The sixth episode of the season marks the return of Julia’s mother, Erica (aka Vanessa Redgrave). In this episode, Sean is released from the mental hospital’s suicide watch after his ostensible suicide-by-drowning, only to find Erica on a mission to declare him and Julia as unfit parents and gain custody of their kids. Erica goes so low as to convince her own grandson Matt to be her witness from prison. Christian is torn over losing Kimber to Mike Hamoui’s marriage proposal and fires Mike, only to have to later eat crow and ask him back because Sean’s attention and time is focused on fighting his escalating custody battle. Then there’s Christian’s sexual encounter with trannie Alexis, a man-turned-beautiful woman whom Christian meets at a bar. Alexis asks Christian to perform her sex reversal from a woman back to a man (man to woman to man, still following?). Throw in Erica’s 20-something Italian stallion boy-toy Renaldo and it’s going to get very ugly, very fast and has only begun with Renaldo tricking Sean into punching him on tape.
But nothing is ever how it seems, and Kimber is beginning to have second thoughts about a future with overly congenial Mike and is seemingly intrigued with Christian’s casual offer of another ring. We end the episode with Kimber approaching Christian with a request for a medical procedure – getting a tattoo of Mike’s face removed from her arm. Is she falling under his spell again?
Here at Nip/Tuck, we have a slew of experts to help us make sure that all our surgeries are technically accurate. When our writers have a question, they turn to plastic surgeon Dr. Mark Urata. Since the idea of reversing a transgender procedure is incredibly complex and rare we asked Dr. Urata to elaborate a bit on what it would take to do the surgery for real.
Dr. Mark Urata
From Dr. Mark Urata: Penile reconstruction in female-to-male transsexuals is an uncommon operation typically performed by plastic surgeons in specialized centers around the world. The use of a back muscle, the latissimus dorsi as in the Alexis Stone episode is a complex and challenging reconstructive operation. The advantage of this operation is that it provides some ability to activate the muscle to form an erection for possible sexual intercourse. In that procedure, the plastic surgeon performs a “free tissue transfer” by removing a back muscle along with its overlying skin, nutrient blood vessels, and the nerve that makes the muscle contract, and moving all of that to a new location on the body.
A small amount of mucosa, the lining on the inside of the mouth is taken and placed on the inside of the back muscle tissue. This tissue is then rolled up like a burrito to form a phallus with the mucosa lined tube on the inside forming the urethra for urination. This tissue is than attached to the body, the mucosa tube is connected to the urethra for urination, the blood vessels are connected to vessels in the leg, and the nerve that controls the back muscle is connected to a nerve that usually controls an inner thigh muscle. These patients learn to voluntarily contract that leg muscle to obtain an erection.
As has been demonstrated from time to time on Nip/Tuck, plastic surgery as a specialty is more than aesthetic surgery. In fact, the word “plastic” is derived from the Greek word “ plastikos” meaning to mold or to shape. Although Christian’s reconstructive surgery of a phallus is a unususal surgical challenge, it was an example of the restoration of form and function that define plastic surgery as a profession.
They say twins begin their powerful connection as early as conception, and classical pianist Abigail Sullivan expresses a similar sentiment in regards to her twin Moira who she absorbed in utero. Most people would consider Moira a problem worth getting rid of. Clearly Abigail felt otherwise about her underdeveloped mass of a sister as she decides to re-insert Moira into her life and her body before the biggest performance of her career. Matt’s run from the law nearly comes to an end when Kimber helps Christian set a trap for Matt. Out of desperation, Matt pulls a gun on Christian and escapes, but he’s unable to run from the festering bullet wound in his stomach and calls Sean to help him out. Sean does perhaps the hardest thing imaginable as a parent and alerts the police to Matt’s whereabouts and convinces Matt to turn himself in to the army of police officers waiting for him outside his motel room. That’s all on top of Sean having to deal with the revelation that his dead wife is a serial killer. This revelation pushes Sean to his emotional breaking point and he dumps Teddy’s ashes into a garbage can at the beach, strips down naked, and heads into the water…was it to his death?
