Nip/Tuck: Season 1, Episode 3: Nanette Babcock Review

Nanette Babcock

Original Airdate: August 5, 2003

Writer: Ryan Murphy

Director: Lawrence Trilling

What do you do when you can’t equal what society deems as beauty? The media exerts so much pressure on everyone, especially women, to look a certain way. They need to be thin, have big boobs and little body fat to be good-looking. Few women fit that mold. It is particularly rough for someone like Nanette to live with a mental illness, and to have a negative body image. Add the constant criticism and the result is deadly. It is her obsession, as we saw with the model collage lining one of her apartment walls.

I feel bad for Lindsay Hollister, who played the titular character. In her previous roles I've seen, she has always played someone whose weight was an overwhelming part of her character. She’s not the only heavy actor to be typecast as “the fat one”. While I'm sure they’re well paid for their performances, it must hurt sometimes only to be cast in roles because of some aspect of yourself like your height, weight, etc. Although on Nip/Tuck, being fat is an important part of her character because appearance is a major theme of this show.

Grace’s intervention didn’t help; Nanette became even more frustrated since Grace is what Nanette wants; beautiful and thin. Prior to this episode, her appearance has been dealt only through Sean’s crush, but this is far more disturbing. The doctor handled it well even as Nanette became further upset and started pointing her knife threateningly when she talked. She must’ve dealt with numerous violent patients in her work.

Because of her behavior, Nanette is the suspect in vandalizing Christian’s car. Nanette denies it, and it only furthers her hostility. Whoever did it (we’ll learn later) clearly has severe emotional problems and places the blame on Christian. While it could’ve been easy to have Nanette be responsible, they make it more complicated by having the culprit be unknown.

From their meeting there is tension between Christian and Dr. Santiago because she replaced Dr. Pembleton without him knowing. He also sees this as hypocritical since Sean chides Christian for his womanizing while and then hires a woman because he is attracted to her. Later we’ll see a lot more tension between the two as Grace learns about Christian’s lifestyle.

“Pilot” served as a prologue to Mrs. Grubman and this episode thoroughly explores her role in their world. Using “Blue Danube” with the slow motion shots of her surgery show this isn’t an ordinary patient. Mrs. Grubman has a lot in common with Nanette; both women are desperately trying to achieve beauty and seek help through surgery. Only Mrs. Grubman’s frequent visits have helped propel Troy/McNamara to success and she hasn’t shown violent tendencies. However, Christian referred to her as the “Crypt Keeper” and to her neck skin as a “waddle”. While they appreciate her business, they resent her entitlement attitude. The part of her that thinks it’s OK to schedule surgery with the receptionist instead of them.

She can be tender as we saw when Christian and she were alone. Inside she is insecure following her husband’s death. However, in public she is callous, behaving rudely to the airport security (karma hurts sometimes), emphasizing how much Troy/McNamara needs her (even though she needs them more) and threatening them with a $10 million malpractice suit. This puts them in a difficult situation like in the pilot, but to another extreme. Their lives aren’t at risk, but their livelihood is. They don’t want to deal with her any more than with the drug dealers. Everything they’ve worked for is put into jeopardy by this.

Julia has decided to return to school. A character finally decides to commit to making a change in her life. This will influence most of this season. Although they won’t nearly be as content as they appear to be. There are still communication problems, such as Julia not telling her husband she killed Frisky.

Sean has made improvement trying to talk to Matt. After his impromptu “surgery”, Sean had to face that communication was worse than he thought. He did slip a little by saying that Matt should come to him for advice about the clitoris, but he helped a lot. Matt feels like he has gotten away with it, even when Sean reminds him he’s only doing it to correct what Matt did. By the end Matt lies and doesn’t tell his dad about his discovery of Vanessa’s secret. We know they are further from the ideal father-son bond than they thought.

As his circumcision storyline ends, so begins Matt’s arc, which relies largely on his awakening sexuality. It’s only hinted at briefly this episode as he catches Vanessa kissing another girl, but this twist will be integral to his character development this season.

This episode is the first disturbing portrayal of those who will go too far to look what society deems as beautiful, especially the toll it takes on those with enough problems as it is. The opening segment with the Michael Jackson impersonator was a good piece of comic relief before Nanette’s tragic story. They make you believe that she might be willing to help herself. Her suicide is a shock, but expected simultaneously. This episode holds well, but its weakness simply is that it isn’t what is coming.

Score: 8/10