Michelle Landau

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Michelle Landau
First appearance	Cindy Plumb (episode 4.01)
Last appearance	Gala Gallardo (episode 4.15)
Information
Gender	Female
Age	30
Occupation	Businesswoman, Plastic Surgery Clinic Owner
Relationships	Burt Landau (deceased), Christian Troy (ex-fiancé)
Children	Wilber Sutherland (adopted son ?)
Portrayed by	Sanaa Lathan
Created by	Ryan Murphy

Michelle Landau is a fictional character in the television series Nip/Tuck. She is played by the actress Sanaa Lathan.

She is a successful businesswoman who buys the plastic surgery firm McNamara/Troy from series protagonists Sean McNamara and Christian Troy in the premiere episode of the fourth season.

She was married to a much older wealthy man who joined her in buying out McNamara/Troy. It was eventually revealed that she had a secret past with a mysterious woman named James. Attending nurse Liz Torres discovered the secret and tried to have her fired, but Sean stopped her.

Christian blackmailed her into telling him about James. It was discovered that Michelle was an escort while attending medical school. James paid for Michelle to go to medical school and Michelle thought she had paid her back. However, James took advantage of the fact that Michelle now owns a plastic surgery practice.

After blackmailing this out of Michelle, Christian blackmailed her again to sleep with him, and the two were seen together by James. Christian paid James off for the rest of the pictures - after she promised to leave him and Michelle alone.

James did not keep her end of the bargain and continued to haunt Michelle. At the end of episode 4.05, "Dawn Budge", it was revealed that Michelle is one of the organ thieves that has been stealing kidneys from unsuspecting citizens, like Liz.

When Burt found out that Christian Troy and Michelle had an affair, he brought them both to his house and forced them to have sex because Burt could no longer sexually pleasure Michelle. After this fiasco, Michelle became distant from Burt. She said she always loved him, but after he made her and Christian have sex in front of him, she felt like she was owned and couldn't stand to even look at him. She and Christian fall in love and James, sensing this, tries to use Michelle's love for Christian to her advantage. She drugs Christian and threatens to take both his kidneys unless Michelle can get her more. Burt is already very sick in bed, so when Michelle goes back to the house, she denies him his medicine and watches him die, taking with her both his kidneys.

Michelle and Christian are now free to be together. Christian proposes to Michelle, who agrees. Although they have a brief falling out over living arrangements and Michelle's stress over James, the engangement is on. After Christian gets Wilbur back, he asks Michelle to be Wilbur's adopted mother - she is initially reluctant but eventually happily agrees.

Later, James kills herself infront of Michelle, upset with the life she is living. After James' suicide, Michelle gets in her car and Escobar comes to her, telling her that she will take James' place delivering the organs.

Christian and Michelle buy Sean's stake in the practice, following Sean's expressed desire to leave Miami. Escobar approaches Christian and Sean about performing surgery on his wife, but they refuse. Escobar approaches Michelle, who believes she may have a way to avoid having Escobar pressure Christian. She attempts to perform the surgery on Gala Gallardo's breasts herself but is discovered by Christian. With this discovery comes the confrontation where Michelle reveals her part in the organ-theft ring to Christian. This revelation serves to end her relationship with Christian, as he feels he can no longer trust her.

She buys out Christian's stake in the practice on the same day as the end of their engagement, freeing Christian to follow Sean to California.

[edit] Criticism

Many fans find the development of Michelle Landau poorly written, while others find her character to be very powerful and strong. It is indeed true, that feminists point out Michelle challenges society's misconceptions of black female sexuality. They point out Michelle is rare because hardly ever on TV does an attractive, intelligent black woman allowed to be empowered and have a romance with the white TV star. The audience for Nip/Tuck also grew to include more African Americans because Sanaa Lathan is a star.

Debate circulated when Michelle’s character began being drastically portrayed as a protagonist midway through Season 4, when she was clearly seen as an antagonist at the start of the season. Many fans felt like this new alliance she formed with the main characters destroyed interesting conflicts and storylines. Some fans think that the writers did a poor job of asking viewers to change their thoughts on Michelle, and that the writers excepted the fans to suddenly start liking her. Others simply think that the Landau plot tried to top The Carver plot and failed miserably. However, other Nip/Tuck fans point out that racism was the real reason for the anger of some Nip/Tuck fans that could not handle Christian Troy having a interracial romance with Michelle. There was controversy on the official Nip/Tuck forum where the moderator a white woman vocalized her anger that Christian's character fell in love with Michelle a black woman. Other fans of Nip/Tuck point out on IMDB.COM that Michelle was no different then the white characters and the real culprit was racism for the anger some white Nip/Tuck fans had about Michelle's character.

Other fans have quickly grown attached to the newly added character. Ryan Murphy also love the character so much that he had Sanaa Lathan sign on for 12 more episodes in Season 5.

[edit] Trivia

• It isn't clear at this point whether or not she finally adopted Wilbur since Gina destroyed the paper she had signed and since she and Christian broke up soon after.
• Although only credited as a guest star (even a special guest star in 4.15), Michelle got more screen time than most of the regular cast during season 4.