He finds Mrs.
Grubman lying on her bed draped in emerald green satin. He slowly begins to undress as Mrs. Grubman
looks practically orgasmic with each piece of clothing he takes off. When he’s down to nothing but his black
bikini skivvies, he heads over to the bed where he requests the lights be
off! As soon as he slowly starts to
caress her leg, Mrs. Grubman begins to cry, saying how she hasn’t been touched
by a man in 12 years and reminisces about how her late husband used to
compliment her. She then tells Christian
that the one thing that always made her feel safe before surgery was hearing
his voice saying how everything was going to be alright. It mirrored the exact words Sean said to Matt
before his circumcision. Christian makes
her feel good by complimenting on how she worked the people at the charity
event that evening and the two just wind up sleeping side by side (at least,
that’s what it looked like! )
Free
of his stitches and ready for some action, Matt goes over to Vanessa’s
house. He goes in the front door and
hears loud music blasting from upstairs and heads on up. Without knocking, he enters Vanessa’s bedroom
to find her lying on top of another cheerleader, making out. OMG!!
The poor kid! I’m sure we were
all anticipating that it might be another guy, but another girl??? Vanessa and her friend spring up and look
absolutely humiliated at being caught.
Any self esteem that he may have grown since his circumcision went right
out the window as he promptly leaves.
The
next day, Christian finds Mrs. Grubman not only scheduling more surgery, but
informs him that all future surgeries will be free of charge.
Later
that night, Sean comes home to find that Julia bought Annie two more gerbils,
one of them resembling Frisky. Sean
questions Julia about not telling Annie the truth, to which Julia said that
Annie should’nt have to suffer for her emotional mistake. Sean compliments her, saying that she did the
right thing and that she’s a good mom.
Julia then informs Sean that she’s gonna stop pitying herself and take
control of her life by going back to school.
When
Julia leaves the kitchen, Matt comes in and Sean calls him over, wanting to
know how it went with Vanessa. Matt
can’t tell his father what happened, but, seeing how important it is to him,
Matt lies and says it was great – everything he thought it would be. He then hugs his father and thanks him (which
got me ferklempt) before heading into the bathroom to break down and cry (even
more ferklempt!).
We
then cut to Nanette sitting on the floor of her apartment as she puts a gun in
her mouth. The camera pans up to the
magazine cutouts on her wall before we hear the gunshot and see blood splatter
all over the pictures.
Well……..my
question is….will Matt and Vanessa still be going to the prom now that this little bombshell dropped! And….upon further review, in the last
episode, Christian tells Matt that girls don’t care about a hairy ass, yet we
find out in this episode, that Christian gets his waxed. I can’t imagine a man being that vain!
Mandi/Randi
(Episode #2)
Sean: So….you
don’t believe in half measures?
Grace: I believe fully in commitment to
change. It’s the commitment that brings
constructive results.
You
know, even though this show centers around plastic surgery, which is about
changing and transforming one’s body, the sub-themes of each episode seem to go
into more detail as to the type of
change. This episode reflected on the
desire to change, not just to look better, but to establish a new identity.
We
open to find Sean in surgery, about to repair a woman’s breast implants that
imploded when her abusive boyfriend pushed her against a wall. He invites Dr. Pendleton, the the rotund
ninny of a psychologist they hired, into the surgery to observe. Sean then makes the mistake of calling
Marie, the new anethesiologist, Liz
by mistake, seeing that Liz abruptly quit after the lipo-spewing incident in
the pilot. As soon as Sean makes the
first cut, Dr. Pendleton faints.
Later,
Sean and Christian are consulting Mandi & Randi Dante, identical twins
sisters who are sick and tired of looking alike and want to establish separate
identities before they head off for college.
One wants killer calves and breast implants while the other wants her
ears pinned back and a “kick” ass’ nose like Jennifer Garner. Sean thinks their desires are unrealistic and
wants them to speak to Dr. Pendleton first, before Sean informs him that the
twins brought their diagnosis from their previous psychologist, Dr. Grace
Santiago, who gives the thumbs up for the girls
transformation.