One of the trademarks of Nip/Tuck is the way in which the writing staff ties in themes so strongly to each script and story. So we decided to sit down with one of Nip/Tuck’s long-time writers, Hank Chilton. A former collegiate swimmer, veteran in the ranks of production, and married father of two (his wife is a costume designer), Hank is one of the funniest guys we know and always quick with a quip or story fix. Hank puts his pen down for a few minutes to get into more detail about how the writing staff incorporates themes and what role they play in each script.
I received several photos from Ryan Murphy’s assistant, Mary, relating to the “leech” storyline in episode 603. The two attached photos should accompany the blog posting for episode 603 titled Briggitte Reinholt. The pdf labeled 12 Leeches is a photo of episode director Dirk Craft’s wife, who posed for several photos with gummy worms/leeches so that her director husband and Ryan Murphy could decide on how many leeches to use in the episode. Here is the caption that should accompany this photo:
“Dirk’s wife, Sande (a casting director here in Tinseltown) agreed to play gummy leech guinea pig so that he could present several options to Ryan Murphy. There were variations of 4, 8, 12 and 18 leeches, 12 was deemed the magic number.”
The pdf labeled Leech 1 is a photo of the actress who portrayed patient Briggitte Reinholt with fake leeches placed on her face. The caption for this photo should read:
“Actress Lee Garlington is shown here with her 12 rubber leeches. Lee was a great sport, allowing the real leeches to be held just inches from her face during her scenes with Teddy Rowe (Rose McGowan).”
Everyone takes a hit in this episode, in one way or another, with stripper Jenny Juggs and her size G breasts leading the way. After meeting Christian during a lap dance, Jenny hesitantly decides to get a breast reduction – only to later slam Christian over the head with her very full bedpan when she feels like the only asset that made her special has been taken away by sex-crazed misogynist, Christian Troy. Sean and the kids go on an ill-fated camping trip with Teddy, who’s decided the time has come to get rid of them all and cash in on Sean’s life insurance policy. Teddy’s elaborate plan involves drugging Sean and the kids and locking them in the RV as it fills with deadly carbon monoxide. Teddy takes a walk and encounters another camper who will make a perfect alibi for her as she waits for her plan to work. But karmas a bitch and Teddy has it coming! The male camper turns out to be a serial killer as well, with plans of his own, and we can only assume Teddy dies a grizzly death as Sean, Annie, and Connor manage to escape the RV and get help for themselves.
As for Matt, his string of successful robberies has come to an end. He’s able to survive a police line-up, but pushes his luck one time too many and can’t get past a clerk with a sawed off shot gun. Matt is severely wounded from the gunshot and finds himself on Christian’s doorstep pleading for help.
In order to film Jenny’s breast reduction we had to find an actress with a normal sized chest and fit her with a breast prosthetic which could then be reduced somewhat. The enormous prosthetic chest mold currently sits in the Nip/Tuck costume department in a place of honor.
Leeches are the new black and everyone is experiencing relationship pains in this emotional rollercoaster of an episode. We meet Briggitte Reinholt, international lady of plastic surgery and devotee of hirudotherapy, aka the use of leeches for medicinal healing purposes. While handling this insect challenge, Christian is forced to confront his feelings for Kimber (and Kimber, her feelings for Mike Hamoui), Sean announces that he and Teddy eloped, and a Goth-clad Annie refuses to engage with anyone – especially her new stepmom. Meanwhile in comes patient Steve O’Brien, a transvestite hoping to have a unique yet realistic looking mask custom-created to give his face a more feminine appearance without going under the scalpel. Teddy’s mysterious past appears to be catching up with her when leech patient, Briggitte, recognizes her, albeit under a different name. Sean discovers that not only has Annie been pulling out her hair but she’s been eating it as well – leading to emergency surgery to have a giant hairball removed from Annie’s intestines. Add Christian tricking Dr. Hamoui into wearing women’s lingerie and another McNamara/Troy murder as Teddy kills the leech lady to keep her past a secret, and we wrap up episode three with a typically macabre Nip/Tuck bow.
Dirk's wife, Sande (a casting director here in Tinseltown) agreed to play gummy leech guinea pig so that he could present several options to Ryan Murphy. There were variations of 4, 8, 12 and 18 leeches, 12 was deemed the magic number.
