Nip/Tuck: Escobar Gallardo (1.13)

A near-perfect season finale, which brings together all the tension and craziness of the previous episodes and produces a great final hour. It also creates a lot of storyline opportunity for season two, including most importantly the issue of Matt's paternity, which Julia is still keeping quiet about before the credits roll.

Escobar Gallardo continued to be a terrifying bad guy, and it was great to see him get caught by the authorities in the end. While the whole "new face ending up being one of a wanted criminal" twist ending was a little ridiculous, I was just glad that he was locked up. It wasn't fun seeing what he was doing to Sean's character, making him a complete loose cannon willing to shoot and kill him in order to get him out of the way. But at least that inadvertently did end up saving the day, since I'm sure Gallardo would have continued being the evil puppet master behind McNamara/Troy for as long as possible.

Meanwhile, Gina went into labor, and ended up giving birth to a bi-racial baby. So obviously not Christian's. While in the long term it would clearly be wrong to completely humanize Christian, there's a part of me that was kinda disappointed that Christian wasn't the baby-daddy. You could really see the look of disappointment on his face after learning of Gina's "black-out sex", especially as he'd grown so much as a person since he discovered her pregnancy.

It was great to see Kimber again, even though she's turned into a huge coke fiend since her last appearance. And while it's sad in theory, you can't help but laugh when Bobolit's empire crumbles around him. He was always a complete jerk, so it's kinda neat to see him end up a failure, all because of that damn show dog.

While most shows usually produce a mixed bag of episodes during their first seasons, Nip/Tuck never really faltered in its opening year. It didn't take long for the show to find its footing, and produced some of quirkiest, disturbed, convoluted and ultimately endearing characters on TV. Roll on season two! A

Credits
Guest stars Kelly Carlson (Kimber Henry); Jessalyn Gilsig (Gina Russo); Robert LaSardo (Escobar Gallardo); Joey Slotnick (Dr. Merrill Bobolit); Daniel Zacapa (Pepe); Ian Abercrombie (Cyril Parks); Kelsey Lynn Batelaan (Annie McNamara); Ivonne Coll (Genetics Lab Receptionist); Ricki Lopez (Armand Otiz/Jorge Barco); Gay Thomas-Wilson (Debbie); Tom Virtue (FBI Agent); Roma Maffia (Dr. Liz Cruz)
Writer Ryan Murphy Director Ryan Murphy