AT first glance, this is not an unusual "Nip/Tuck" scene: former porn star Kimber and perpetually troubled Matt, young and fit sitting inside a hot, steamy sauna, ridding their bodies of poisons. But, as Kimber (Kelly Carlson) tells the impressionable Matt (John Hensley) in the episode that airs Tuesday, this is a different kind of sweating and cleansing.
The heat is wiping out Kimber's and Matt's emotional baggage, rendering their minds and spirits "clear," a practice that is part of the Church of Scientology's purification program. That's right: FX's top-rated drama has entered the world of Scientology, the religion that propelled Tom Cruise to lambaste Brooke Shields for taking prescription drugs to alleviate her post-partum depression and earned Comedy Central's "South Park" its sixth Emmy nomination this year for an episode that satirized its beliefs (along with celebrity followers Cruise and John Travolta).
"Nip/Tuck," however, isn't interested in poking fun. In the same vein that the show explores plastic surgery -- underneath every breast implant or ounce of fat that is lipo-sucked, there is a self-loathing cry for help -- the first TV show to offer a contemporary examination of society's obsession with youth and beauty is exposing Scientology in an unprecedented manner. By having characters "auditing" one another, taking long saunas, discussing the notion of "havingness," slamming prescription drugs, and having "silent births," "Nip/Tuck" writers are educating fourth-season viewers about a religious philosophy that is cloaked in secrecy and most Americans only hear about as it relates to its celebrity members.
Creator Ryan Murphy said he chose for the tragic Kimber to turn to Scientology out of his own curiosity. "You read so much in the press about certain famous people who are Scientologists, but the media pushes it aside as a joke. And clearly it's not a joke for millions of people. I'm not for it. I'm not against it. I was just curious as to what it is, what they believe in, and how it changes life and how it destroys life."
At the end of the third season, the psycho Carver disfigured Kimber by reversing all 10 of her cosmetic procedures, so it's understandable that Kimber would seek spiritual solace one way or another. In the same way, Matt, who has had an adolescent ride unlike no other -- involving transsexuals, a neo-Nazi girlfriend and learning that his dad is not his biological father -- latches on to anything the intoxicating Kimber has to offer.
