Character page for Nip/Tuck.
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Main characters
Sean McNamara
Sean McNamara
Played by: Dylan Walsh
- Bungled Suicide: Sean in Season 6, even though he claims he just "swam out too far."
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: Sean and Christian have been best friends and colleagues since college, and Christian is godfather to Sean's children. The show does actually explore the possibility of Christian having repressed homosexual feelings for Sean when he starts having dreams about them being lovers, but they both conclude it doesn't really mean anything.
- Mall Santa: A drunken Sean dons the Santa outfit. He even gets a blow job from one of the helper elves. Ho ho ho!
- The Masochism Tango: Sean and Julia McNamara. The are so ungodly ill-suited for each other from the moment they appear onscreen that any other two people in the universe would have come to their senses and cut ties years ago: they tend to split up and recombine a minimum of once per season, swearing every time they do either one that this time, it's going to stick. It never does, and one wonders if even the writers can put up with their whining for much longer. At the end of the series, they do split up for good, with Julia moving overseas with Annie and Conor.
- Soap Within a Show: the show Sean co-starred in during season five, named "Hearts 'n Scalpels."
- Took a Level in Badass: In the Season 1 finale, when he found the balls to point a gun at (and almost kill) Escobar Gallardo.
Christian Troy
Christian Troy
Played by: Julian McMahon
- Aesop Amnesia: Christian consistently "learning" not to be a selfish, coldhearted monster and immediately forgetting all about his lesson by the time the next episode rolls around, even though it always appeared he had made amends to start a new life the week (or season) before.
- All Just a Dream: Christian's "funeral" in Season 3.
- Awkwardly Gay Dream: The fourth season: Christian is having explicitly homosexual dreams about Sean, and later goes to therapy, where his therapist believes that the dreams are expressing his repressed sexual feelings for Sean. Sean, meanwhile, doesn't think anything of the dreams, is not freaked out (which is good, considering this is Sean we're talking about), and stays friends with Christian.
- Bigger Is Better in Bed: Played With. Christian apparently has a ten-inch penis and beds different women pretty much every episode and is said to be pretty good in bed. But when he has to strip for a photoshoot he shrinks considerably due to "stage fright" much to his horror and Fiona's amusement.
- Cunning Linguist: Christian speaks fluent Spanish (as seen in a scene where he's interviewing a patient). No doubt necessary in a city like Miami, which has a huge Hispanic population.
- Deadpan Snarker: It really ups his Jerkass credentials but, makes any scene he's in funny.
- Extreme Libido: Christian loves sex so much he starts to attend a Sexaholics Anonymous group, but ends up seducing someone at his first meeting, and she goes on to become a recurring Love Interest.
- Everyone Has Standards: In one episode, he hooks up with an attractive mother and daughter pair in a nightclub. When they go at it again the next morning, the daughter reveals that they started doing this when her mother caught her making out with her stepdad, disturbing even Christian. He eventually concludes "This is too screwed up, even for me," and throws them out of his apartment.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: Sean and Christian have been best friends and colleagues since college, and Christian is godfather to Sean's children. The show does actually explore the possibility of Christian having repressed homosexual feelings for Sean when he starts having dreams about them being lovers, but they both conclude it doesn't really mean anything.
- I Love the Dead: Christian is accused of this when he tries to obtain a Jane Doe from the morgue. The clerk on duty tells an anecdote about a man who wanted to get his freak on with his dead lover's corpse...so she wouldn't criticize him.
- Insecure Love Interest: Christian breaks up with Natasha because he thinks she deserves better than The Casanova like him.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Christian Troy zigzags between these tropes constantly. Although, many agree that he falls more into the Jerkass category.
- Jerkass Has a Point: As much of a Jerkass that Christian is a lot of times he does have a point.
- Mad Love: Christian and Kimber. In the very first episode, shortly after they've slept together, he strips her naked and covers her in red lipstick to mark the places where he thinks she could use a little surgical tweaking. She comes back. Enough said.
- Politically Incorrect Hero: Pathologically oversexed, determinedly shallow, given to anything from sexual harassment on up to psychological warfare as seduction tactics (see, for example, the scene in the "pilot" where he strips his latest conquest naked, stands her in front of a full-length mirror, and uses a red lipstick to indicate flaws he finds surgically improvable), and an overwhelming fan favorite. Possibly because of the hotness, possibly because of the tragic backstory, possibly because he's the only major character who isn't an insufferable hypocrite.
