Nip/Tuck Season 4 Observations/Predictions

As always, I've been loyally following Nip/Tuck through it's fourth season. I'm amazed that the show has maintained the same shock quality and high quality drama throughout four seasons. It's a truly fantastic show and surprisingly, I'm not alone in this assessment. That being said, here are my predictions for this season and what I think of season four so far.

I. The Coming Storm

Sean's last line of Tuesday's episode was a harbinger if I've ever heard one: [referring to a mural of the Garden of Eden] "The calm before they fell from paradise." I think we all know that some shit is about to go down. First, it's pretty damn obvious that Julia will discover that Sean cheated on her with the potential night nurse. I'm guessing that Sean will let it slip in a moment of his perpetual honesty, but there's a good chance that the crazy chick could show up on her own. It's also possible that Christian will let it slip, after all he did proclaim in the operating room that Sean "Porked her." In any event, the McNamara family is about to be split again.

Furthermore, I think the practice of McNamara/Troy is going to be seriously jeopardized this season. Michelle Landau is unstable, and she's being blackmailed. Someone will get fired, or the practice will be split in some fashion. There's a possibility that Christian will join forces with the new doctor on the block (played by A.C. Slater). I would be surprised if Christian gave in for too long to the blackmailing advertised on the previews for next week. Afterall, he has nothing to lose.

I'm also predicting serious problems with the new baby: Conor McNamara. He already has a birth defect and the show would lack drama if he didn't develop complications. Something tells me that it will be a pain in the ass to write the baby into the script much longer than a season, so I am predicting a late-season death. An interesting alternative that I've batted around in my head, is to have Conor kidnapped by the midget male nurse.

II. Matt Becomes Even More Fucked Up

Scientology!? Come on. This is asinine. Matt goes off his antidepressants to worship the good lord Xenu. And who is his partner in this spiritual enlightenment? Kimber Henry. We all know that Kimber is one crazy woman and the more time Matt spends with her, the more time they'll have to screw each other up. Or just screw each other. That's another event I think is inevitable, and I think it'll happen within three episodes. Both Sean and Christian will go apeshit and Matt will go off the deep end. On that note, which main or recurring male character has Kimber NOT done? I count: Christian, Sean, Quentin, Bobolit, and possibly Matt.

III. Liz Cruz Gets Her Kidney Stolen

This is an interesting plotline based off a popular urban legend. Christian takes Liz to a lesbian bar to "tutor" her in the ways of douchebaggery, and she ends up going home with a "ten." That "ten" drugs her and facilitates a surgical theft of her kidney. Hmm...I sense another Carver-type plot that will thread through most of the season. My guess on the culprit: Merrill Bobolit. Merrill was actually my initial first choice for the carver, but the producers made (in my opinion) a rather poor choice in making the carver Quentin Costa. Merrill is probably back on "the tank" and performing organ theft for nitrous oxide. I'm certain that the thief is someone we all know, and the medical skill it took to perform this procedure, coupled with the convenient fact that Merrill was never killed or apprehended makes him the prime suspect.

IV. The Dream Sequences Continue

One of the reasons I love Nip/Tuck is because of the trippy dream sequences throughout the show. Last episode, as Sean contemplated cheating again (after eating a marijuana-laced brownie), there was an angel-devel scene, where the devel, played by a hallucinated Escobar Gallado encouraged Sean to fuck the girl, while the angel, played by the dead, but frequently recurring character Megan O'Hara, encouraged the moral action. Megan won out, but I would love to see more of Escobar Gallardo. For those that don't remember, he was the drug lord that plagued the doctors in Season one, before they gave him plastic surgery to resemble someone on the FBI's Most Wanted list and he was apprehended. What I think would make a FANTASTIC plot line would be to have Sean keep hallucinating about Gallardo, then have him appear for real one day, escaped from prison. He was a compelling character and was excellent in season one. Plus, we all like to see the good guys vanquish the same bad guys now and again. I think that's why the producers kept Kit and Quentin free and alive...they'll pop up again at the end of next season, or possibly season six.

V. Loose Ends

One major problem that the show hasn't touched on is what the hell happened to Ariel Alderman? Season Three ended after she helped her dad torture her boyfriend Matt, and then making him choose between cutting off his or another guy's dick. Then they took down Ariel's dad, shot him in the stomach, and left him to die. Boy that is going to be AWKWARD when Matt runs into her at high school.

I also see problems with Annie starting to emerge. Matt will eventually get to a point where he's too messed up to be realistic, and the reigns will pass to Annie. She'll start small this season, then get into serious trouble in the coming years. I imagine it will be difficult when Julia tells her that her true father was a Tyrannasaurus Rex (Just kidding).

Finally, there's the troubling undertone of Christian possibly being gay for Sean. I think this is a poor plot line and would wreck any chance for normal relations on the show, much like it would have been disastrous for Christian to sleep with Julia again. Plus, with Christian nailing women at a rate that rivals Will Chamberlain, that would be a sudden, painful shift of events that I don't think the show could survive. And for the love of god, stop showing Christian's ass on the show! Yes, we get it, Nip/Tuck is on the edge of cable television, but just go back to proving it by doing drugs and saying "shit."