As with any show that you absolutely love, eventually there's going to be an episode that really disappoints you. For me, that day has come. Last night's episode, which essentially dealt with the themes of Julia hating her mom (yes, Erica is back) and forgiveness, was pretty much exclusive from the rest of this season. It didn't really add much to the plot, but we did get some good character development with Sean and Christian. Other than that, it was the Julia McNamara show, and though it pains me to say it, I wasn't impressed.
Julia has apparently invited her mother to spend some time pampering herself at the spa. But as is always the case with these two, they bicker like crazy. As successful as Julia is doing now, Erica still can't give her a pat on the back and congratulate her daughter. She still thinks Julia has thrown her life away. Julia kicks Erica out of the spa and tells her to catch an earlier flight out of Miami. So Erica leaves. Then it all comes crashing down, no pun intended. The plane, after taking off, has engine difficulties and it crash lands in the middle of a street. Julia rushes to the airport to find out more information. There she meets another woman who's mother was also on the flight - she says her mother's name is Helen and that the Boston Red Sox are very important to her. Julia fills out some forms, and eventually an airport official announces that there are survivors. Julia calls Sean and the two of them head to a local high school where a triage center has been set up in the gym.
Sean begins to assist the other doctors while Julia helps where she can and looks for her mother. Sean works on several people including the pilot. Eventually, Christian and Liz also arrive to lend a hand. Sean has to amputate both arms from our title character Sal Perri. He was flying to sing at his son's wedding. This surgery was about as gory as Nip/Tuck gets. Due to lack of real surgical equipment, Sean is forced to remove Sal's arms with these humungous hedge clippers. However, it's too much for Sal to handle, he bleeds out, and dies. Meanwhile, Julia and Christian are helping other patients. Julia has met Helen when she notices a Red Sox necklace around her neck. She has a broken pelvis and horrible burns covering a large portion of her body. She eventually dies.
Christian is working on a woman named Karen who has a fork stuck in her lung. However, every time he glances at her, he sees Kimber and she keeps telling him to give up on her; to let her die. But he tells her that he won't give up on her, then he rips the fork from her chest, but Karen seems to be okay. The doctor in charge of the triage center needs Julia's help. They need skin for another patient. So Julia works on Helen's body, removing the skin from her back. Her work is very good and the head doctor tells her she should have stayed in medical school. After she finishes, Christian finds Julia to tell her that he found her mother. She didn't make it.
Julia goes to speak with her mother's remains. She lays it all out: I don't love you, you don't love me, why does she crave the praise she knows her mother will never give to her? Julia seems genuinely upset with this corpse. When she gets up to leave, she gives Erica a quick peck on the forehead, and all of a sudden Erica's eyes open and she tries breathing. But Julia can't handle this, she had just regained her freedom. She then proceeds to smother the woman with a small pillow. Creepy. Later on that day, Julia and Sean hang out in front of the gym as ambulances drive by and Sean breaks down. Lots of self-pity and claiming to not be the man who he thought he was. He and Julia embrace and she then heads back to the office.
Without the presence of her mother looming, Julia seems to feel much more in control and at peace. She even fires Quentin, how great is that? So she heads home, all smiles, feeling rather good despite having just lost her mother. Julia heads into her apartment and there she is - Erica... sitting on the couch. She never took the flight because she didn't want to leave town without apologizing to Julia. And just like that, Julia's newfound confidence is crushed. Her biggest opponent is still alive. Now, was anyone else as unexcited as I was about this? The fact that Erica was still alive just didn't register with me as being that big of a deal. But in some sense, it works for me because it keeps Julia right where she was. I don't know how I'd feel about Julia suddenly becoming very in control and less needy for approval.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
12-07-2005 @ 11:09AM
Student of The Game said...
I agree wholeheartedly that this was one of the worst, if not the worst, episode of Nip/Tuck I've ever seen. The show succeeds with great storytelling, compelling character arcs, and edgy medical storylines. Last night had none of the above, with the exception of Julia's brief confidence-building/life-affirming experience with faux-Erica. I get that it was a one-episode "experiment" and won't happen again, but that's no excuse for giving us something that felt like an overpromoted episode of ER.
