DIRTY SEXY MONEY: The Injured Party

First of all, can I just say that I am not a fan of any show that opens with a steamy bath or shower scene? Call me old fashioned but I could just do without these and this is now the second one that I have had to endure this season – first it was Nola and Jeremy in the tub (ugh) and now Simon and Karen in the shower (double ugh). OK, now that I got that off of my chest, on to the important stuff…

Always Wear Your Helmet
With her arrest for Dutch’s murder a thing of the recent past, Leticia celebrates her freedom by taking the coupe out for a quick drunk drive and promptly hits a woman on a bike. In an effort to keep the story out of the tabloids, the Darlings whisk the woman to their home and have her medical needs attended to in private, rather than at a hospital. She seems to recover fairly unscathed (she was wearing a helmet, after all) and settles in comfortably as a houseguest for a few days. Leticia is suspicious that the whole thing is a set up. She thinks that the woman is a con artist who somehow positioned herself to be in a place where an event would cause her to gain entry into the Darling home. Seems a little far fetched to me but I guess it takes a conniving schemer to know one, so the random biker chick very well may be pulling a “long con” since before the end of the episode she manages to charm both Nick and Tripp. (Thank you, Season 2 of “Lost” for Long Con 101).

Catfight!!!
There was a lot of relationship stuff happening in this episode. Nick and Lisa’s marriage was yo-yoing all over the place. First, Nick is asking Lisa to have dinner because he is tired of being separated and wants to try working it out again. The dinner is a bit awkward but they both seem to be on board with the trying to reconcile and we later find out that Lisa has decided to move back in with Nick. Simon Elder comes to Lisa with a disk where he recorded Nick and Karen’s conversation in the lobby (the one where Nick goes straight to Karen after he and Lisa decide to have a trial separation). Lisa refuses to watch it, indicating (falsely) that she still has faith in Nick and her marriage. That goes down the tube when she calls Nick’s office and learns that he is in a “closed door” meeting with Karen. (Daisy really needs to work on her lying skills. Has she never had to cover for her boss before?) What Lisa doesn’t know is that Nick is telling Karen that his answer is no (he’s not going to “step up”) and that he is going to stay with Lisa even though he still loves and will always love Karen, but Lisa jumps to the wrong conclusion and calls Simon to get the disk. Unfortunately for Nick, even though he is now trying to do the right thing, the fact that he lied to Lisa about his conversation with Karen makes his admirableness too little too late.

Once she sees what is on the disk, Lisa comes roaring into the Darlings’ family dinner party at The Imperial where she attacks both Karen and Nick in an over the top but extremely amusing fight scene. Champagne flutes are shattered, hair is pulled, fists are flying, and all sorts of catty insults are exchanged. Like Brian, I watched the whole thing with much amusement. I thought it was lame of Nick to run to Karen instead of working things out with his wife, but Lisa is so much to blame for the demise of their marriage that I have trouble buying into her as the wronged woman. Jeremy, of all people, steps in to try to help break up the fight but he doesn’t do much more than anger Nick. After everything has settled down a bit, Jeremy offers Lisa a ride back to the gallery and you don’t have to be a genius to guess what happened there. I guess this answers my question from last week about whether or not Lisa and Jeremy would be revisiting their feelings for each other. But don’t feel too bad for Nick because at the very same time he was back on the balcony, making out with the questionable con artist while a disappointed Tripp watches through the window.

Bring It
The family dinner promises to be one that everyone remembers for a long time, but the fighting did not end there. Nick ends his night by visiting Simon once again, but this time it finally seems like Nick has officially opened his eyes to the evilness that is Simon. Nick makes it clear to Simon that he now considers Simon an enemy and that Nick is going to do whatever he can to make trouble for Simon. Simon enrages Nick when he tells him that Nick can have Karen back when Simon is “done with her”. Nick goes for Simon and we almost get to see another fight scene (probably with fewer weight references and more blood) but Simon’s bodyguards intervene and end it before it gets good. Too bad. Since when did this show turn into an action show anyway?

Moving Things Along
Nothing new this week on the Dutch murder front. We do get a little more insight into the Leticia/Jeremy/Nola thing. Leticia did not engineer the relationship as was previously implied. She did, however, know about Jeremy’s relationship with Nola and she encouraged him to further pursue it, knowing that it could ultimately benefit her.

Patrick continues to tick off Tripp by bringing Nola to meet with Tripp where she repeatedly insults him. She and Patrick reveal their plans, which have something to do with Patrick taking a seat on the Senate Agriculture Committee. This will put Patrick in a position that will ultimately benefit Simon (unbeknownst to Patrick, of course) while at the same time it will put his career essentially on hold (according to Tripp). I’m fuzzy on the details because I’m a bit bored with the politics but I did enjoy the interaction between Nola and Tripp with Nick and Patrick watching. I’ve never seen so many eyebrows being raised in one scene before. Very entertaining.

Simon’s creepiness factor continues to fly off of the chart. He summons Nola to his apartment where he shows her a video of her brother whom he is holding captive at an unspecified location. He’s obviously using this to manipulate her into doing his bidding. At one point of this conversation I thought Simon was going to hit Nola and then at another point I thought that he was going to kiss her. He did neither but it is becoming increasingly clear that Simon Elder is one dude that you do not want to mess with. Good luck, Nick.

The mysterious swan continues to serve a purpose that I have yet to understand. Tonight we catch a glimpse of it on Simon’s business card that Lisa uses to get his number so she can call him for the disk. Again I ask, what is up with the swan??

Brian and Andrea go to see an oncologist (or, The Grim Reaper, as Brian calls him) and the prognosis is not good. Andrea still insists that she doesn’t want to receive treatment but she also hasn’t yet told Brian Jr. that she is dying of cancer. Brian buys her a spot in an experimental drug trial and at first she refuses but she later agrees because after the big dinner party debacle she realizes that she wants to live to raise her son and not risk leaving him at the hands of the Darlings. Also, somewhere in the middle of all of this she and Brian have sex so either she finds his a**hole-with-a-heart-of-gold-ishness as charming as I do or she’s just trying to live it up while she still can.

Tripp has still pretty much had it with Leticia who seems to think that he should just brush off the fact that she had a forty-year affair with his best friend. I’m all for forgiving and forgetting, but that’s pushing it a little bit, I think. The young houseguest charms Tripp after she plays him a tune on the piano and speaks frankly to him about the crap that his wife did to him. It looks like she just might have found herself a Sugar Daddy until Tripp sees Nick kissing her on the balcony. Tripp approaches Nick about his own interest in the young woman, although he plays dumb about what he witnessed between her and Nick. Could this drive a wedge between Tripp and Nick? Looks like it might drive a wedge between Tripp and Leticia, as well, since Leticia was lurking in the wings and overhears Tripp as he has this conversation with Nick. I smell Trouble all around….or is it just Lisa’s perfume?

Tune in next week for the long anticipated return of Juliet!!

Thoughts on last night’s episode?  Are you ready for Juliet to return?

– Posted by Gretchen

Gretchen is a stay-at-home mom of two awesome little girls who has the good fortune of being married to a husband who is completely cool with her slightly out of control television addiction. During her precious few sleeping hours, Gretchen frequently finds herself ridding the world of pesky vampires and demons, as well as taking down fake secret branches of the CIA.