- Promiscuity After Rape: Usually beds at least one new woman every episode, was molested by his foster father as a child.
- Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: The priest who tricked the two into removing incriminating evidence given his history Christian was vehemently against keeping it a secret.
- So Beautiful, It's a Curse: Christian is devilishly handsome Casanova, but he's strictly heterosexual. He's gotten unwanted advances from more than one man, which he usually reacts to either with disgust or in one instance a punch to the face. Played for laughs when he agrees to be featured in Playgirl in the hopes that it will draw in more female clients, not knowing the usual readership of the magazine.
- Surprise Incest: In season 5, Christian finds out that he fathered a daughter when he was in college. She just happens to be Matt's new girlfriend. The
squick comes in when once Matt realizes that he's slept with his sister, he wants to marry her and even goes to a website to show that any children they might have would be normal! - Tragically Disabled Love Interest: At one point Christian Troy dated a blind woman. He was initially intrigued by her because she couldn't simply judge him by his appearance, and was wondering at the time if women saw anything more in him than his looks and status.
- Troubled, but Cute: He's shallow, sex-obsessed, and in the habit of treating his sex partners like dirt — but he's also handsome, successful, and really good in bed, plus the unexpected vulnerable streak.
- Twin Threesome Fantasy: Christian has a threesome with two identical twins in the series' second episode, and a pair of Marilyn Monroe impersonators after he moves to Hollywood.
Major characters
Julia McNamara
Julia McNamara
Played by: Joely Richardson
- Alternate Reality Episode: The second season has an episode where Julia dreams what life would be like if she'd married Christian instead of Sean. In the alternate reality, she and Christian are partners in the "Troy/Troy" plastic surgery firm, Matt (still raised by Sean) is a nerd, and Sean is married to a still-living Megan O'Hara.
- Lipstick-and-Load Montage: Gets one in Season 2. She goes out on the town after a fight with Sean.
- The Masochism Tango: Sean and Julia McNamara. The are so ungodly ill-suited for each other from the moment they appear onscreen that any other two people in the universe would have come to their senses and cut ties years ago: they tend to split up and recombine a minimum of once per season, swearing every time they do either one that this time, it's going to stick. It never does, and one wonders if even the writers can put up with their whining for much longer. At the end of the series, they do split up for good, with Julia moving overseas with Annie and Conor.
- Never My Fault: Julia always blames everyone else for her problems, mostly her husband.
- Passive-Aggressive Kombat: Pretty much her defining characteristic.
- Stepford Smiler: She's half Stepford Smiler and half Defrosting Ice Queen. You have to have a little sympathy for the woman, as she has been keeping her son's paternity secret from both his natural father and assumed father. Unfortunately, her eternal struggle over "Sean or Christian?" just annoys most people.
- 'Tis Only a Bullet in the Brain: A headshot leaves Julia with a little bandage. Oh, and amnesia.
Matt McNamara
Matt McNamara
Played by: John Hensley
- Aesop Amnesia: Much like his father Christian Matt routinely forgets any moral developments he’s made.
- Brother–Sister Incest: Matt McNamara accidentally sleeps with his sister because they didn't know at the time that they shared the same father.
- Daddy DNA Test: Used to establish that Christian is his father.
- Girl on Girl Is Hot: A subversion in the first-season tryst between Matt, his friend Vanessa, and her girlfriend. Vanessa feels her girlfriend misses boys, so she invites Matt to a threesome. The girlfriend realizes she was just experimenting and isn't really a lesbian, so she chooses Matt and dumps Vanessa. Someone is always left out, a very different (and more realistic) outcome than the trope usually presents.
- Karma Houdini: Matt seems to adore this trope. He doesn't get in trouble for running over and almost killing Cara Fitzgerald in Season 1. Or for burning down his apartment because he was cooking meth in Season 5. This was finally subverted in Season 6 when he was turned into the police for all the stores he robbed—not to mention he got shot in a botched robbery. But then it was played straight again; Matt didn't get a further prison sentence for strangling his cellmate to death.
