Written by Manny Coto
Directed by Marcus Stokes
Fay (re Virginia): "She didn't deserve this."
Enid: "Can't you see? She never belonged here but you do."
It's been over twelve years since Nip/Tuck came to an end and to be perfectly honest, everything that happened in this episode could've easily made up a mini arc of sorts on the show. Welcome to the anti McNamara/Troy take on things.
Unsatisfied with ageing, in debt widow Virginia (Judith Light) finds herself being tempted by a facelift courtesy of a rival named Cassie (Cornelia Guest) who recommends her to a very mysterious plastic surgeon named Enid Perle (Rebecca Dayan). Initially Enid played hardball and refused to work on Virginia until the latter appeared at her most desperate to do whatever it took to look younger.
Needles to say, Virginia moved things around, ignored the advice of her sensible stepdaughter, Fay (Britt Lower) and went ahead with the surgery that Enid offered. Then Virginia spent the majority of the episode in bandages for both her face and hands and in a shit load of pain for added measure. Instinctively something should've told Virginia something was off with this set up but she got in deeper than ever.
Virginia got in so deep she even went to Enid's little mountain place in order to get her bandages removed and after rejecting Fay one too many times, Virginia was ultimately on her own. It turns out the not so good doctor literally turned Virginia into a pig woman and all because she was part of a group that worship beauty and a deity named Etain.
From there on in, it wasn't long before Virginia's attempts to escape were derailed by a former crush Bernie (Todd Waring) and got speared to death by everyone else in the process. Judith Light gave one hell of a performance as the desperate Virginia in spite of the character's mountain of misfortune throughout this whole episode.
As for Fay, she quickly went from being sad about her stepmother's death to embracing a life as part of the beautiful ones with a subtle glow up and a hunky would be love interest by the end of this episode. Yup, it did not take much to get Fay around that cult's way of thinking.
- This is the second episode in a row factoring a deity into the mix, though Etain is from Irish mythology.
- Maybe it's because of the premise of the episode but I was genuinely surprised we didn't get a nod of sorts to Nip/Tuck here.
- This episode was also intended to be the sixth and wasn't moved.
- Chronology: I'm assuming it's 2022 for this episode.
Facelift wasn't quite as strong as the previous episode but it was a solid enough tale with strong performances from Judith Light, Rebecca Dayan and Britt Lower and Dayan set to return to the main show, I'm hoping that Light and Lower won't be far behind.
Rating: 7 out of 10
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