The Season Four premiere critiqued Landau’s connection of social power with big balls, and yet it also suggested that such critique is immaterial. This resolution is indicative of the routine tension in nip/tuck it’s never clear whether the show is critique or confirmation of the narcissism it diagnoses. They also believe that masculine identity is intimately related to those two dangling glands and so, went ahead with the surgery. As Landau noted, “It takes balls” to make the quick decisions necessary in his line of work (venture capital investment, or whatever it’s called).Ĭhristian and Sean were a little hesitant at first, but only at first and only a little. Landau embodies, quite literally, masculinist presumptions of social power and privilege. Previously proud of the size of his balls, he had, up to this point in his life, equated his success as a businessman and lover with his testicular largeness. A prostate cancer survivor, Landau was unhappy with the size of his prosthetic testicles, and asked the doctors to replace them with “Kiwi-sized” models. In the Season Four premiere Christian and Sean met with a new client, Burt Landau (Larry Hagman).
Through these various clients’ histories and desires, the series also inquires into current arrangements of social power. The doctors’ first query of each patient - “Tell me what you don’t like about yourself” - lays out the ground not only for that character’s mini-trajectory, but also frames the conditioned fear and frustration that fuel a global beauty industry. The folks who walk through the doors of the cosmetic surgery clinic represent a wide spectrum of anxieties about the body, beauty, desirability, and social acceptance. The goings-on on nip/tuck are often melodramatic, but the episodic storylines that detail the clientele of MacNamara/Troy keep it from slipping into low-rent nighttime soap opera territory. Worse, Julia lied to Sean through omission in order to protect her selfish desires for another baby (he has since admitted he would have wanted to abort). The unborn baby boy has tested positively for electrodactyly, or “lobster claw syndrome.” When informed of the possibility, she chose to keep the baby. Last year she became pregnant with another of Sean’s progeny. The other type of mother, duplicitous, was introduced via Julia. It’s a little troubling that the implication here is that overbearing mother figures determine (or perhaps confirm) their surrogate son’s gayness. When they drove Christian into a tizzy, he decided that his condo’s perfectly appointed decor was too femme, and hired a designer to “butch it up.” The result, hardly surprising, was a stylized masculinity that makes the interior read way gayer than before. Mommy Jill and the doctor formed the ferocious mother-type, in essence an authoritative, mouthy, castrating machine. The premiere episode introduced Christian’s unnamed analyst (Brooke Shields), who challenged his masculine sense of self and suggested his problems with intimacy might be repressed homo desires. And a sharp tone seemed set as well, when Christian’s incapacity for verbal intimacy surfaced, as it always does: “What?” asked Jill, “Our tongues are good enough for your asshole, but not your mouth?” If nip/tuck‘s last season concerned the failures of fatherhood (both Christian’s own dysfunctional family history, and his and Sean’s failures with Matt), this season looks to be all about mothers, both ferocious and duplicitous. Then again, the mother-daughter dynamic seemed to set the stage for the coming season’s thematic focus. Troy has previously engaged in a nearly exhaustive catalog of sexual acts, but this one felt like this was a desperate attempt to keep his escapades “fresh,” or at least different from last year’s. But there was something a little bit too-too about this mother-daughter thing. The show has for, for three seasons, notoriously and successfully banked on such sexual audaciousness. Gratuitous shots of Julian McMahon’s admittedly shapely ass abounded. We saw Christian shortly after, back at his condo, having picked up a mother-daughter pair (Tracy Scoggins as mom Jill and Brianne Davis as daughter Riley) in a bar, sport fucking the both of them while they take turns watching. But nip/tuck‘s resident Lothario has never been short on the smarm. Christian demurred, saying the only way he wanted to celebrate was “with a big slice of hair pie.”
Dedicated family man Sean asked Christian back to his house for dinner with wifey Julia (Joely Richardson) and kids Matt (John Hensley) and Annie (Kelsey Batelaan).
Having just completed their 5,000th cosmetic surgery, Christian (Julian McMahon) and Sean (Dylan Walsh) had reason to celebrate. In typical nip/tuck shock/schlock fashion, Season Four began with a bang.