It's loaded with characters that you'll grow to love, not even remotely because they're charming and perfect, but because they're deeply flawed and fragile people. You'd expect a series about two relatively young, handsome, and successful plastic surgeons to be not much more than a superficial celebration of finger-wagging and easy jokes - but I guess that's why Nip/Tuck has been praised by just about anyone who's been willing to watch more than two or three episodes this is a wonderfully written and consistently surprising semi-soap opera, one that manages to deliver deep, dark laughs and oddly heartfelt emotion at the exact same time. As you watch season two unfold, you have a few good ideas as to where the drama is headed - but Murphy's crew is crafty enough to keep a few curve-balls tucked into their back pocket. Young Matt strikes up a fairly creepy love affair with a 'life coach' played by the painfully sexy Famke Janssen tensions arise between Sean and Christian and several ancient secrets are revealed and the non-stop carousel of bizarre patients continues unabated. I'd go as far to call it one of the best seasons of television I've seen in quite a long time.įresh off a 'buzzworthy' first season and chomping at the bit to toss his characters into a whole new bunch of blenders, Murphy and his team have upped the ante quite a bit for season number two - and if the results aren't quite as impressive as the first go-round, well, let's just say if S1 was an A+ effort, then season two is a solid B+.Ī bit more acidic and reality-stretching than the first season was, collection two takes these characters into some rather outlandish settings.

The first superlative season of Nip/Tuck (which can be found on the fantastic upstart network known as F/X) laid the foundation for series creator Ryan Murphy's uniquely off-kilter look at beauty, loyalty, self-esteem, and friendship.

plus there's some unspoken history between Christian and Julia, and you just know it's all going to boil over before too long. Perhaps this explains why Christian adores Sean's wife and kids so darn much. Sean's got a rocky marriage with the confused-yet-devoted Julia, and together they have two kids: seventeen-year-old Matt and eight-year-old Annie.Ĭhristian, on the other hand, is a bona-fide ladies' man extraordinaire, a guy who beds the buxom beauties with alarming frequency, but is probably missing out on what's truly important in life. and not all of it is physical in nature.īoth pushing 40, Sean and Christian are old-time pals, which means they've been through a lot together - and also that they'll continue to infuriate and support each other in equal measure. The home base of doctors Sean McNamara and Christian Troy, this is where you'll find all sorts of routinely painful construction underway. This is where people go when they need faces fixed, tummies tucked, boobies ballooned, and egos exhumed. The setting is the tony reconstruction zone known as McNamara/Troy. It's a series about surface beauty, inner decay, the amazing healing powers we humans have, and it's almost sinfully, slickly funny. It's smart and witty and profane and brutal and honest and insightful it's packed with a phenomenal ensemble of characters that populates a fascinating backdrop indeed. These crazy, colorful, brilliantly written, cockeyed adventures of two well-intentioned (yet hopelessly flawed) plastic surgeons in Southern Florida had me from Episode Numero Uno, hook, line, and sinker.Īt risk of sounding overtly hyperbolic: Nip/Tuck is a vibrantly entertaining and decidedly grown-up series. So there I was with a whole bunch of Netflix discs, happily whizzing my way through Nip/Tuck's first season - and the damn thing practically hypnotized me. It just seemed wrong to jump into such a well-regarded show in its second season without examining the first season's foundations, premises, themes, and (most important) the characters. Rent the whole of Season 1 and watch those discs first.

When I knew I'd be reviewing the Season 2 DVD set of the widely acclaimed Nip/Tuck series, I knew what I had to do:

Nip and tuck reviews