Dirty Sexy Money: The Organ Donor (2.10)

The show lost a huge amount of momentum by skipping over the aftermath of the shooting. Even worse was the bizarre decision to kill Carmelita, a character who could have been explored further. What made this decision even more contrived was that it was the second time in, what, a couple of months that Patrick lost somebody close to him. And while Patrick did express some rage over her murder, it was pretty underwhelming considering how much he loved her. This is a guy who risked his entire political career to be with somebody 'controversial', and her murder is treated so casually. He didn't even seem broken up about it. This particular plot development was a major disservice to both the characters themselves, and the great discovery that was Candis Cayne.

Elsewhere, the episode wasn't a complete abortion. While it did feel slightly jarring to witness the sudden unearthing of the long-thought-abandoned story of Dutch George, I appreciated that it was at least put back on the table again. The possibility that he's alive seems like a stretch, but isn't totally improbable with the show in 'crazed soap' mode nowadays.

Natalie Zea appears to have had a resurgence as an actress since Karen was dumped by Simon, once again so effortless and funny in her performance here. She, unfortunately, was still trapped in an asinine story, with Nick abandoning his daughter and then painting Lisa as the irrational shrew when she discovered that Kiki had been dumped with Karen all weekend. Lord, Nick is awful.

There were some elements here which were particularly fun, too. I liked Jeremy faking his amnesia (because it was both in character and it meant the show wasn't exploring such groan-worthy storylines), as well as Tripp's final confrontation with Nick in which he told him that he didn't kill Dutch. That moment reminded me a lot of season one, with Tripp admitting that while there are times when he wished he had killed him after discovering his betrayal, he never could go through with something like that. The series still needs to strike that difficult balance between trash and humanity, but parts of The Organ Donor did achieve it. C

Credits
Guest stars Candis Cayne (Carmelita Rainer); Sheryl Lee (Andrea Smithson); Scott Holroyd (Chase Alexander); Ty Treadway (Pete Bradley); Amy Stewart (Janine Alexander); Richard McGonagle (Bishop Bascombe); Bruce Nozick (Larry Brackman); Darcy Rose Byrnes (Kiki George); Roxana Brusso (Maria); Rafael J. Noble (Judge Firestone); Hannah Leigh Dworkin (Jillian Alexander)
Writer Sallie Patrick Director Michael Grossman