After
the intro, we see Matt sitting at the kitchen table when Sean enters and tosses
him a condom. Matt is a mix of surprise
and embarrassment that his father is cool with him having sex. Sean wants to dissuade Matt’s fears about his
girlfriend, Vanessa, seeing his incircumcised penis by coaching him to put the
condom on before Vanessa has a chance to notice (he even bought a nice aqua
colored one for disguise!), before seguing into a mature discussion with her
about foreskin (yeah, I’m sure Vanessa can’t wait to discuss that – right after
a heart to heart talk about jock itch!).
Matt stuffs the condom in his pocket when Annie enters the room with a
poster for her missing gerbil, Frisky.
Julia comes in and the reception is frosty between her and Sean until
she sees the poster for the gerbil, and almost has a heart attack. She’s gonna have to take flushing Frisky down
the toilet to her grave! Sean then
notices a smell in the house, to which Julia says is
the backed up septic system. After Julia
agrees to call a plumber in exhange for Sean picking up the dry cleaning (God
woman, is making a phone call and picking up clothes too much for you to handle
in one day?) Sean notices a bunch of baskets in the corner. Julia announces that she and her friend,
Suzanne, are starting a gift basket business.
After being cajoled by Matt with some clever eye contact, Sean tries to
show interest in Julia’s new business before Matt realizes he’s had
enough. He comes right out and tells his
parents to go for marriage counseling and “to
stop dealing in stupid half measures and either shit or get off the pot!” Man, your marriage must be in serious trouble
when your 16 year old son has to berate you like that.
Next
we see Christian at the tanning salon where he’s trying to get back the color
he lost during his 6 week recovery from those botox injections in the pilot
episode. He flirts incessantly with the
girl at the desk and the two wind up having sex on the
flourescent tanning bed with the stupid little goggles on. Well, they don’t exactly have sex, seeing that Christian is having a problem getting
it up. The girl slides down him to try
to stimulate him orally, but when she looks up, Christian sees Julia’s face
instead. Egads! Where did that come from?? Realizing he can’t go through with it,
Christian gets dressed and leaves.
Sean
is having lunch with Dr. Grace Santiago, Mandi and Randi’s psychologist to
discuss the twins in greater detail before going ahead with their surgery. She explains that, after the twins lost their
virginity to the same man, that a need to establish separate identities is
important because she believes in full change – not half measures – a term that sticks with Sean because Matt used the
same term earlier that morning. We can
see that Sean is equating these words with his own marriage. He and Julia are dealing with half measures by living together, but in
misery. In order for their marriage to
work, a drastic change may need to take effect.
Funny, but right after we denote this, we can see a
spark of attraction that Sean has for Grace.
We
then see Matt and Vanessa furiously undressing each other before they wind up
making out between the sheets. Vanessa
tells Matt that she’s ready and, before poor Matt can go for his condom,
Vanessa asks to see it first.
Okay, was there anyone but myself who could feel what this kid was going
through when Vanessa slid down to take a peek?
The anxiety upon his face was heartwrenching as he waited for Vanessa to
finish looking. When she’s done, she
tells him that it looks like a shar-pei and asks if he’s part Arab (was I the
only one who wanted to slap the heartless, redheaded hussie?). Although Vanessa tells him that she isn’t
turned off by his uncircumcised state, she now only wants to ‘make out’ and
starts to kiss Matt all over while he has a ‘why-bother’ look on his face. Poor kid!
Sean’s
back at the office with Liz, trying to convince her to come back to work by
doubling her salary and offering her medical benefits to her partner and
impressing her with the new cappuccino machine.
Liz accepts the terms to come back, but doesn’t need the benefits for
her partner, Jean. After the incident
during Silvio’s lipo when Alejandro put a gun to her head, Liz got to thinking
that life was too short. She broke off
her relationship with Jean, sold her condo and moved to the beach because she
wants to make a full change in her life, which includes finding someone that
she can fall madly and deeply in love with.
Liz’s
speech seemed to have the final impact on Sean as we next see him packing his
clothes to move out. He tells Julia that
he’s not happy with her and she’s not happy with him. He tells her that she’s content with
wallowing in her misery while remaining in the marriage, a half-measure, while
he’s willing to take the drastic steps to try to fix it. Since they’re not happy together, he decides
to leave, hoping that the time apart will lead them to the remedy for their
marriage.
The
next day, Sean and Christian are scrubbing up to operate on the twins. Sean informs Christian that he moved out and,
of course, Christian is worried how Julia took it. Sean says that she’s hurt, but this is
something that he feels he needs to do.
