The De-Clawectomy

What is up with the return of the Nip/Tuck Season 1 guest stars? First we had Manny Ramirez – I mean drug dealer Escobar and Sean’s ex-lover Megan showing up as Sean’s conscience while he was grappling with psycho-nanny Monica. Now it’s time for the return of Plastic Surgery addict, Mrs. Grubman. You remember her? She had all sorts of entanglements with Christian, including blackmailing him into the boudoir. Even better she looks like the bastard love child of Vicki Lewis and the teacher from Teen Witch . In other news, two sad developments occur this week in terms of the recap: 1) this is the second week in a row where dirking for Christian’s gayness is all but non-existent (don’t worry, I’ll try to whip something up for those of you eager to imbibe); 2) Baby Connor is getting his lobster claw removal surgery. If it is a success does that mean I can no longer call him Sebastian?!?!?! I don’t even want to think of it… Those are actually the only two things that happen this week. Mrs. G returns with nurse Monique in tow, and Julia and Sean try to find some common ground for their son Connor’s claws. Lackluster doesn’t even begin to sum it up… The aforementioned Mama’s Family star/Mrs. Krabbappel hybrid is back in the form of Mrs. Grubman. The story with her ended with her suffering a stroke or some such nonsense, and becoming a total recluse. Christian hasn’t seen her in years, but here she is with sassy pants McGee Monique as her nurse. Oh Monique will your cutting barbs never cease!?!? Remember when Monique was held up at the airport for carrying a hair dryer? That was the most random celebrity news of last year, I think. And boy does these two how a colorfully dysfunctional relationship! Monique calls Mrs. Grubman: “Driving Miss Crazy; Mrs. Grubman calls Monique: “Star Jones.” Umnata calls them Rosario and Karen Walker.

So now that Mrs. G.’s (no, not Mrs. Garrett) ready to get back into society, she wanted Christian to perform a few surgeries on her to spruce her up. Alas, there is no time for a party, as she has Stage 4 lung cancer. Downgrade. This doesn’t mean she wants to cancel the surgeries, she just wants them speeded up. Christian refuses, considering her delicate condition, so Mrs. Grubman asks for the surgeries after she dies. She’ll be the best looking corpse around! Well, second best looking corpse. That honor belongs to Mike Delfino on Desperate Housewives (look at me cross promoting my recaps!). Christian can’t be bothered by these nutty requests. He’s a surgeon, a whore and an asshole, NOT an undertaker.

At the McNamara’s Julia is breast feeding little Sebastian, not minding the little pinches that his claws inevitable cause on her boobie. In walks Marlow who dramatically says that Motherhood becomes Julia. I think Marlow’s right. Motherhood does become Julia. It’s parenthood she doesn’t wear too well.

Sean had been working late on procedures for Sebastian. Turning a claw into a hand is no easy task. Julia, however, is getting frustrated because Sean is thinking too much like a surgeon and not enough like a husband or father. Julia can’t ask the questions she wants, like how will he heal? Or what do we do with all the rubber bands that we’ve been using to keep his claws from getting loose? You know the usual concerns. Sean is too preoccupied with having his head up his ass, that he doesn’t even realize that talking to his wife about baby cadavers he’s practicing on might upset her. Baby cadavers, huh? What parent donates their baby’s dead body to science? Maybe that’s what Madonna does with the kids that don’t work out…

Now this is going to come as a shock. But there seems to be a hidden reason as to why Sean is so intent on de-clawing his son. I know, I know! It’s quite a surprise. Insert Flashback to Sean as a child. We see the back of a kid’s head in some middle class home as Sean’s parents are arguing over money and letting their son play baseball even though the kid will be made fun of. Alright, something’s wrong with Sean’s face, and the mother wants to fix it but the dad doesn’t, because they don’t have the money. WHAT IS WRONG WITH HIM!?!?! As Mini-Sean turns around, his face is covered with a baseball mitt, a la Austin Powers and his man parts in the movies. LAME.

