"August Walden"
That ending was a real bang, wasn't it? Oh, Julia. If you're going to buy a gun for self-protection, protect yourself by hiding it from others. All Eden the skank needed to do was find that damn gun in Julia's bedroom. I knew that as soon as Julia told Eden that she figured everything out - that Eden was the one who was the cause of her mysterious illness - Eden wasn't going to react in a good way. How about the timing of Julia receiving her follicle lab results that clearly included words like "exposure to high dosages of mercury" and "contaminated foods" at the exact same time that Eden was serving her yet another piece of fruitcake? Bingo! Julia: "I'll take it to my room." Julia's inner thought: "I'll send it to the lab in Virginia." Olivia sure was an understanding lover earlier, sending Julia's hair sample to the lab, even after Julia told her she was having an affair with Christian. I was expecting a different reaction. There was Olivia, all happy and peppy and bursting with love with her "You're my angel" line to Julia, which Julia followed with the oh-so-romantic reply: "I've been having an affair with Christian." Olivia's non-reaction was kind of
Stepford Wives-esque. But if Olivia hadn't come up with the idea of sending Julia's hair sample to the Virginia lab, Julia would still be clueless.
We'll have to wait until next week to find out how serious that gunshot was and whether Eden will need to go to target practice. While I'm mentioning Eden, can we talk about her look, specifically in this episode? Why the hooker eyeliner, hoop earrings and '80s hair? She looked like she was a leftover extra from an old
Pat Benatar video. I was waiting for Julia to sing to Eden: "Hit me with your best shot...fire away!"
Speaking of next week (and no, this is no spoiler), I saw page one of the new
TV Guide magazine before watching this week's episode so I had it on my mind while I was watching. It's a photo of Christian and Sean with the caption: "Tragedy strikes the McNamara/Troy family in the shocking fifth-season ender." So, obviously, the tragedy is Julia's shooting. Notice how I say "shooting" and not "death" - we've already seen the
future and we know that Julia is in it. So is Matt. But I kept thinking, as the hour progressed and Matt kept morphing further and further into
Bad Luck Schleprock, that next week's tragedy was going to be a suicide
attempt by Matt. Perhaps not. Just when we thought Matt's luck was bad enough, he gets dumped by burn victim Rachel (Matt: "
You're not attracted to
me?!") and then has sex with a gal he doesn't realize is his sister. When they showed the "previously on
Nip/Tuck" scenes and included four of Matt's ex-lovers, it was inevitable that his bad luck streak was going to continue.
Nice curveball towards the end when not-a-virgin-anymore Emmy (Jeannine Kasper), after Christian made her beautiful by removing her humongous facial birthmark, had sex with Matt and said: "These last few days have just been amazing. First, I met my father. Then, I got my face fixed and then I met you." Matt: "You met your father? Who is he?" Emmy: "My plastic surgeon - Dr. Troy." So I'm guessing that she knew all along that Christian was her father but never told Christian since he didn't freak out when Matt asked him for an "emergency prescription" even
before the morning after. Christian was just happy Matt was being safe. Safe, but incestuous. I should've seen the Christian connection coming when Emmy mentioned that her mother told her she was the product of a one-night-stand and referred to Emmy as "The Scarlet Letter." How perfectly
Matt for him to consider continuing the relationship after going on the Internet and visiting a blog devoted to couples that are related. As long as they don't try to breed. Seriously, how f---ed up is Matt? I'm surprised
Sister Sledge's "We Are Family" wasn't played during their sex scene.
One song that
was heard during this episode was
Danny Kaye's "The Ugly Duckling," played in honor of August Walden (
Steven J. Oliver), the
Entertainment Weekly critic that gave Sean a scathing review for "Hearts 'N Scalpels." In a scene reminiscent of
Entourage's Johnny Drama arriving at the offices of
Daily Variety and yelling at the critic who gave him a bad review, Sean did the same thing, but a more toned-down version and at a local coffee shop. Now, I've heard of ugly, but that man was beyond unfortunate. What a perfect arrangement: Sean gave August corrective surgery in exchange for August doing some "corrective surgery" via a new, positive
EW review of Sean and "Hearts 'N Scalpels."
Road Rules fans may have recognized
David Giuntoli as the ex-
NCIS recurring actor who
also got a horrid review from August and paid him back with scalding coffee in the face. Ouch.
Other random observations:
- How typical of Christian to get all excited when Liz was reading him the bad Sean review.
- The post-mercury poison "sick" makeup that they gave
Joely Richardson didn't really make her appear sick, just older. Therefore, she was the spitting image of her mother, both on the show and off:
Vanessa Redgrave.
- Good thing Julia's now officially over Christian. All it took was arriving at his place during one of his nooners. Christian (post-anonymous sex): "I'm sorry I can't change who I am. I tried." Julia will forgive but never forget. And notice how Julia called Christian "ugly" for his behavior. There's that ugly word again.
- I found it quite realistic that even McNamara/Troy couldn't fix Rachel's face, even after six attempts. You can check out
Maggie Siff without the accent and all the burn-victim makeup on repeats of the fabulous
Mad Men on AMC Sunday nights at 12am ET.
- It was funny to hear Kate (
Paula Marshall) relate to Sean after his bad reviews and tell him he'd be eating lots of junk food real soon.
- I thought it was odd that there was nary a mention of Colleen (
Sharon Gless), or as I'd like to now call her, Col
loon, in this episode. At least she's back next week, looney tunes as ever, so maybe then we'll get to hear more about the aftermath of
last week.
Next week is the season finale, or as the promos say: "An FX special event." See you then. In the meantime, let me know what
you thought of this episode below. Was the incest storyline even too over-the-top for
Nip/Tuck or was it simply par for the course? Remember, we don't have proof yet that Emmy is really Matt's daddy Christian's daughter. And something tells me you Julia-haters were loving that she was shot at.
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Nip/Tuck-related videos in our
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