Sean also says that he “doesn’t
want to turn into his asshole father” which got me a-wonderun’. (Hmm, could this be a setup for future
storylines regarding Seans childhood and past??) Chrisitan then lightens the mood by saying
that, now that Sean’s a single doctor, he can get “ass galore!” but Sean isn’t interested into turning into a stud
like Christian.
That
afternoon, Julia and Suzanne are putting together gift baskets while the
plumber that Julia hired comes out with the source of the septic backup – and
holds up a wet, dead Frisky by its tail.
(I laughed when Suzanne thought it was a ‘turd’!) Julia tries to hide her guilt by assuming
that the critter climbed into the toilet and got flushed, until the plumber
said that a gerbil’s claws can’t climb porcelain. When the plumber thinks that Matt may have
done it and cautions Julia that “that’s
how Ted Bundy started out – by torturing small animals” (funny……
I thought it was Jeffrey Dahmer?) Julia fesses up that she killed Frisky. Suzanne is appalled and the plumber is so
disgusted that he sneers “what kind of
mother are you?”
That
night, Christian takes Matt to a strip club (okay, I know Christian’s got pull,
but just how did he manage to get a 16 year old into a strip club?). Matt tries to convince Christian to give him
the circumcision without his father’s knowledge, but Christian turns him down –
agreeing that he doesn’t need the operation.
Christian tells Matt that he brought him here to build up his confidence
by arranging for him to have sex with Avanti, one of the girls who works there.
(Christian, not only are you a ho, but now
you’re pimping your best friend’s teenage son?)
Sweet Matt, although interested and flattered, turns down the offer
because he loves Vanessa and doesn’t want to cheat on her. Christian, not wanting to waste a good piece
of ass, takes Avanti to the back room for a private lap dance and more. However, Chrisitian’s subconscious takes over
and he looks at Avanti and sees Julia’s face again. And, again, Christian can’t get
hard – or…caliente’, as Avanti puts
it (remember, we are in
The
next day, Sean and Dr. Pendleton are in consult with Mr. Brancato, a man who’s
had 5 penis enlargements and now wants to make it wider. Later, Sean and
Christian are laughing over Mr. Brancato’s state, much to the changrin of Dr.
Pendleton, who doesn’t see this as a laughing matter. Sean thinks the man doesn’t need another
enlargement, but Dr. Pendleton sees it otherwise and….Christian agrees with
him. Dr. Pendleton leaves to go for a
jog (I couldn’t imagine this portly pudge managing a flight of stairs let alone
a jog!) before Christian tells him that he’ll join him, but not before Sean
asks to speak to Christian before he leaves.
Sean is clearly upset that Christian agrees with Dr. Pendleton’s
ludicrous conclusion that Mr. Brancato needs another penis surgery to which
Christian throws up in Sean’s face that it was his decision to hire a
psychologist to make these decisions for them and, as long as Sean’s gonna do
pro bono work, that they have to take as many clients as possible to make up
for the lost income – especially since Sean hired Liz back at double the salary
without consulting Christian first.
Christian
and Dr. Pendleton jog together as Christian brings up his inability to
‘function sexually’ and continually having thoughts about the wife of a good
friend. Dr. Pendleton gives Christian
some Catch-22, but sound advice – that he can either destroy the friendship and
nourish his sexual fantasies with the wife, or nourish the friendship and
forget about the wife.
Christian
pays Julia a visit to where the two of them begin to reminisce about old
times. You can see the sparks still
flying between these two, but Julia’s married state, although separated, and
Christian’s loyalty to Sean keeps it from going further – for now. Julia breaks down and tells Christian about
flushing Frisky the gerbil down the toilet and how the other mothers in Annie’s
carpool kicked her out because of it (oh God, could you believe those women?
How anal can you be?) Christian
decides to make a move on the newly separated Julia by asking her to his place
so they could reconnect. As of this
point, its clear that Christian has chosen Julia over
his friendship with Sean.
Meanwhile,
Matt’s online looking up ‘self-circumcision’.
The lengths at which this kid is willing to go
is both frightening and heartbreaking and Vanessa’s reaction the other day has
pushed him over the edge. I still can’t
understand why Sean won’t allow him to get one.
