Friday, February 01, 2008

In Treatment: Episode 4.....the sub-blog

Let's be real here: ClinkShrink's been eating donuts without me. I have no idea what Roy is doing, all I can say is that it had better not have anything to do with chocolate. If in doubt: eat dessert first.

I'm having trouble keeping up and my TiVo-todo list now has LOST and 2 episodes of In Treatment. I skipped a dinner & movie invite for tonight to stay home and watch TV, I have now officially become pathetic. Pass the popcorn and hit Play!

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The patient is on the phone with his son; Paul the therapist listens. "Are you eating fritos?" It's raining outside. He calls his wife, and already we know Jake is one angry dude. "Where the hell are you? Don't f***ing tell me you forgot we have an appointment with Paul."

"Are you comfortable being here with me without Amy?" Paul asks. Oh good, Paul is talking about the therapeutic relationship, and our readers have asked for some comment about this. Even I'm sick of listening to Jake on his cell phone, he's impatient, annoying, tiresome, agitated, aggressive, and pissy. He even screams at his mother-in-law.

Amy shows up. Jake is relieved. Jake is inquisitive, jealous, we know where this is leading. He interrogates her about why she's in a different outfit from the morning, why did it take her so long to get to the appointment. Paul asks, "Is your being late an indicator of your not wanting to be here?" More about the relationship. Is Jake worried that Amy is hiding something? She spilled coffee on herself and bought a new outfit. Jake wants to end the session. "How much do we owe you Paul."

"She went to finalize the abortion."

Jake is suspicious of Amy's relationship with her fertility doc.

"She can't talk to you about this abortion because you suspect anything she says."

"I'm the one at fault here?" Jake is outraged.

She's not sure if she wants to be pregnant again. She's hiding things from Jake. "I'm not sure I'll be able to love another baby....I know I'll have post-partum, I see it coming and it paralyzes me...I scare myself to death."

"You're insane," says Jake.

"I want to make my own decision and if playing the part of a depressed wife will do it, so there."

Amy, we learn, is a self-professed liar. And we hear about Amy's anger about five years of fertility treatments, how violated she felt. Amy was married before, she cheated on her first husband with Jake.

"You're not really talking about a child, you're talking about your inability to accept each other."

Jake rails at Paul, he wants him to tell them what to do about the pregnancy, he doesn't want to talk about the relationship. "We came here to talk about an abortion...How do you sleep at night?" Jake yells.

"Have an abortion," Paul says. Wow. I haven't told anyone to have an abortion recently. Or ever. Even loudmouth Jake falls silent. "Really?"

And now we get to talk about the relationship.

"Do you see what's happened here, how you shoved me into a corner...this is exactly what you do with Amy. I can't tell you whether or not to have an abortion, I don't have an opinion."

Paul gets mad, he emotes for the first time in 4 episodes. He's not as cool as he was last night with Sophie. Jake storms off. Amy leaves silently and sadly. Paul is pensive, he's wondering, I bet, why he failed. Rattled, he calls a doctor named Gina: it's been a while, he leaves a message.
I suppose Paul is rattled into returning to his own therapy.

Stay tuned.

2 comments:

ClinkShrink said...

This is even more pathetic: I just watched all five episodes in one sitting on the HBO web site. I have reached a new low. I am not impressed by this show. It's chockful of stereotypes, the patients are unbelievable and I found myself just being rather annoyed.

First of all, an episode about a patient falling in love with the therapist? Please...overdone a bit maybe? And where does an active duty (or even discharged) veteran come up with the money for a private psychiatrist? When the patient said she was referred by an insurance company and a lawyer friend, the therapist didn't even bother talking about the limits of confidentiality or clarify the purpose of the appointment. (That one bothered me the most.) Then the final implication that the therapist may have had his own personal issues with his own therapist----stereotype on top of stereotype.

OK, I'll shut up now and stick to eating fritters. I still would rather watch any of the five show ideas I posted about earlier.

Anonymous said...

I had the biggest crush on my first therapist. It's one of the most intimate relationships you can be in, so it's bound to happen...a lot.

If these were your average patients, they'd probably be pretty boring to watch.