Oh, and one of the reasons I love this show so much is the sheer unpredictability of the storyline. The first two seasons, every time I thought I knew where they were going, they went a more unbelievable direction. Last night's episode was completely predictable. I knew from the moment Julia started working on the burn victim that she was the Boston woman's mother, and once they left the window open for Erica ("it's probably her over there"), I was quite certain she was alive.
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12-07-2005 @ 11:42AM
Elliott said...
I'm a huge fan and probably could have been fine only seeing the last 15 minutes or so. The first half was kinda boring and everyone seemed out of character: Christian's hallucinations of Kimber, Sean's lack of resilience, and Julia kicking ass as a wannabe doctor.
So did Julia randomly kill some lady or was her mom really dead and the Erica at the apartment a hallucination? Either way the pillow smothering was a step up from when she killed Frisky and makes me a bit curious with the season finale so close...
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12-07-2005 @ 12:22PM
Adam said...
While I wasn't thrilled with this episode, I think it did show us a bit more of our characters. How will Sean and Christian deal with work after this? Will they be as confident in their work? Will Julia quit the spa and moonlight with Sean?! HA.
I think the thing that got me through this episdoe were commercials for The Shield.
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12-07-2005 @ 12:31PM
PooPooHead said...
The plot lines of this series keeps getting weirder and weirder. I used to love it because it was all about T&A and it was perhaps the first series that was real (meaning four-letter words).
Lately, Nip/Tuck is just perplexing. It's turned into a Soap Opera. Granted you can only go so far with stories about boob jobs, liposuction and rhinoplasty.
Yet, I kind of liked this episode (or other Nip/Tuck episodes) because it deals with real-life issues. Julia's big bugga-boo is the problem she has vis-a-vis with her mother. She has to find her own power. I think we can all relate to that (I did). I was so inspired by Julia that I smotherd my parents last night too (just kidding).
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12-07-2005 @ 12:41PM
Nip/Tuck Fanatic! said...
Well I can't say I was disappointed because it was pretty much what I expected... an episode that really went off from the main story line. You didn't mention "The Carver" commercial at the end??? That was one of the key recap items! Check out my blog for details.
Julia's character is driving me nuts. She's whiney and emotional for an entire season... then all of a sudden she's cold and detached emotionally when her mother dies...???!!! Her lack of emotion made the episode lackluster until the few surprises such as the corpse coming to life and the mother appearing on the couch.
Sean also needs to get it together quickly... He keeps feeling sorry for himself and his life much like Julia last season. Now that Julia realizes she killed an innocent survivor of a plane crash... it will be interesting to see how she handles it. Next episode she finds out that she's been knocked up by Quentin... CMON!!! And she thinks Gina is the wh****! She's very hypocritical and it will soon spill over.
Great writeup! As always, looking forward to the next episode of Nip/Tuck!
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12-07-2005 @ 1:36PM
T-Raveling said...
This ep feels like it was an afterthought to the season. It was an entire ep dedicated to making julia feel cold enough to fire quentin. Im getting tired of the once a season julia-fest ep, it must be in her contract because it does nothing to advance the plot.
By the way the carver is already one of my MySpace buddies. Yeah
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12-07-2005 @ 1:40PM
The Jeremy said...
Julia is a murderer, Julia is a murderer. Man, I swear I should write for this show. I told the roommate as the mercy/hate/killing was being played out that I'd write it to where it didn't turn out to be her mother (was it deliberate to show the actress breathing before that with her chest rising during Julia's monologue, or was that a continuity goof?).
Now, if they could write it to where the Carver was Christian's biological father...
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12-07-2005 @ 1:43PM
The Jeremy said...
I would like to say that I am getting tired of the hallucinations. It confuses me into believing that Kimber is a Cylon agent and Christian is Dr. Baltar...
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12-08-2005 @ 2:14AM
Jonathan Toomey said...
Yeah I didn't add the MySpace link to the summary because someone brought it up in the comments section of last weeks episode, so I figured most folks had heard about it. If you haven't seen it though, it's freaky as hell.
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12-08-2005 @ 3:13PM
Nip/Tuck Fanatic! said...
Those illusions get pretty tricky... We might find out next week that Julia's mom is actually dead again! Ya never know...
Im not sure what was up with the body breathing while Julia's dialogue was going... It was driving me nuts! I kept thinking... Did they not see this in the editing room?
The Carver site is now being linked directly from the official Nip/Tuck website on fxnetworks.com. You have to give credit to the marketing folks of the show. That was clever!
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