He was a teenage boy once. He
should know how important it is to feel like you fit in, no matter how strong
you stand up to peer pressure.
At
the hospital, Christian goes to do a post-op with the twins, only to find them
huddled on the floor in the corner crying.
Seems that the twin who had work done on her face is hysterically upset
because a male nurse paid more attention to her sister than to her (well, your
entire face is bandaged from having your ears and nose done, sweetie, how could
he have even seen you to find you
attractive? Geez!!) Because of that, she wants to back to looking
like she did before. Oh, for the love of
God!
That
night, Sean has dinner with Grace in what Grace thinks is a ‘business dinner’ to
further discuss the twins. But, when
Sean feels Grace’s leg under the table, she realizes that his intentions are
other than business. She is appalled at
his lack of respect for her and abrutly leaves.
Julia
gets all spiffed up for her evening with Christian, to which Matt notices. She lies and tells him that she’s having
dinner with Suzanne and heads off, but not before Matt asks her for cuticle
scissors, lying that he has a hangnail.
Julia
arrives at Christian’s place at their appointed time of
Sean
runs into Dr. Pendleton who praises him for admitting his mistake and finally
agreeing to operate on Mr. Brancato.
Sean realizes a mistake himself, but agreeing to the operation isn’t it and promptly fires Dr.
Pendleton. Sean then heads on over to
Grace’s place of work to apologize for his behavior the previous night and also
to offer her a job to fill Dr. Pendleton’s position.
Sean
then realizes that it was also a mistake to move out and promptly moves back
in. He’s unpacking when Julia, fresh off
from catching Christian in a “Doublemint
moment”, comes in. She takes her
anger out on him by furiously repacking his clothes and telling him that he’s a
lousy lay. Sean’s had all he could take
and takes Julia to task with that comment and the two consummate the end of
their separation with fast and furious makeup sex!
And,
lastly, we find poor Matt downing an entire bottle of red wine, numbing himself
in preparation to slice and dice his weener.
We hear his voice over of the instructions from Joey’s Self Circumcision
Page (okay, am
I the only one who checked the web to see if that page actually existed?) as he
sharpens the cuticle scissors (Matt, maybe you should’ve sharpened the scissors
before guzzling an entire bottle of
wine!) Gazing at a picture of Vanessa
(little wench!), he pulls his shirt off, undoes his jeans and pulls his boxers
down as he reaches for the scissors. The
camera shows him from the waist up as all we hear is the first ‘snip’ and then
a stunned look on his face as he brings his blood covered hand up – just before
he passes out cold.
Pilot Episode
“For the last ten years I’ve been consumed
with transforming other people. Starting
today, I’m transforming myself!” (Sean to Christian)
Thus
starts the beginning of a tumultuous relationship between longtime friends and
plastic surgeon partners Dr. Sean McNamara and Dr. Christian Troy. Note, that I caught this epiosde on the
repeat, so I’ve already viewed episodes 4 & 5 (and episode 2 early this
morning, which was repeated last night).
Now after seeing this, I can understand a little better why the
characters are the way they are in future episodes. This pilot made for some interesting viewing
while I ironed a pile of clothes last night.
By
now, we know that the show’s opening question to potential patients (“tell me
what you don’t like about yourself?) has become the
signature catch phrase. In the pilot,
that question is first put to Silvio Perez, a man who wants to have massive
facial reconstruction performed so he can be more attractive to women like his
brother, Alejandro (who I personally thought looked as frightening as Silvio,
but….oh well!). Sean is uncomfortable
that Alejandro speaks on Silvio’s behalf since Silvio doesn’t speak or
understand English, which only highlights Sean’s ignorance that, for someone
who lives in
Later
that night, Christian picks up a woman named Kimberly at a tennis club where
she’s there to meet her boyfriend. She
brushes off Christian’s advances, until he tells her that he’s a plastic
surgeon. Well, that certainly changed her
tune, for next we see the two of them having hard, fast, nasty, doggie-style
sex, which is a complete 360 from the mechanical sex that Sean and his wife,
Julia, are having that we see next. Julia’s mentally making a shopping list while
Sean considers firing Julio, the gardener/poolman without breaking his robotic
pumping stride. After a yawn, Julia asks
if Sean’s done to where he completes the act and they both drift to opposite
sides of the bed.