- Prison Rape: When Matt goes to prison in season 6, his cellmate repeatedly rapes him, and threatens to do worse unless Christian gives Matt breast implants.
- Three-Way Sex: Matt agrees to engage in these with his ex-girlfriend lesbian cheerleader and her also-a-cheerleader lover, who feels that her new girlfriend is getting turned off the relationship because she's "not getting enough cock."
- Who's Your Daddy?: The show has this with Julia and the paternity of Matt. After finding out that Christian is his father, due to a one night stand before Julia's wedding to Sean, she hides it from Sean. She reveals it to Christian, Matt, and Sean (in that order) causing Sean to kick her out. Sean doesn't treat Matt any differently and eventually forgives both Julia and Christian for the affair.
- You're Not My Father: Matt says this to Christian right after the latter bails him out of jail. The twist is that Christian really is Matt's father and had only found this out in the same episode. Unusually for this trope, Matt's pronouncement is actually quite accurate— Christian isn't much of a father figure to him at all.
Liz Cruz
Liz Cruz
Played by: Roma Maffia
- If It's You, It's Okay: Season five features an interesting variation on this trope. Liz Cruz, who up to this point has been a committed lesbian, discovers she's sexually attracted to her male boss Christian (but not any other guys).
- Just the Way You Are: Aversion being the entire point of the show. Becomes completely ridiculous and hypocritical when she sleeps with a pre-op transexual woman, telling her she sees her for who she is. After she decides not to have her penis removed Liz tells her that she doesn't want to pursue a long-term relationship, saying that she won't be able to look past her "wrapping." What.
- "Not If They Enjoyed It" Rationalization: Lesbian Liz is raped by Christian. She then claims it was fantastic and they begin a relationship.
- Old Maid: She's gorgeous by most standards, has trouble meeting potential dates and worries that no one will want her.
- Promotion to Opening Titles: In Season 2.
Kimber Henry
Kimber Henry
Played by: Kelly Carlson
- Abortion Fallout Drama: Christian tells Kimber that she has to have an abortion because he doesn't want any more kids. She does it, but the procedure goes wrong and leaves her unable to have kids.
- Informed Flaw: In Season 5, when Kimber meets with her former porn director, he tells her to kick the meth. He comments on her weight loss and "bad skin," because it shows up on camera. She looks the same as she's ever looked.
- Mad Love: Christian and Kimber. In the very first episode, shortly after they've slept together, he strips her naked and covers her in red lipstick to mark the places where he thinks she could use a little surgical tweaking. She comes back. Enough said.
- Never Found the Body: They never confirmed whether or not Kimber really died. The Coast Guard just gave up the search for her body after two days.
- Promotion to Opening Titles: In Season 3.
Gina Russo
Gina Russo
Played by: Jessalyn Gilsig
- Broken Bird: She's a bitter and troubled woman with a history of self-destructive behavior.
- Catchphrase: "Hey, asshole."
- Extreme Libido: She's a sex addict, to the point she's part of a Sexaholics Anonymous support group. She especially suffers from "Blackout Sex," where she has sex with many different partners and then forgets their identities.
- Foil: To Christian, both being self-destructive sex addicts.
- Mood-Swinger: She suffers from Borderline Personality Disorder, which make her mood swing dramatically. This is illustrated with her love/hate relationship with Christian, where she alternates between adoring him in a moment, and despising him and calling him names soon after.
- Never My Fault: Gina is a sex addict, while Christen going to the meeting and treating her like a one night stand was incredibly sleazy. She refuses to take responsibility for falling off the wagon and considering the fact that she still goes to her sexaholics meetings come across as a little hypocritical especially given the fact that she refuses to leave him alone. Taken even further after the revelation that she had been sleeping with other men around the same time.
- Out with a Bang: In Season 5, Gina is literally fucked to death by Christian, when he accidentally pushes her off the roof.
- Promotion to Opening Titles: In Season 3.
- Really Gets Around: Gina, as a sex addict, has had countless different partners.
- Sex Goddess: She's mentioned to be extremely good in bed, to the point that it's a topic of discussion in her funeral.
- Sexy Secretary: Becomes on for Sean in season 5, who specifically hires her to annoy Christian.
