“Tell me what you don’t like about yourself?”
The popular series’ third season is brought to DVD by Warner Brothers. Our fearless plastic surgeons have promised to help the victims of the serial slasher the Carver, but he doesn’t take kindly to that.
McNamara/Troy is the fashionable plastic surgery clinic in Miami, Florida. Dr. Sean McNamara (Dylan Walsh) and Dr. Christian Troy (Julian McMahon) have sworn to perform pro-bono surgeries on the victims of the serial slasher the Carver. The Carver is an unknown person who hates beauty and uses his sharp knife to slash the faces of beautiful people (think Jack Nicholson’s Joker face from Batman).
However, this season promises to reveal the identity of our mysterious fiend. Season 2 found both Doctors being visited by the Carver and this season’s first episode deals with the aftermath of that visit [spoiler] the first episode makes it look like Dr. Troy was killed by the Carver, but it was all a dream. Don’t you hate it when they do that?[/spoiler]. Not only are our surgeons dealing with their workload, but also with their personal lives.
McNamara’s wife Julia (Joely Richardson) is asking for a divorce. Dr. Troy’s assault by the Carver is being investigated by the hot English detective Kit McGraw (Rhona Mitra) who is not adverse to bedding Dr. Troy and letting Troy’s longtime girlfriend Kimber (Kelly Carlson) join in the fun.
*The following is a description of the season’s episodes and contains spoilers. Some readers may want to skip this portion of the review.
Tell us what you dont like about yourself
Episode 1: Momma Boone: Sean hires a new partner, Dr. Quentin Costa (Bruno Campos) because Christian is skipping work because of his recovery from the Carver’s attack and an obese woman is fused to her couch and need immediate surgery.
Episode 2: Kiki: Kiki is a scarred gorilla that needs her face repaired so that she can mate and a gang banger wants his tattoos removed. Sean’s son Matt (John Hensley) also learns that his older former lover (Famke Janssen) used to be a man and had a sex change operation. He’s driven over the edge when he finds that his father knew and didn’t tell him.
Episode 3: Derek, Alex, and Gary: Two frat boys have their faces super-glued to the ass of another frat boy and it’s up to Christian and Quentin to separate them. Meanwhile Matt continues to deal with his crisis.
Episode 4: Rhea Reynolds: A woman hopes to have surgery to make her look younger so her Alzheimer’s afflicted husband will remember her, a Carver victim may not be a victim at all, and Sean is served with a restraining order – from Matt.
Episode 5: Granville Trapp: An AIDs patient with a hollowed face wants surgery to make him look less sick and a Carver suspect is arrested. The suspect’s name? – Dr. Christian Troy.
Episode 6: Frankenlaura: Business plummets with word of Dr. Troy’s arrest, so the clinic has to take some dirty jobs. One of them is to reconstruct the handiwork of a deranged mortuary tech who has assembled his dream girl – out of the parts of other corpses.
Episode 7: Bea White: An architect has a body image problem and wants his leg amputated. Dr. McNamara leaves the practice to be plastic surgeon for the witness protection program. Julia opens a spa and the secret ingredient in their signature face cream is sperm. Joan Rivers and Anne Heche guest star.
A victim of the Carver
Episode 8: Tommy Bolton: Sean takes in the woman and her son from the witness protection program, a boy with Down’s Syndrome wants to look like the rest of his family, and Julia and Quentin are getting closer.
Episode 9: Hannah Tedesco: A disfigured woman is given another chance, but her chance involves a risky face transplant operation and Sean is considering going into the witness protection program to be with the woman he’s helping who is already in the program.
Episode 10: Madison Berg: Christian and Kimber are busily preparing for their wedding and Matt falls under the sway of skinheads.
Episode 11: Abby Mays: The wedding does not go well and Christian says that it doesn’t bother him, but his actions say otherwise. Sean is also on edge because of Quentin’s pursuit of Julia.
Episode 12: Sal Perri: Sean, Julia, and Christian volunteer to help victims of a plane crash. Julia’s mother Erica (Vanessa Redgrave) was reportedly on the flight.
Episode 13: Joy Kringle: Mr. and Mrs. Kringle are at odds when the doctors discover she carries a calcified fetus from an affair she had years ago and Julia copes with an unplanned pregnancy.
Episode 14: Cherry Peck: Matt forms a friendship with the transsexual he beat up and Kimber is found but has been mutilated by the Carver.
Episode 15: Quentin Costa: The identity of the Carver is revealed, but the revelation leads to even more shocking details.
The Carver
Nip/Tuck has a lot going for it. Firstly, it takes place on a cable network so we can have plenty of sex and gore. The surgeries are particularly gruesome. Secondly, Season 2 and 3 have the mystery of the beauty hating Carver.
What also works is that the two main characters are so interesting and they have plenty of family and work baggage to fit into each show. Not to mention the plethora of supporting characters, including Joely Richardson’s real life mother Vanessa Redgrave and Roma Maffia also did a fine job as well as Liz Cruz.
Nip/Tuck is presented in anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1) and is enhanced for 16x9 televisions. Special features include deleted scenes from “Momma Boone”, “Derek, Alex, and Gary”, “Frankenlaura”, and “Joy Kringle.” The last disc has a pair of featurettes. The first is 10 minutes and called the “Perfect Look” and is about the visual style of Nip/Tuck.
It has interviews with production designer Liz Kay, series creator Ryan Murphy, set decorator Ellen Brill, cinematographer Christopher Baffa, producer Michael M. Robin, and construction coordinator Joe Fama. The second is the 9 minute “Chasing the Carver” and is about the titular villain. It has interviews with Robin, Murphy, producer Greer Shephard, Bruno Campos, Julian McMahon, Joely Richardson, Roma Maffia, Dylan Walsh, and Kelly Carlson.
Another special feature is that this season has two different covers (one shows the docs in an operating room and the other has the docs and Joely standing in front of the Miami skyline). You’ll have to decide which cover you want to buy.
The face transplant
I thought Nip/Tuck was a very interesting show combining interesting characters with often gruesome surgeries. The story arch of the Carver also had a sinister thread running through Season 3. I’d recommend watching Nip/Tuck, though it would be best to start with Season 1 if you’ve never seen the show before.
Nip/Tuck - The Complete Third Season is now available at Amazon and AmazonUK . Visit the DVD database for more information.
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