The
next morning, Kimberly wakes up at Christian’s place where he proceeds to play
upon her vanity and self-consciousness by pointing out her flaws. She thinks she’s a ‘10’, but Christian
humbles her by telling her she’s an ‘8’, but can make her a ten. He then uses her body as a chalkboard by
marking areas for botox injections, liposuction, breast implants and chemical
peels with red lipstick. Kimberly is
appalled at how ‘ugly’ she really is and considers making herself perfect.
Same
morning, Sean is shaving in the bathroom when Julia comes in (looking a little
too lovey dovey, considering the cardboard box sex they had the night before)
asking if he thinks she should have her breasts ‘done’. After Sean looks at them, he says they’re
exactly where they should be for a woman her age. OUCH!!
Sean, dude! How’s about a little
bedside manner in the home, huh? I
really felt Julia’s pain and humiliation there, but her performance in upcoming
scenes will wind up turning me against her (at least for a while). Sean informs Julia that he gave their six
year old daughter, Annie, permission to get a gerbil, even after Julia told her
that she couldn’t have it. Seems Julia’s
biggest worry is cleaning up after the animal.
Okay, first sign that Julia was getting on my nerves. Sweetie – it’s a frigging gerbil! It’s the size of your palm. Its in a cage. Its not like you
have a cow roaming through your house cleaning up hub-cab sized dung! Geez, Louise!
However, she tops herself in the complaint department in later scenes.
Sean’s
at the breakfast table with Annie and his 16 year old son, Matt while their
maid, Rosa, makes breakfast. (the fact that they have a maid was the first clue that made
me wonder why Julia was so fanatic about cleaning up after a gerbil). Sean tries to be interested in what Matt’s
reading, which is about alligators for an upcoming ecological science fair, to
which Matt points out that his father tried to be ‘interested’ two days ago
about the same thing. Already, we’re
getting a sense that Sean is a little distant from his family because of his
job and doesn’t pay attention to things.
Suddenly, little Annie asks
We
next find Matt and Christian on Christian’s boat ‘The Boatox’ (gotta love the
name!). Seems Matt is quite fond of his
cool ‘Uncle Christian’ for writing him a doctor’s note so he could skip the
first three periods of school and do a little boating with him. But Matt also seems to have confided him over
some surgery that he wants. However,
Christian tells Matt that, since he’s only 16, he still needs his dad’s
consent. What is this mysterious
surgery? Keep reading and you’ll find
out.
At
the office, Sean is consulting with a mother of a teenage burn victim. Because of her HMO, she can’t get the final
skin graft surgeries that her son needs.
However, Sean has to turn her away because they’re booked up for the
next six months. The mother takes her
frustration out on Sean, saying that giving her son his life back is more
important than giving some size 4 liposuction that she doesn’t need.
Later
that afternoon, Sean and Christian are scrubbing up to operate on Silvio where
Sean informs Christian of Julia’s desire to have her breasts done. Here is where we find out that Christian and
Julia had a brief history before she married Sean. Seems Christian dated Julia first back in
their collegiate days – a relationship that, we will continue to see, still
flickers a bit. Its
there that Christian informs Sean of Matt’s ‘problem’ for which he needs
surgery. Seems that Matt’s never
been circumcised and, well, he’s being ribbed about his ‘ant-eater’ penis after
gym class. Sean doesn’t think that Matt
needs to be circumcised, or that Julia needs her breasts done. His consult with the burn victim’s mother
seemed to have gotten to him and he begins to questions people’s vanity and
obsession to be perfect. He doesn’t want
his family to fall into that category and thinks that maybe he shouldn’t be
doing this anynore.
While
Silvio is in recovery, Sean tells his brother, Alejandro, that Silvio will be
transported to the hospital. When
Alejandro asks Sean if the $300,000 fee includes the hospital stay, Sean is
shocked. He angrily approaches Christian
on the whereabouts of the extra money, to which Christian said that he put back
into the business account. Sean thinks
its drug money and is appalled that Christian unethically took it and is
keeping quiet about it.
A
few days later, Christian finds Julia in the waiting room after she dropped
Matt off to consult with Sean about his possible circumcision. You can see that there is
still some underlying feelings between these two as they act as awkward as
teenagers on their first date as he asks Julia if he could stop by the house
soon to see his ‘family’. They’re
interrupted by a waiting patient, Mrs. Grubman, who’s there to get her eyes freshened up for her daughter’s wedding.