- Tragic AIDS Story: She catches AIDS in season 2, and her struggle with it, both physical, emotional, and financial becomes a core aspect to her character for the rest of her time on the show.
Quentin Costa
Grace Santiago
Grace Santiago
Played by: Valerie Cruz
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Disappears after season 1, with only a brief conversation in season 2 where Christian and Sean mention she was fired.
- The Shrink: She's the psychologist advisor for Sean and Christian's clinic, giving them advice on the more emotially complicated patients.
Primary Antagonists
Escobar Gallardo
Escobar Gallardo
Played by: Robert LaSardo
- The '80s: Escobar evokes this decade with his "Scarface" similarities, and even tells Sean how much he loves the decade. He even lifts weights while listening to "Sunglasses at Night."
- Coitus Uninterruptus: Escobar Gallardo uses this to intimidate Sean. He implies that the woman he's having sex with could instead be Sean's wife.
- Enemy Eats Your Lunch: Escobar eats the cucumber Julia is slicing.
- Even Evil Has Standards: The pilot episode shows the two main character providing plastic surgery for a Colombian client who later turns out to be a child molester and ex-associate of the drug kingpin Escobar Gallardo. His boss eventually tracks him down and kills him, in part because one of his victims was Gallardo's own daughter.
- Tattooed Crook: He has extensive tattoos, as well as almost everyone else portrayed by Robert Lasardo, who in Real Life has tattoos all over his arms, neck, and chest.
- Villains Never Lie: This was Escobar's answer when Sean was skeptical about changing his face.
- You Wouldn't Shoot Me: Escobar was well aware that he was pushing Sean after he attacked him when he threatened his family. He was also aware of this trope which is why he let him into his house with a gun without his bodyguard present.
Ava Moore
Ava Moore
Played by: Famke Janssen
- Break His Heart to Save Him: Played With. She doesn't care that much Matt, but when she agrees to a deal to break up with him, she tries to act as cruel as possible so he can move on.
- Head-Turning Beauty: Her good looks and often mentioned by other characters.
- Mrs. Robinson: She's a sexual predator who tended to go for partners who were significantly younger than her or even underaged. These include one of her students as a life coach, Matt, and her own son, Adrian. The reason for this is that Ava is a transgender woman with an incomplete vaginal cavity, and she hoped that inexperienced men wouldn't be able to tell the difference.
- Parental Incest: She turns out to be sleeping with her teenage son Adrian. She later reveals that he was adopted when he confronts her over how much she messed up his life. Additionally, Ava herself is really male, but with a rare physical deformity.
- Psycho Psychologist: She's a life coach, but actually uses her skill to manipulate and exploit her emotionally sensitive patients.
- Trans Relationship Troubles: The backstory for Ava Moore is that she was a homosexual socialite who fell in love with the pioneering sex reassignment surgeon Dr. Barret Moore, but he was strictly heterosexual. He eventually agreed to her romantic advances on the condition that she would become a woman, but even after the surgery, he was never truly able to see her as one.
The Carver
The Carver
Played by: Bruno Campos
- Bodybag Trick: He gets away with this in season three.
- Brother–Sister Incest: Him and the female police officer investigating the case are not only partners in crime, but siblings who are sleeping together. And their parents were incestuous siblings as well, which resulted in physical abnormalities in both.
- Character Blog: He has a MySpace, in which he would post videos about his motives and philosophy of life, and ultimately unmasks.
- Depraved Bisexual: He brutally rapes both men and women.
- Karma Houdini: In Season 3 the Carver and his sister Kit have successfully executed their escape plan and eager to continue their crimes.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: "Carver."
- Serial Killer: He starts off with rape and escalates to murder.
- White Mask of Doom: He wears a white mask and is a serial killer and rapist.
Kit McGraw
Kit McGraw
Played by: Rhona Mitra
- Detective Mole: The serial killer called the Carver turns out to be Quentin Costa, and Detective Kit McGraw, who's investigating the case, is his sister and accomplice.
- Karma Houdini: In Season 3 the Carver and his sister Kit have successfully executed their escape plan and eager to continue their crimes.
- Villainous Rescue: In the last episode of Season 3 Kit saves Christian and Sean from the Carver by shooting him in the back. Sounds good, huh? Not really, since she is Carver's sister, they were working together all along and this is just a part of the Carver's escape plan.
