TV-Reviewed

For me, Dirty Sexy Money has lost what made it great in the first place which was the comedy and this dysfunctional rich family that still loved each other through it all. I’ve come to accept the new direction that the season has taken though. This episode wasn’t that big of a step up from last episode, but it was a little better.

Nick and Lisa’s marriage has been obviously in trouble. Nick was really only supposed to work for the Darlings long enough to find out who killed his father. The writers have done a lot to stretch finding Dutch’s killer, which is fine, but often times it doesn’t even feel as if Nick is trying to find his father’s killer anymore. So now Nick and Lisa find themselves in marriage counseling and while Nick tries to argue that he supports Lisa and that the Darlings don’t affect their marriage as much as Lisa thinks, but receiving three phone calls within a minute of each other during your counseling session probably doesn’t make you look too good.

Lisa thinks that by getting something of her own like an art gallery will help the marriage, which a lot like avoiding the real problems. Not to mention that Lisa definitely invited another problem by having Jeremy be her new partner in starting the gallery. This isn’t one of those decisions like Nick’s where she made it unconsciously either, she deliberately chose to partner with Jeremy and there’s even a moment where she seriously thinks about it. Lisa making a wrong choice does knock her off the pedestal she’s been on since the beginning of the series, but with Nick working so much, Lisa really does need something to invest her time in, but who knows what will happen when Nick finds out.

Peter Krause as Nick George

Patrick’s campaign hit another bump when Ellen’s brother came to town, accusing the Darlings of murdering her. Having Ellen’s brother come into this episode out of nowhere when we haven’t seen him before, felt like just a reason to bring Ellen’s death back into the episode and just how would any normal person come to the conclusion that a family put her in their house and burned it. The arrival of Ellen’s brother was somewhat of a wasted storyline that doesn’t really amount to anything. Tripp pays him off and Ellen’s brother retreats; apparently, money is much more important then finding out if your sister was killed.

I don’t really know what to say about Simon and Karen sometimes. In the beginning, Karen was working Simon, then we found out that Simon was working Karen, and in this episode based off what Karen said, she’s still working Simon, but has fallen for him at the same time. Karen hasn’t given Simon an answer to his proposal for a week, so Simon breaks up with her. Karen is distraught, either because she’s disappointing daddy or because she actually loves Simon? We don’t know. Karen sends Nick to talk to Simon where Simon divulges his real plans, which is to marry Karen and take over Tripp’s company. We knew that once he told Nick that it was all part of his plan for Nick to tell Karen only for her to do the complete opposite of what Nick wanted her to do. This all seemed rather stupid. Now that Simon has told Nick of his plans, even if he was to marry Karen, now Nick and Tripp know what Simon is planning, which means that they have a lot more time to prepare. Also, Karen is the one who asked Nick to talk to Simon, so it seems dumb for him to come back and lie to her. Plus, Nick’s never lied to her about anything before, so why wouldn’t she believe him now?

Tripp was manipulating again this episode. He payed off Ellen’s brother and stopped Carmelita from appearing with Patrick when he makes his acceptance speech. Tripp telling Carmelita about what Patrick did to Ellen was a good move and now Patrick has lost Carmelita all over again. I hope that Carmelita isn’t gone for good because it would otherwise make her return sort of pointless. When Patrick goes to confront Tripp about this surprise Tripp has a heart attack. It was good to see that even with the heart attack Patrick was still pissed at him and his comment about being a little bit more Tripp and how Tripp wasn’t going to like that was a bit scary.

In the end, Nick’s problems with his wife didn’t really get resolved, but both played it off as if something had changed. Nick is still overworking for the Darlings and now Lisa has started an art gallery with the one Darling that Nick doesn’t like. Nick finding out that Jeremy is with Nola though at the end is an interesting discovery, because it’ll definitely help his case.

This episode was better, but not much better. Dirty Sexy Money still feels like a soap opera. There were some interesting things about this episode, but it doesn’t feel like any of the characters are growing or learning from their mistakes. We’ll have to see what Dirty Sexy Money decides to do next episode. Hopefully, it gets better though.

Rating: 6.2