During
the consult, Matt tries to convince his father to give him the
circumcision. Sean obviously has been so
distant from his son that he can’t seem to understand the pain and possibly
humiliation he’s going through. Instead
of giving the kid what he wants, Sean tries to pass him off on a psychologist,
thinking that Matt has some inner problems other than wanting to be
circumcised. Sean then questions Matt
if he’s having sex, which he hasn’t, but he and his girlfriend, Vanessa, are
getting close to it. He’s afraid that
Vanessa is gonna be turned off by ‘ant-eater’.
Matt winds up getting frustrated with his father’s ambivalance and asks
him…”for once, give me something that I
need.”
At
the hospital, Christian goes to do a post-op on Silvio only to find that Silvio
isn’t in his room. Alejandro seems to
know where Silvio might have gone and goes looking for him on the pediatric
floor where he finds Silvio feeding a little girl ice cream. Christian watches Silvio interact with the
little girl in a manner which makes him uncomfortable. When Silvio goes back to his room, Christian
questions Alejandro on the boss’s ‘girl’ that Silvio was caught with. Seems this ‘girl’ wasn’t the boss’s
girlfriend, but his six year old daughter.
Chrisitan is clearly disgusted that Silvio is a pedophile.
Back
at the office, Kimberly shows up frantically looking for Christian. She is so hyper, that she’s busted 5 stitches
from her boob job. Kimberly doesn’t
understand why she hasn’t seen nor heard from Christian since her operation,
since he led her to believe that he had feelings for her. Liz, Sean and Chrsitian’s anethesiologist,
gives Kimberly a wakeup call, letting her know that she isn’t the first girl
that he’s done this too. Sean is
appalled by Liz’s unfeeling bedside manner, to which Liz tells him to wake up
because Christian’s immoralistic, unethical reputation is going to ruin his
own.
The
next scene had me rolling. Dylan Walsh’s
comedic talent really seemed to shine as we see him driving in his car, packed
with his stuff from his office, while listening to Spanish speaking tapes as he
reluctantly tries to teach himself the language. His ‘God-I- really-don’t-want-to-do-this-
but-if-I-live-in-South-Miami-I’m-gonna-have-to’ attitude really came through as
he sneered out the Spanish phrases on the tape.
While in the car, he gets a call from Christian who thinks that workers
stole the stuff out of Sean’s office.
Sean then clearly makes himself heard as he tells Christian exactly how
he feels about his work ethics and the business in general. He informs Christian that he quit and wants
to start his own practice so he can do pro bono work for the people who really need cosmetic surgery.
We
next find Julia sitting on the couch watching an old tape from when she was
pregnant with Matt. She pauses the tape, just as she’s asked what she wants to do
with her life, when Christian comes over.
Thinking Julia already knows about Sean’s quitting, Christian
accidentally brings it up, to which Julia inwardly fumes. Christian then brings up her desire to have
her breasts done, then asks if he could see them. Okay.,…this part
bothered me – a lot! I don’t care that
he’s a surgeon. He’s also her ex-lover,
not to mention her husband’s best friend.
No matter the problems they’re having in the marriage, I thought it was
inappropriate for Christian to ask to see her breasts, even if it were a
professional opinion, and even more wrong to Julia to accommodate him. But…even more laughable was her orgasmic look
when Christian touched her. Oh God! That really embarrassed me. They’re interrupted when her paused tape
starts up again and picks up where it left off, with Julia answering her
question. We then find out a little more
about her backround – how she had to put off going to med school to become a
pediatrician when she became pregnant with Matt.
Sean
comes home and is almost knocked unconscious from a falling limb that Julio was
cutting out of a tree. Already in a fit,
Sean fires him and informs Julia of it when he comes inside. Not too happy with Sean right now, Julia
huffs over the fact that it took her 2 years to find someone who’d garden and
clean the pool every week. Hold the
phone. Two years??? Sweetie, you live in
Anyhoo,
a fight soon ensues between them to which Julia accuses Sean of not respecting
her enough to inform her of his decision to quit and start his own
practice. Sean agrees that he hasn’t
respected her for quite some time, since Julia’s days are spent shopping,
lunching and Brazilian waxing while he’s busting his ass working. That part not only made me laugh, but made me
realize that Julia, although a dutiful wife and mother, is (IMHO) nothing but
an ungrateful whiner. She doesn’t work,
her children aren’t babies that need tending too and she has a maid. Sorry,
but this round goes to Sean, here.
