‘Necessary Roughness’ Recap: Gimme Some Lovin’

Necessary Roughness aired the second episode of its new and improved (?) third season tonight. This week felt less choppy than the premiere episode since the show was able to dive right into Dani’s new life at V3 without having to introduce the audience to new characters and settings. While it still feels very, very different from the show’s previous two seasons, the new formula is definitely working.

“Gimme Some Lovin’” was a fun hour filled with all the things that make Necessary Roughness great: Dr. Dani getting her snark on as well as helping a patient, an interesting case, Nico and Dani sharing their smoldering looks, Uncle Jesse Connor being awesome, Troy being up to something (If you don’t love wondering when/if a character played by David Anders is going to be evil, you should examine your life choices) and of course TK (But for the record, I still miss the opening voiceovers).

Let’s start with TK. After having another rough practice with New Coach (I’ll learn his name at some point) picking on him (or in this case, not giving him enough praise), TK heads to V3 to visit Dani. She gently reminds him that he was going to try things on his own without therapy for a while and then she points out that she can’t be his therapist anyway because she signed the exclusive deal with V3. TK decides that’s easy enough to get around and goes to talk to Connor about signing with the agency and getting some endorsement deals.

But Connor wasn’t too quick to jump on the TK bandwagon and reminded TK of his last endorsement deal that went badly and was still playing on YouTube. Connor explained that he wanted TK to prove to the world that he had changed and he needed to start by proving it to him. Connor set up a meeting for TK with a small client and things were going well until the woman wanted to do coke and get naked with TK. He considered it, but ultimately didn’t take her up on it. Instead, he chased a purse snatcher out of the restaurant and landed on the internet for being a hero.

Connor was impressed with TK and admitted the whole thing was a test because he knew what kind of person the woman was. He welcomed TK to V3 and told him that he could start seeing Dr. Santino again. TK was confused as to how he knew that was what he wanted, but Connor just smiled and pointed out that he just knows these things (Connor could still end up being totally shady, but I loved him this week).

Speaking of Dr. Dani, she was having some issues settling into V3. She wasn’t interested in having an assistant (Paloma) or a fancy office or a company car or credit card or any of those material things. She just wanted a place to meet with her patients and do her thing. This week’s patient was a former child star Cindy Luck (Johanna Brady), who had gone a little wild (or so wild that she made Lindsay Lohan look tame) and she had to do some court appointed therapy while on the set of her latest movie.

After Cindy picked up and went to Paris in the middle of filming, Connor convinced the movie studio not to fire her and promised that V3 would pay any additional expenses that Cindy caused. Troy wasn’t particularly happy with that and he didn’t like that Dani was now a part of the team either. He told Nico that she was one of Connor’s ‘impulse buys’ and he wanted her gone. Nico agreed to help.

Cindy wasn’t cooperative at first, but Dani used her magic words to get through to the young girl. She admitted that she was going through something with her boyfriend Dylan and he was the one who had convinced her to do a nude scene in the movie, which she was nervous about. Dani promised that she’d stay on set to help her through everything and Nico had to be there too to make sure that Cindy didn’t run off again and cost Connor a ton of money.

But after Cindy hooked up with one of the crew members and got his name tattooed on her back just in time for her big nude scene, things went from bad to worse. Nico showed up with Cindy at Dani’s in the middle of the night and reminded the good doctor that she’d agreed to be on call 24/7 for V3. Dani picked up on the fact that Nico didn’t want her working there and he admitted that he’d assumed it would be a one-time thing (you could cut the tension between them with a machete).

The twist came when Nico dug into Cindy’s past and found out that Dylan was not the one pushing Cindy to do things; in fact, he’d never really been her boyfriend. He was just a guy that she’d gone out with a few times and then she’d started stalking him. She texted him over 200 times and she followed him and his friends to Paris (yikes!). Dani confronted her and asked how many of her relationships followed this pattern and Cindy admitted that it was all of them. Dr. Dani diagnosed her with being addicted to love.

While all of this was going on, we got a nice Dani/Nico moment where Cindy was asking if she’d ever felt a connection to someone that she couldn’t explain and the two exchanged their looks (just kiss already!). But Dani tried to defuse the situation by pointing out that sometimes it’s better not to act on feelings or some nonsense like that, even as she kept looking at Nico like the only thing she wanted to do was act on what she was thinking (totally here for this).

Cindy got through her scenes and Dani went out to dinner with Connor. He told her about starting out in the business and how hard he’s worked for his success. He also told her that it was okay not to do everything herself and to let herself enjoy the perks that come with the job. Dani agreed to keep the assistant and everything else and she took a moment to enjoy the gorgeous view from her office window at night (Again, I really enjoyed Connor in this episode, but I do not want to see a love triangle. It’s time for Dani and Nico to happen for real, show).

As for Nico, he ended the episode with one of his clandestine car meetings. After handing over an envelope with ‘what he had so far’, Nico told the other man (was it the law enforcement guy from the finale?) that he was not able to convince Dani to leave V3. The other guy was not overly concerned and pointed out that at least he had a bond with Troy Cutler now and he trusted him. Nico wanted assurances that Dani wouldn’t get caught up in this. The other guy flippantly said he would do his best, but Nico pointed out that was not good enough and he did not want to get on his bad side (hot).

Hmm, what are you up to, Nico? Is it just Cutler who is being investigated or is Connor under the microscope too? And what do these people have on Nico that they’ve got him working for them and being a double agent? I’m definitely looking forward to finding out.