The next beat involves Sean taking Annie and Sebastian to the diner for breakfast. I’ve got to say that I’m mondo disappointed that the evil Annie that I (and I believe, only I) saw in the first few episodes has disappeared. But come on, doll mutilation? Creepy. Trouble starts when some fat, Ginger kid (please see the hysterical South Park episode if that Ginger reference doesn’t make sense)makes fun of Sebastian’s claws. Sean goes crazy and starts calling Ginger out on his pig nose or chubby cheeks. Sean then calls the kid an asshole and when the Ginger’s father tries to defend his son, Sean punches the dad and calls him an asshole as well. Umm looks like you’re the asshole, Seano.

Over at Mrs. Grub’s mansion, she’s refusing to eat, not realizing that anorexia is only cool, when you are a semi-famous starlet. She thinks that if she just starves herself she won’t need the liposuction that Christian is refusing her. Pumpkin, you can eat whatever you want; Cancer is nature’s laxative. Before Christian goes in to confront Mrs. Grubman, Roasrio, I mean Monique, I mean Yvetta, begs Christian: “Don’t let her die.” After all, Monique needs this gig – Phat Girlz was a bomb, after all. This all leads me to wonder if any movie with a Z in it has ever been a hit (the answer is yes and no – on imdb there are over 350 movies that have grossed $100 mil domestically, only a handful have a Z in them – being a nerd rocks!).

Christian enters the bedroom, and Mrs. Grubman alludes to their aborted tryst from years ago (Christian was ready to lay the pipe for Mrs. G, but she, thankfully, started crying and just wanted to be held). Mrs. Grubman is doing the same thing in her bedroom, that I do every time I get stuck on the subway: She’s planning her funeral. Where my tasteful send off, involves The Flaming Lips song, “Waiting for A Superman” and my best friend Carla leaping on my coffin, Mrs. G’s has a seating chart and a roster of speakers that sounds like a Republican National Convention guest list (common denominator of both: the appearance of Satan). Christian is going out on a limb here, but he thinks that Mrs. G. may be giving up on life. Ehh, she’s lived a pretty good life, with only two regrets: 1) she didn’t sleep with Christian when she had the chance (barf) and 2) she never sang at the Rainbow Room. It seems that before that whore Dionne Warwick got her claws into Burt Bacharach it was our beloved Mrs. G. who was supposed to be Burt’s lady. It all comes down to these two facts: Mrs. G. is lonely and I don’t care. Christian then makes a deal with her: if she eats some soup today, he’ll give her some Botox tomorrow. Oh now we get reintroduced to sensitive, nice Christian? Blow me, dude (he totally would: DRINK!). No seriously, giving this old, crazy hag some soup doesn’t erase the memories of the past few episodes, especially your deuche-tastic treatment of Kimber last week. The scene ends with Mrs. G saying: “I love you, ya know.” At least someone does Mrs. G.

Julia has just found out about Sean’s little episode at the Diner, and now the attacked Mr. Thompson wants to sue the McNamara’s for being super annoying. Sean’s response to this is both mature and well thought: “Let him sue me, sick asshole.” Julia wants to know what all this intensity is about? Sean says he had to do something about them making fun of Sebastien. I guess punching the guy was better than the next step in the Sean Overreaction Handbook: Disembowelment. Julia wants Sean to apologize to Mr. Thompson (“When I step on your foot and squeeze your hand and say ‘Hello, Mr. Thompson’ you say hello.” – Best. Simpsons Episode. Ever.). Sean thinks that his hot temper and lack of rational judgment means that the best decision he can make right now is to move up Sebastian’s de-clawectomy.

Sean heads over to the baseball game that the Ginger who was mocking Sebastian is at. This leads to another flashback which is really just another reminder that Lost is still 23 hours away. Sean is just a wee lad, and wants to sign up for little league, instead of playing on the field alone with his father. Sean’s dad tells him no because the other kids will laugh at him. He’ll ride the bench, play right field and be put in the back of the team photo. But isn’t that what Little League is all about? I mean, seriously, isn’t it just a pre-adolescent preparation for frat or office hazing later in life?