James LeBeau
James LeBeau
Played by: Jacqueline Bisset
Dubbed by: Perrette Pradier (European French)
- Gender-Blender Name: "James" is a traditionally masculine name.
- Organ Theft: She runs a ring of organ thieves, and ends up taking one of Sean's kidneys.
Eden Lord
Eden Lord
Played by: AnnaLynne McCord
- Karma Houdini: In Season 5, Eden was slowly poisoning Julia, and when exposed, shot her and told everyone that it was a suicide attempt. She asked Olivia to preserve this secret which resulted in her death. And since Julia's memories about those events never returned, she remains unpunished.
Colleen Rose
Colleen Rose
Played by: Sharon Gless
- Imposter Forgot One Detail: Colleen Rose talks a big game of being a top agent in Hollywood as she represents Sean. However, she seems to not get how huge a deal CAA (the biggest talent agency in town) is when one of their agents comes to land Sean for himself. Meeting at her apartment, Colleen boasts she can do better by listing various stars she represents such as Nicole Kidman. Smirking, the CAA agent says he's impressed...since he represents Nicole Kidman. Which leads to Colleen filling him with stuffing to murder him.
- Swiss-Cheese Security: Colleen harassed Sean throughout half of Season 5, and in this time (from the point she is discovered to be an impostor) she managed to break into: the studio Sean was working in, his apartment to try to kill herself and die in his arms, his clinic (although it does have a flimsy security at best) in order to beg that he fixes her pulse, the Studio AGAIN, and this time presumably knocking out another minor cast member of the series he was part of since she took the role of an assisting medic within and in dangerous proximity to a blade, his apartment AGAIN to plant a BODY of a "rival" agent (she wasn't a real agent to begin with), and finally at his clinic AGAIN to try and murder him. That's made worse by the fact that she is an ordinary (albeit crazy) middle-aged woman. Not only does she break into 3 locations that ought to have some sort of security, she does so again in the SAME ORDER with apparently no difficulty whatsoever.
Dr. Theodora Rowe
Dr. Theodora "Teddy" Rowe / Elizabeth Byron
Played by: Katee Sackhoff (Season 5), Rose McGowan (Season 6)
Season 5
Season 6
- Black Widow: A textbook example, marrying doctors and killing them to collect their insurance, always using a different name. She attempts to make Sean her fifth victim.
- He Knows Too Much: When a patient recognizes Teddy Rowe, thus threatening to blow her cover, Teddy kills the patient by injecting her with a blood thinner and covering her with leeches.
- Karmic Death: She intended to kill Sean and his children via carbon monoxide poisoning so she could get his insurance money. After she leaves them to die, she stumbles upon a camper who just so happened to be a serial killer...
Others
Nurse Linda
Annie McNamara
Annie McNamara
Played by: Kelsey Batelaan
- Improbable Infant Survival: Compared to what rest of her family goes through, the McNamaras' young daughter Annie gets off awfully light. The show rarely even acknowledges that her immediate family going through hell might have some kind of adverse effects on her.
Vanessa
Bliss Berger
Merrill Bobolit
Dr. Merrill Bobolit
Played by: Joey Slotnick
- Addled Addict: Starts huffing nitrous after losing his practice. It makes him so unstable and so numb to pain that Christian is able to trick him into nearly cutting off his own face.
- Back-Alley Doctor: Dr. Merrill Bobolit loses his medical license after botching a cosmetic surgery on a dog, and winds up performing cheap liposuctions in the back of a Korean nail salon.
- Idiot Ball: He had an extremely succesful solo business as a plastic surgeon and was well into the process of stealing all of McNamara/Troy's clients. Then he agrees to perform surgery on a dog. It dies on the operating table. He's stripped of his medical license and is sued into oblivion by the dog's owner.
Suzanne Epstein
Hedda Grubman
Mrs. Hedda Grubman
Played by: Ruth Williamson
- Lonely Funeral: Recurring patient/plastic surgery addict Mrs. Grubman blackmailed Christian into giving her more treatments, beyond the point of reason. Eventually, he was asked to give a eulogy at her funeral and was the only one there: she had alienated her whole family.
