Nip/Tuck: The Sixth and Final Season

June 25, 2010

Director: Elodie Keene, John Scott, Nelson McCormick,
Starring: Dylan Walsh, Julian McMahon, John Hensley, Joely Richardson, Roma Maffia, Linda Klein, Kelly Carlson,

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DVD Review

Darren Jamieson +

Nip/Tuck is one of those TV series that you just can’t stop watching, even though most of the characters of the show are thoroughly despicable. The show follows the lives and loves of two plastic surgeons from Florida, though in the fifth season they relocated to LA to follow their fortunes.

The plastic surgeons, Christian Troy (Julian McMahon) and Sean McNamara (Dylan Walsh) are lifelong friends who graduated med school together, and both are in love with the same woman, Julia (Joely Richardson). The first season showed how the twisted interpersonal relationships between the characters were formed and how Sean’s son Matt wasn’t actually Sean’s, he was Christian’s.

Things got worse from here as the pair got mixed up with a drug dealer who wanted his identity changed, a serial slasher known as ‘The Carver’, transsexuals who seemed drawn to Matt and various other dark and satirical events that plagued them.

The development over the years of Sean McNamara, from the steady, loyal one, into the love rat who just can’t help himself, saw the two friends become more like each other than they would ever care to admit – to the point where they actually thought they may be in love with each other.

The best part of Nip/Tuck is the fact that characters can do evil, nasty, distasteful things and more often than not get away with it. In most shows, you know that characters will get their comeuppance, and anyone who commits a crime will, at some stage, pay for it. Not with Nip/Tuck. This was made clear in the first series when Matt ran over a girl, leaving her for dead, and got clean away with it.

Nip/Tuck is dark, extremely dark.

The final season of Nip/Tuck has been criticised by many for being too over the top in terms of storyline, almost desperate in places as the show ran its course to a natural end. However, whether these criticisms are just or not (as the show has definitely seen better days in earlier seasons, with the Carver for instance) there are still some highlights left to savour in this final season. One such highlight is the development of Sean and Christian’s relationship to the extent that they require couples’ therapy. This touches on the previously mentioned storyline where the pair suspected they may be gay, and in love with each other.

Not the best season by far, but a suitable dark conclusion to one of the darkest and funniest shows in years.

Darren Jamieson

Darren has enjoyed an interest in film for many years, studying the subject at Newport Film School where he worked on the film ‘Cop on the Edge IX: Prelude to Justice‘ in a directing and acting capacity. The official site can be enjoyed here. Darren setup WhatDVD.Net in 2003 to further his love of films and to write passionately about the movies he enjoys, and about those that he doesn’t.

Although his day-to-day activities mean that he now has less time to review movies than he would ideally prefer, he still tries to review new releases, and DVDs from his extensive collection, whenever possible.
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