Back at the Ginger’s game, Sean meets up with Mr. Thompson, who isn’t budging on the lawsuit. Sean swallows his massive pride and apologizes for erupting. Mr. Thompson is angry and embarrassed that Sean humiliated him in front of his son, causing him to have to do some actual parenting, explaining that Sean was wrong, the Ginger was wrong and Mr. Thompson was wrong. Ugh. Parenting is hard. Once things seem a little more settled Mr. Thompson starts talking about Ginger’s double play last night, which won the team the game. Sean muses that every kid should have a moment like that. That moment, is all he wants for Connor. Well, if it makes it any easier, Connor may never have a moment like that, but he does because the foremost Musical Conductor in all of King Triton’s kingdom. That’s got to count for something…

Julia, Sean, Christian and some specialist Doctor whose name I didn’t catch, are discussing the surgery overview, but Julia is confused. Luckily for her, Marlow enters the meeting, causing Sean to get angry and Christian to arch his newly threaded eyebrows (what the hell: DRINK). He starts asking the hard hitting questions about complications and pain. I say let the kid suffer through all the complications and pain he can now, as whatever it is, it will be nothing in comparison to the hardships he will face growing up in the McNamara house. Or Under the Sea. The most horrifying aspect of the procedure is the part when Sean is going to turn the “suggestion of a digit” into a real thumb, using screws and I think, magic. Marlow thinks that this will put poor Conner through a lot of pain and since he can most closely relate to Conner (they are about the same size), his suggestions should be taken seriously. For example, Marlow has been reading up some tests that have been done on adults who have had major, invasive surgeries as infants and it has been found that many of the adults remember, quite vividly, the pain they felt as children. Sean dismissed this is Munchkin mumbo jumbo! A doctor’s office is no place to talk about “speculation” and “pain”. Julia storms off, since she takes everything that spews from Marlow’s lips as pure fact.

Mrs. G. and Yvetta head to McNamara/Troy for the promised Botox shot, since Mrs. G. is eating again. This week’s angelic Christian offers Yvetta some Lypo for her troubles, but she says HELLLLLLL NAAAWWW. Yvetta loves every pound of herself, she doesn’t need any Lypo. Jeez, that’s a lot of love. Once she leaves the office, Christian goes for the Botox and when he turns around Mrs. G is dead.

Marlow walks in on Julia reading, which prompts her to start reading the passage from Afraid & Cry, a loud, very poorly. She sounds like she’s not quite hooked on Phonics. Whatever happened to hooked on Phonics? Did everyone learn to read? She’s telling Marlow about a memory from a 7 month old who remembers many details of his surgery vividly. She wants to convince Sean to postpone the surgery. Marlow then announces he’s leaving his Manny post, to presumably go work for a celebrity, since Manny’s are currently all the rage thanks to Brit Brit. Julia is freaked out; she doesn’t think she can survive without Marlow. The little guy just thinks he’s been a disruptive influence in the household. But Julia needs Marlow. He doesn’t agree, saying that Julia’s powerful. The bottom line is that the thought of Sebastian waking up tomorrow and not seeing Marlow is totally f-ed up to Julia. Naturally, the two of them start making out. For those of you wondering, she’s sitting on the couch and he’s standing up, so everything lines up. It seems that was the disrputive influence Marlow was mentioning earlier.

Christian is giving the D-E-A-D Mrs. Grubman the full surgical treatment, so he’s even washing his hands before the taxidermy. This leads to Christian getting all psych-babble reflective on how Mrs. G. totally missed her life and that he wishes he could’ve contributed a little more to it. This somehow turns into a chat (yawn) about Sebastian’s surgery and I thank God for my DVR fast forward button.