- Never My Fault: When aging widowed socialite Mrs/ Grubman threatens McNamara/Troy with a malpractice suit Sean blamed Liz when he was the one who didn’t do the follow up procedure.
Sophia Lopez
Jude Sawyer
Megan O'Hara
Megan O'Hara
Played by: Julie Warner
- Goodbye, Cruel World!: Megan O'Hara (Sean's first love) does this with his help after her breast cancer returns as does the Donnie Darko-esque Emo Kid Enigma, and then Kimber after she discovers that Christian is still unable to truly love her.
Henry Shapiro
Wilber Troy
Wilber Troy
Played by: Josiah & Joshua Henry
- Cute Mute: He doesn't even really start talking until near the end of the series.
Erica Noughton
Erica Noughton
Played by: Vanessa Redgrave
- Evil Matriarch: Witty, intelligent, and a hell of a great person to have a drink with — unless you happen to be her daughter. It's heavily implied that her criticism and emotional absence are responsible for Julia's extreme insecurity.
Adrian Moore
Adrian Moore
Played by: Seth Gabel
- Driven to Suicide: In the season 2 finale, Adrian and Ava are close together and we hear a stabbing noise, Ava has a shocked look and bloody hands, but the reveal shows that Adrian stabbed himself so that Ava would never leave him again.
Natasha Charles
James Sutherland
Ariel Alderman
Ariel Alderman
Played by: Brittany Snow
- Alliterative Name: Ariel Alderman
- What Happened to the Mouse?: What happened to the neo-nazi Ariel after her father was murdered by Cherry?
Cherry Peck
Abby Mays
Burt Landau
Michelle Landau
Faith Wolper
Monica Wilder
Monica Wilder
Played by: Jennifer Hall
- Karmic Death: A crazed babysitter who had an affair with Sean, gets run over by a bus right when she was about to tell the cops that Sean raped her, even though he didn't. What makes her death even more karmic was that Sean was seriously considering killing Monica himself minutes before she died.
Marlowe Sawyer
Mike Hamoui
Dawn Budge
Poppy
Fiona McNeil
Olivia Lord
Freddy Prune
Aidan Stone
Aidan Stone
Played by: Bradley Cooper
- What Happened to the Mouse?: What became of Aidan Stone after he broke his neck trying to suck his own penis?
Kate Tinsley
Kate Tinsley
Played by: Paula Marshall
- Potty Failure: Kate Tinsley shits herself in a hot tub after swallowing three laxatives. With Sean sitting beside her.
Ram Peters
Raj Paresh
Dr. Raj Paresh
Played by: Adhir Kalyan
- Unsettling Gender-Reveal: Played for Laughs in Season 5 when Raj discovers the blowjob he received was really from a man.
Ramona Perez
Willow Banks
Willow Banks
Played by: Mini Andén
- Blessed with Suck : She hates looking beautiful and perfect. (Of course, she could save herself ten grand if she just gains 50 pounds, but no one points this out).
- So Beautiful, It's a Curse: She wants to look ordinary because she feels her beauty is a curse. She gets what she wished for in a car accident and then realizes that, no matter how much she romanticizes the ugly for being liked for who they are, or how "hard" it is to be beautiful, anything less is at least ten times worse.
Rhea Reynolds
Rhea Reynolds
Played by: Tara Buck
- Alliterative Name: Rhea Reynolds
- And I Must Scream: She's a pathetic woman who cuts up her face a la the victims of the Carver in order to get attention. During surgery to fix her scars, the anesthesia is tampered with so that she is awake and can feel the doctor operate on her.
- Bloody Horror: In one episode a woman who was put under anesthetic could still feel and see everything going on during her operation, but wasn't mobile enough to tell the doctors. She's completely traumatized after seeing and feeling the doctors cut into her, and takes legal action over it.
- Karmic Death: Pretended to be a Carver victim just to get attention. After Sean and Troy fix her face, the Carver shows up at her house and slashes her throat.
Joel Seabrook
Marcy Hamill
Marcy Hamill
Played by: Kate Norby
- Redemption Equals Death: Even after knowing she'll probably go to jail, Marcy Hamill decides to call Virginia Hayes herself so she can apologize to her in person for stealing her identity. When Virginia shows up, she takes a pillow and suffocates Marcy.
