''Nip/Tuck'' recap: Unsafe sex

Sadly there was no sign of Dawn Budge (Rosie O’Donnell) this week on Nip/Tuck, but I think Magda is a damn good substitute. The senior citizen was Sean and Christian’s first patient this episode, arriving with her young husband, Jeff, played by Queer as Folk‘s Robert Gant. Magda basically tore her hubby apart for how he looked and demanded he have a hair transplant on his chest and face. But the best part was when Magda took a little catnap and farted. I admit it: I’m a sucker for bathroom humor. The tragedy/irony of the whole story line, though, was that Magda ended up dumping her younger, sexier husband after some rather rough post-surgical lovemaking left him incapacitated.

More broad comedy ensued when the action returned to the set of Hearts ‘n Scalpels. Aidan (Bradley Cooper) had to pretend that he was temporarily blind. (I hadn’t really noticed before that all the nurses in the operating room wear incredibly cleavage-friendly scrubs.) And I love that Kate just blurted out to Sean, ”I’m dating a black man!” Could she have been affected by their little foray to that swingers’ party? I think so. Sean, meanwhile, landed himself an agent, Colleen Rose, played by the great Sharon Gless. Actually, she might want to start going by Sharon Glasses, because the lady is rockin’ some serious Waldo eyewear lately. What’s up with that? Anyway, Colleen managed to land Sean a serious new gig: the lead on Hearts ‘n Scalpels. After Aidan was caught on camera doing the (very, very brief) nasty with Eden, the head of the network, Barbara (Marlee Matlin, who’s having quite a little cable renaissance with this and The L Word), sent Aidan packing to rehab. Freddy (Oliver Platt) managed to slide in a nice little allusion to Grey’s Anatomy‘s own leading-man scandal: ”Too bad you’re not black — we could have kept you around till the end of the season.”

Eden had popped by the set to, well, seduce Aidan, which proved predictably easy. Do we think she was set up to do this by Colleen? Who else could have anticipated the outcome by placing a camera in Aidan’s dressing room? Speaking of Colleen, she turned out to be a wino who seemed to have signed Sean solely to sleep with him. Colleen’s definitely got some secrets. By the end of the episode, she looked to be a bit obsessed with the good doctor. Sean, meanwhile, is very quickly transforming into every bit the diva and lothario that Aidan was.

Julia’s ongoing struggle with illness seems to be causing some major strife in her relationship with Christian. She even made him take an HIV test after she decided she may have AIDS. Is she still eating Christmas fruitcakes, or is Eden poisoning her through other methods? By the way, where is Olivia during all of this? Wouldn’t she at least want to check on Julia?

Gina and Christian seemed to be getting along much better since she started working at the office. They also had probably one of the weirdest ménage à trois I have ever seen. It was basically Gina, who’s HIV positive, watching Christian and another girl have sex so that there would be no chance of her passing on the virus. But Gina did make Christian kiss her, which suggested she might still have feelings for him. Then she went in and told Julia that she and Christian were having an affair. But it appears that there won’t be any more Christian-Gina drama since the manipulative lady kicked the bucket at the end of the episode. During a rooftop rendezvous, Christian literally screwed Gina off the building. It was unclear whether he did it on purpose or it was an accident. I kinda feel it was deliberate. It sure looked that way.

What did you think? Did Christian off Gina purposely? What’s Colleen planning to do with Sean? Will Julia ever get better?