As I’m zooming right along the surgery, I stop because I see Burt Bacharach. Yuppers, he’s playing piano and the dead Mrs. G. is singing. Wow. Pretty bad. I mean, she’s good, but the whole concept is pretty bad.

At home, Sean pulls out his memory box and finds his Little League mitt. It seems as though, his mom let him join the baseball team, and it’s not clear how awful (if at all) the children were to Mini-Sean. We also get to see his deformity, which I don’t entirely get. It’s kind of like a severe dog bite, because Sean basically doesn’t have an upper lip and there’s a huge scar all the way up to his nose.

The best (and by best I mean, oh sweet God in heaven, worst) part is that he never told Julia about any of this. Sean’s mother got the surgery done on Sean behind his father’s back. That is why Sean’s dad left! A mystery solved! Wait, is something only a mystery if anyone gives a shit? Like if a tree falls on Rush Limbaugh in the Forrest, and no one’s around, does anyone care? No, that’s not it, but you get what I’m saying. Who cares about Sean’s contrived and wildly convenient disfigurement or why his dad left? I’ll do you one better and ask, who cares about Sean?

Julia, shockingly, isn’t at all angry with Sean for keeping this from her. I was really expecting something along the lines of: “I don’t even know you!” But nothing out of her, not a peep. Sean really wanted to put that pathetic kid behind him. I’m sorry; did I miss something in the flashbacks? Mini-Sean didn’t seem all that pathetic; in fact he seemed pretty well-adjusted for someone with a facial deformity. Julia argues that the “pathetic little boy” is why Sean’s a Plastic Surgeon. Sean agrees, but he just couldn’t let her see him as that pathetic, ugly kid. But she fell in love with that little kid, which makes Julia a pedophile.

At Mrs. G’s funeral, Christian and Yvetta are the only ones in attendance. It’s supposed to be sad, but just kind of comes off as unlikely. I mean, no one showed up? I can even understand the daughter not coming because Mrs. G. chose vanity over family. But none of the posh uppercrusties that Mrs. G. was inviting? Come on…

Mrs. G. screwed Yvetta in her will, so she’s cashing in a favor and will see Christian next week for some free Lypo. It seems that Monique fell out of love with one of her hemispheres. Christian can afford the extra pro bono work, because Mrs. G. left all her money to him and the practice.

And for one shining second I think they are going to spare us the overwrought, overly dramatic eulogy. I’m half right. Christian gets up to the podium and starts to read his eulogy to no one, but stops midway. YESSSS. AS he leaves though, he gets overcome with “feelings” and starts screaming at the corpse, He’s going to tell the truth! Let it out Christian! Mrs. G. was obsessed with looks and plastic surgery and it cost her everything! But Christian knows, deep inside, she meant well. Wait. Are you talking about Mrs. Grubman? Or yourself!?!?! Christian is crying and then makes out with the corpse. Oh there’s a new rule. Not only do we drink when it’s hinted that Christian is gay, but also when it’s hinted that he might be a Necrophiliac: DRINK!

Finally, Connor is going in for his surgery and maybe we can finally stop talking about it. Funny that the surgery is at Mc/Troy and not at, say, a real hospital? We Flashback to Sean’s no lip surgery just as he cracks Sebastian’s claw. It has to be said that the surgery is hysterical, as the baby gets drilled, sawed and screwed (literally).

Julia is in the waiting room and Marlow comes in. I know Marlow is a midget and all, but he can totally do better. As a matter of fact, he’s already said that he’s knee deep – well I guess in his case that’s not overly impressive, so let’s say chest deep – in pootang. Why Julia?

One last flashback as we see Sean’s dad freaking out by his normal lip after his surgery. Err, why? Oh yeah, symbolism. Sean’s dad couldn’t cope with the loss of control over his family when Sean’s mother went behind his back to get the surgery on Sean. What you don’t buy it? Yeah, me neither. But Sean’s twice the dad that his father was, as he is holding post-surgical Conner in his arms clutching his one remaining claw.

Come on with this nonsense already. Can you say: Season low?