Actress Lee Garlington is shown here with her 12 rubber leeches. Lee was a great sport, allowing the real leeches to be held just inches from her face during her scenes with Teddy Rowe (Rose McGowan)
Dirk Craft, one of our most beloved crew members who started as 1st assistant director in season 1, directed this episode (you may also remember seeing his credit for directing Kyle Ainge aka the one with the teddy bear stuffing). We sat him down in our Nip/Tuck production office to reveal how he cracked the whip on those leeches to turn in a winning and realistic performance.
Last night, we thought we were seeing an incredibly uplifting transformation of Jared McCloud, a darkly troubled teen whose parents simply want him to be “normal” again. Jared has a giant skull tattoo on the back of his shaved head to go along with some other nasty self inflicted scars and markings which don’t sit well with prim and proper mom and dad. Sadly enough, despite encouraging signs that Jared would become a productive member of society he has a sudden and dark change of heart and ends up killing himself and his parents in a murder suicide. Unfortunately, things aren’t much brighter in Sean and Christian’s world as Christian continues to fight Liz in an ugly divorce battle, while Sean attempts to convince everyone that he doesn’t have a death wish after nearly killing himself with a dangerous cocktail of booze and sleeping pills. Sean’s insomnia and dark state-of-mind leads him to an all-night diner where he meets Vivien, another darkly troubled addict who self-inflicts injuries on her body in order to score pain pills from hospitals. Naturally, Sean finds her sexy and they have a short-lived affair that ends when Sean comes to his senses. Kimber finds her way as an electrolysis technician at a salon in the Valley, but as usual she has her mind on much bigger things…literally. She decides to use what’s left of her star cache in the world of adult entertainment to create a line of sex paraphernalia. Christian realizes the financial upside of this venture and offers to be the “model” for a new vibrator. Much to Christian’s dismay, his penis mold session goes awry and to make matters worse he finds out that Mike Hamoui, his arch nemesis, turns out to a much better endowed penis model and Kimber uses Mike as the mold model instead. Ouch! Perhaps the biggest reveal comes when we see Teddy rifling through Sean’s personal records, only to come across a five million dollar life insurance policy. Watch yourself Sean…
Bonnie Weis has been a producer on nip/tuck since the very beginning. After the pilot was completed, Bonnie came aboard and has been with the show overseeing the production side for every single exciting and crazy moment. She’s had a long track record in Hollywood including helping produce our very own Ryan Murphy’s first feature “Running with Scissors.” Bonnie also happens to be one the nicest and funniest people we have on the show…naturally this made Bonnie someone we thought you might like to meet, so we tracked her down, flipped on the camera, and let Bonnie do what she does best…entertain. Have a look as she talks about some of the things that have made her experience so unique, as well as some things about the show maybe you didn’t know…
Last night brought the show back with some amazing style, despite the financial struggles taking place at McNamara/Troy. In using the “voice of authority,” a narrative device to help explain the current state of affairs in the world of Nip/Tuck, we see that just as the economy has dried up so has the client list at McNamara/Troy. The doctors need to resort to vaginal rejuvenation infomercials and the return of Dr. Mike Hamoui and his carved abs to try and drum up business. Meanwhile, Christian attempts to divorce Liz, who attempts to take Christian to the cleaners via California divorce laws.
The omniscient narrator, we all learned about that guy in high school English class right? The know-it-all explaining the thoughts, feelings, and motivations of the main characters? Our voice is no different; here is a woman (the great narrator/actress Linda Hunt) talking through the bullsh*!. And our boys Christian and Sean, they run into more of that than ever this season. From the rapidly evolving relationship dynamics of Christian and Liz, Sean and Christian, and the satellite of Julia that orbits them all, financial woes and deception threaten to change their worlds forever. Will they view their move to the Golden State as the trigger pulled on their makeshift family? Watch as season six unfolds, and try to keep up!
We’re Matt and Mary, here to give you the inside scoop on all things McNamara/Troy from our position nestled in the show’s production office. With our access to the writers, directors, cast and crew we’ll show you what goes into getting an episode made and the people who make it. We’ll be posting behind the scenes footage of our sets, interviews with our stellar staff, and general good stuff to show you life behind the camera and beyond your television screen. Pull on your gloves, tie that gown, and prepare to slice into the sutures that bind N/T here in The Scrub Room.
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