Ariel Alderman

Infobox character | name = Ariel Alderman


real_name = Ariel Alderman
portrayer = Brittany Snow
creator = Ryan Murphy
species =
gender = Female
first = Madison Berg "(episode 3.10)"
last = Quentin Costa "(episode 3.15)"
last_cause =
age = 17
occupation = Student
title =
alias =
family =
spouse =
children =
relatives =
footnotes =

Ariel Alderman is a fictional Neo-Nazi character on the show "Nip/Tuck". She is portrayed by Brittany Snow.

Character history

In season three of Nip/Tuck, Matt McNamara began dating Ariel Alderman, a girl from his high school who objects to the Aryanization of society. She claimed Christian and Sean promote Aryanization by performing surgeries such as the "Sweet Sixteen Rhinoplasty" on Jewish girls and compared it to the work of the Nazis. She described them as creating a race of "non-white whites." Ariel later pierces Matt's ear and gives him an earring with a left-facing swastika. Eventually, Matt meets Ariel's parents. After making several racist remarks during dinner with Matt, Mr. Alderman befriends him. During that dinner he explains how people are getting elective plastic surgery covered under basic medical insurance through tax loopholes, and that people like him wind up with higher premiums from it. Then he tries to get Matt to steal all of the medical records from McNamara/Troy to use as a scheme to get the government to force these insurance companies to stop this practice. Matt initially declines because he is torn between his morals and rebelling against his father.

Matt betrays McNamara/Troy

When Christian asked Matt and Sean to be his best men for his wedding, Matt showed up to the wedding late, wearing a pair of stormtrooper boots and the swastika earring Ariel gave him. After Christian demanded that he remove it, Matt refused and left before the wedding began. Later, Matt broke into the McNamara/Troy offices with Ariel and stole the files her father requested.

Someone vandalized the locker of a Jewish student by spraypainting a swastika on it (in addition to other similar hate crimes), and Sean suspected Matt and Ariel. When Sean confronted Matt about the vandalism, Matt denied having anything to do with it. Sean objected to Matt's relationship with Ariel, but Julia encouraged it to keep him off the streets. Meanwhile, Matt made plans to spend Christmas Eve with the Aldermans.

Ariel's image problem

When Ariel expressed anger over a nativity scene display on school grounds featuring black characters, Matt helped her return later that night to steal the statues. They painted the "skin" of the figures pure white and returned them. While they were painting the figures, Ariel confided in Matt that she learned she had 1/16 African blood in her. She learned about her black ancestry after trying to make a family tree as part of a school project. She became fearful of her skin gradually becoming darker and eventually leading to her father finding out and no longer loving her. She convinced Matt to steal some skin bleaching cream from Julia's spa. Although he stole the cream, Matt eventually decided not to give it to her and instead suggested a counselor for image problems that his grandmother had recommended.

Ariel refused and took the cream from Matt's bag. After applying the cream, which burnt her face, Matt took her to Christian for help. Matt also called Mr. Alderman and asked him to come to McNamara/Troy. Matt told him the truth about Ariel's ancestry, but Ariel denied it and claimed the face cream she used was Matt's idea to "try to lighten her freckles". After choosing to believe that Matt was lying about the ancestry, Mr. Alderman exchanged words with Christian and left with Ariel.

Ariel later encounters Matt at a department store shopping for makeup for Cherry Peck, and rips on him for hanging out with Cherry (while Matt makes Nazi jokes against her), then threatening him before walking away. Before she leaves, the viewer sees her talking to her father, but it is not heard.

Mr. Alderman's fate

A day later, Ariel invites Matt into her car and tries to talk to him nicely asking about Cherry Peck. When Matt refuses to talk any further, he goes to get out of the car, but Mr. Alderman gets in on the passenger side before he could do so, and he gets taken to their house. When there, Matt gets tied to a chair in the basement, and Ariel applies makeup to him. Then Cherry Peck is brought downstairs at gunpoint by Mr. Alderman and is tied up too. Ariel then finds out her dad plans on doing more to Matt and Cherry then he said he would, and she starts protesting, then gets run out of the basement by him with threats made about both of their reputations if her school was to find out she dated a "faggot". Then he decides to try to force Matt to cut Cherry's penis off, but eventually decides against it and drives both of them to a field to try to make Matt bury Cherry alive. Matt suddenly refuses to go any farther, and dares Mr. Alderman to shoot him. Right before Mr. Alderman shoots, Cherry rises from the grave and strikes Mr. Alderman with the shovel, knocking him to the ground. Cherry takes Mr. Alderman's gun and fires a bullet at him, hitting him in the stomach, and leaving him to die. Matt later states that the father survived and is in jail.

Ariel hasn't been seen or heard from on the show since.