Search - Nip/Tuck: The Complete Third Season on DVD

It is hard to believe how bad things get in the Third Season

Lawrance M. Bernabo | The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota | 09/10/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

""Nip/Tuck" is a seriously f****d up television show. I thought "Six Feet Under" was pushing the limits and "Oz" always liked to pour it on, but even if you put those two shows together they are not as f****d up as "Nip/Tuck." There is no other word for it, especially since the producers of this show revel in the fact. I mean, we thought the Carver was pretty bad ("Momma Boone"), and that whole story gets worse ("Rhea Reynolds) and then finds two levels beyond that ("Cherry Peck," "Quentin Costa"). Mercifully that whole subplot comes to an end, although in a whole bunch of ways that we never would have expected. But given some of the other people we meet in Season 3, the Carver ends up being one of the saner people in South Florida. There is "Momma Boone," the obese woman who has to be surgically separated from the couch she has been sitting on for three years. What about the mortuary employee who created a woman, "Frankenlaura," from the body parts of other women? Or "Ben White," who suffers from Body Integrity Identity Disorder and wants his perfectly healthy leg amputated?

I have only recently gotten up to speed with "Nip/Tuck," because I was not especially interested in watching a television show dealing with plastic surgery. Not because I am opposed to the ludicrous extremes to which (primarily) women go in this country to attain an idealized notion of beauty, but because I do not like to watch surgery being performed. Specifically I do not like the cutting part. In high school they showed us a film in health class to dissuade us from smoking. It was not when they took out the cancerous lung that bothered me, but when they took the scalpel, made the initial incision, and then cracked the guy's chest with a rib spreader. "Nip/Tuck" likes to show as much as they can get away with, and even if it is fake, it takes a while to get used to. But apparently I am completely desensitized because there are dozens of victims of an airplane crash ("Sal Perri"), a face transplant ("Hannah Tedesco"), and a seventeen-year-old fetus (I will let you be surprised as to what episode has that surprising turn of events).

If you think the plotlines are f****d up, then you should see the characters. It used to be that I was pretty sure Christian Troy (Julian McMahon) was at the top of that list, but he might be the sanest of the principals given everything that happens in the third season, even though he tries to get married and finally meets his birth mother. Of course, it is hard for Christian to take comfort in his life when dating the likes of Kit McGraw (Rhona Mitra) and Abby Mays (Rebecca Metz), makes Kimber (Kelly Carlson) look good. Sean McNamara (Dylan Walsh) has a relatively easy year once he gets past Nicole Morretti (Anne Heche) and the fact that his new partner, Quentin Costa (Bruno Campos) is dating Julia (Joely Richardson). But then Julia's entire year is pretty much a case of it being the best of times and the worst of times. She opens up a successful business ("Joan Rivers") and her marriage ends, but certainly the year is exemplified by what happens to her when she learns the plane her mother (Vanessa Redgrave) is on crashed on takeoff ("Sal Perri"). Talk about having your best moment and your worst moment in the same episode.

Even though he is not in all of the episodes, Matt McNamara (John Henlsey), wins the award for having the worst year. His world is rocked when he visits Ava's house, finds Adrian's body, and then learns the truth about Ava from Sean ("Kiki"). If you thought Matt's relationship with Cherry Peck (William Belli) took him to the dark side, wait until he becomes involved with Ariel Alderman (Brittany Snow) and her father (Brian Kerwin). Then I remembered that he has Julia, Sean and Christian for parents, not to mention Ava as a therapist, and there is really no reason for us to think life will be much better for poor Matty. I can also justify my choice because when we get to the big finale in the season with the Carver plotline it is juxtaposed with the final act of the strange and twisted little journey Matt took during this season.

The obvious question at this point would be why do I watch "Nip/Tuck"? A large part of it is because it is so over the top. You would think that at some point they would run out of ways to keep piling things on, but that certainly did not happen in the third season. But beyond that what I find compelling is how despite wallowing in circles of Hell worthy of Dante (or at least David Lynch), these characters keep managing to find their humanity. When Shawn looks at Momma Boone and holds her hand as if she were not the side show freak that others consider her to be and when Christian can allow himself to actually feel something, their characters stop being cruel jokes. The revelation of the Carver's identity and the end game of that whole bloody affair are what dominate the final episodes, but for me it was Matt finding his way back from the dark side, even when the mouth of Hell opens up around him, that was the dramatic highpoint of "Nip/Tuck: The Complete Third Season." I want to think that it is all down hill from here and that there is no way the show can top how f****d up everything was this past season, but I think there is ample reason to be more afraid of the producers of "Nip/Tuck" that either a scalpel or the Carver."

Nip/Tuck at its weakest

StraightupSteve | MD, USA | 06/16/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Don't get me wrong, Season 3 is definately worth watching. It has all the amazing shocks and twists of the first two. However, I'd have to say that this was the worst of the three thus far. There was just too much inconsistency with what was going on. Too many questions were raised and were never touched on again. The sex scenes were also cut down majorly and were substituted with some bizarre shockdrama. I guess you could say that season 3 went a little too far over the top this time around. The story didn't flow as well as it did with seasons 1 and 2. Still worth the buy tho. Heres hoping that Season 4 corrects some of this season's flaws. Look for it September."