Why You Should Watch Nip/Tuck

Can I just say that I love Nip/Tuck! Nip/Tuck pushes the boundaries and really makes you think about issues from a different angle than you normally would. Within the first ten minutes of the show, you have Christian Troy having a threesome with a Mother/Daughter tag team, and Sean attempting to have sex with his pregnant wife Julia. And if you watch Nip/Tuck they leave little to the imagination. I am constantly surprised that those scenes get pass the censors.

Besides all the gratuitous sex scenes, the show really does tackle the psyche of the average American person. The underlying theme of the show is the need to alter oneself to become more beautiful to fit in with what society deems to be the ideal. While Christian embraces that lifestyle, you can tell that while Sean loves what he does he also loathes himself for caving into society’s pressures and demands. In this episode he mentions how 70% of their business is doing breast implants and liposuctions and only 30% is reconstructive surgery. He tells Christian that in the next few years he wants to flip those percentages, while Christian’s response is “I like doing tit jobs.” So typical, and that’s what I love about it. I love the contrasting dynamics between Sean and Christian.

Which brings me to my next point. I believe the main theme of the show is the need to feel connected to someone. Christian fucks a new woman (sometimes two at a time) on practically every episode and yet he’s not happy. He knows he lacks that connection, that intimacy with another person, but is unwilling to open himself up to trust someone. He witnesses Sean and his daughter rehearsing a scene from her play, and is so deeply unsettled by it. He seeks a therapist and describes his feelings of being alone and how he doesn’t have what Sean has. Sean, on the other hand, has a family, has a wife, and still he is searching for that connection with another person. He finds out that Julia withheld information about their unborn child and feels betrayed by Julia and loses his trust in her. He feels so detached from her that he calls the phone sex lady that he operated on earlier. Constantly this show looks at relationships and how they define us and make us who we are.

And the biggest relationship on this show is between Sean and Christian. As Christian is talking to his therapist, he begins to explain how significant his relationship with Sean is. He relates that with Sean there is no pretending, he doesn’t have to massage Sean’s ego, he trusts and leans on Sean. And she explains that Christian already has an intimate relationship in his life and it’s with Sean. That is the reason he treats women like shit because he already has that bond with someone. Of course Christian is now afraid that he is gay and secretly in love with Sean, but I don’t believe that for a second. I just think he truly loves Sean as any best friend would. They’ve known each other for years, Sean knows him in and out, and Christian can’t really say that about a lot of people. It will be interesting to see where Nip/Tuck is going to take this storyline, and I can’t wait to watch it.