Nip/Tuck: Adelle Coffin (1.10)

I've never lost anybody close to me to cancer, and hopefully never will. So I went into this episode not exactly knowing what to expect. One thing I was expecting was sadness, and unsurprisingly we got a lot of that. This episode sees death hit the show like a ton of bricks, and it's unrelentingly devastating.

Megan's suicide was truly tear-inducing. The entire scene of her taking those clusters of pills was heartbreaking, especially with the use of Rocket Man on the soundtrack. The lyrics took on a whole new level of poignancy, especially as the song is all about flying away and staying away for a long time, which parallels Megan's death. I need to say that Julie Warner put in a brave, honest performance throughout her episodes, and her final appearance (at least in a living state) was extremely memorable.

The idea of the talking head was an original way to get inside Sean's psyche. It was also made extremely ironic that Adelle took her own life, and eventually got through to Sean that suicide for Megan isn't the worst thing for her. That detail makes you wonder if Sean maybe imagined reading "suicide" on her details sheet, since it would be more than a little coincidental if it was real.

I was glad Sean came clean to Julia about the affair. I felt a lot of empathy toward her, especially when she said that she can't hate a woman who died of cancer so young. It would be simple for Julia to immediately hate Megan, and hate what she did to their marriage, but taking everything into consideration, it's impossible to do that.

A moving, eventful and all-together saddening episode which again shows how unique this show is, balancing eccentric stories such as the talking head with depressing arcs like Megan's cancer. A season one classic. A+

Credits
Guest stars Jerry Hardin (Sumner Charles); Clyde Kusatsu (Dr. Hiroshi); Nan Martin (Adelle Coffin); Joey Slotnick (Dr. Merrill Bobolit); Julie Warner (Megan O'Hara); Ruth Williamson (Hedda Grubman); Steven Anderson (Doctor); Rick Kelly (Jim O'Hara); Darryl Theirse (Guard); Roma Maffia (Dr. Liz Cruz)
Teleplay Dell Chandler, Ryan Murphy Story Dell Chandler Director Michael M. Robin