The
next morning Christian visits Sean at his little hole in the wall office where
he’s starting up shop. Apparantly, Sean
spent the night on the couch there.
Christian’s purpose was to knock some sense into Sean by coming back to
the partnership by threatening that Sean would have to buy out his half,
according to their partnership agreement.
Meanwhile,
Julia is filling out an application to go back to school when Matt comes in to
tell her that he’s going to Vanessa’s after school. Julia tells him no, that he has to come home
and clean the pool instead. When Matt
tries to rebutt, Julia all but screams at him and has the audacity to say “do I have to do everything around
here”? Do what? You have a frigging
maid, lady! Oh…don’t let me go any
further before I blow a fuse!
Poor
Matt is too stunned to do anything but do what his mother says. Julia immediately feels contrite about
yelling at her son, but when she sees the cereal box tip over and Annie’s
gerbil come scurrying out of it, she finally snaps. She takes the critter by the tail and flushes
it (alive!) down the toilet. (Um…I sense
an early onset of menapausal behavior here!)
Later
that afternoon, Matt comes out front from cleaning the pool to find his father
sitting in his car. Sean tells him that
he’s contemplating making a decision, to which Matt thinks is getting a
divorce, until Sean told him it was a work related decision. Matt tries to lighten the mood by cajoling
his father into helping him clean the pool, since he’s the one who fired the
Julio.
Christian
goes to visit a woman named Celia who wants Botox injections for her and her
friends. Judging from the swank
surroundings, Celia is obviously related to someone important. Turns out that her
boyfriend is Escobar Gallanto, Silvio Perez’s former boss and father to the
little girl that Silvio violated.
It turns out that Celia lured Christian there with the botox injections
because Escobar found out that Christian had operated on Silvio. Escobar then kidnaps and tortures Christian,
holding him underwater in a tub and injecting him with multiple shots of Botox
in his face and crotch (which will paralyze him) until he fesses up to Silvio’s
whereabouts.
Meanwhile,
at the hospital, Sean checks out Silvio, but not before Alejandro informs Sean
that Silvio would like some liposuction on his waist to make it thinner. Sean turns him down, but Alejandro offers him
$5,000 to do the operation. Sean accepts
it, since he just started his own business.
While prepping Silvio for lipo, Alejandro convinces Sean to let him stay
in the room during the operation in order to keep him calm. During the surgery, Alejandro pulls out a gun
and orders Liz to wake Silvio up. Liz
does what she’s told and Silvio slowly begins to regain consciousness. Alejandro tearfully tells his brother that
his girlfirend is four months pregnant with a baby girl and that Silvio will
never be able to see his niece because of his ‘problem’. Alejandro realizes that Silvio is sick and
the only solution is to kill him. Silvio
awkwardly fights with his brother, in which he winds up knocking the lipo wand
out of Sean’s hand, causing his liquified fat to spew all over the place
(YUK!!). Alejandro finally finishes
Silvio off by turning the knob to give him an overdose of anethesia. Sean then calls Christian, where he’s still
being questioned by Escobar, to inform him of Silvio’s death.
Escobar
and a member of his posse, bring a battered and facially paralyzed Christian to
the operating room to see that Silvio is dead.
Escobar commends Alejandro that he did the right thing ‘by the
family’. They leave Silvio’s body for
Christian and Sean to deal with.
Remembering
something that Matt had said about alligators having a
distaste for human flesh, but loving the taste of pork, Sean and
Christian purchase several hams at the supermarket then drive to the
swamp. There, they tie the hams to
Silvio’s lifeless body. They then wait
and watch as an alligator comes out of the swamp to take Silvio’s body
away.
Christian
apologizes to Sean, that he didn’t know that Silvio was a pedophile before he
operated on him. Sean uses Christian’s
vulnerable state to strike a new partnership bargain with him. Not only will they hire a psychologist to screen
potential clients better, but he also wants 20% of their business to be pro
bono so Sean can feel good about himself about helping out the less fortunate.